Apple iPhone 4S review
The iPhone 4S is here, but is it really worth the hassle of upgrading? Read our review to find out.
Although it's not perfect, the iPhone 4S is the best smartphone we've seen yet with a great screen, high-quality camera and a slick user experience thanks to iOS 5 and a broad selection of apps from the App Store. Most owners of the iPhone 4 will still be tied to contracts preventing them from upgrading, so the iPhone 4S is really aimed at owners of the older iPhone 3GS and smartphones running competing operating systems. Those users, as long as they can live with Apple's odder design decisions such as the lack of memory card slots, should seriously consider upgrading. For iPhone 4 that can upgrade, the free iOS 5 upgrades means the iPhone 4S isn't as compelling so they should hold off for now unless they're frequent camera users or drive often enough to make use of Siri.
Siri may seem like a gimmick, but we can see its value in certain situations such as when it's used hands-free while driving or if you have a visual impairment. At the moment, Siri only recognises British, American and Australian English (although it struggled with some thick regional accents), as well as French or German, with more languages promised. If you feel conspicuous speaking to your phone, Siri works when holding the iPhone 4S to your ear as if you were making a phone call or when used with a hands-free set.
Although technically separate from Siri, the system-wide voice dictation feature in iOS 5 almost certainly uses the same server back-end and processing algorithms as Siri. A microphone button next to the spacebar on the keyboard allows you to dictate text instead of typing it. Like Android's voice dictation system, text is more accurate if you speak clearly and avoid using colloquialisms and contractions, but it usually recognises punctuation.
Whether we'll still be using Siri a year from now depends on how quickly Apple can improve the server-backend and the algorithms for this beta-labelled feature. For example, some features available in the US, such as traffic data and local business recommendations, are currently unavailable in the UK, but are supposed to arrive sometime in 2012. There are plenty of other features in iOS 5, but apart from Siri most are shared with older iPhones, so they're covered in our separate, upcoming iOS 5 review.
Sign up today and you will receive a free copy of our Future Focus 2025 report - the leading guidance on AI, cybersecurity and other IT challenges as per 700+ senior executives
-
Is ChatGPT making us dumber? A new MIT study claims using AI tools causes cognitive issues, and it’s not the first – Microsoft has already warned about ‘diminished independent problem-solving’
News A recent study from MIT suggests that using AI tools impacts brain activity, with frequent users underperforming compared to their counterparts.
By Ross Kelly Published
-
Hackers are using Microsoft 365 features to bombard enterprises with phishing emails – and they’ve already hit more than 70 organizations
News A new phishing campaign uncovered by researchers at Varonis shows threat actors are abusing Microsoft 365's Direct Send feature to launch phishing attacks.
By Emma Woollacott Published
-
Plans announced to resurrect former steelworks as a ‘green’ data center
News Plans have been put forward to transform the former Ravenscraig steelworks in Scotland into a green AI data center.
By Ross Kelly Published