So yeah, the compulsory iPhone story. They made me do it. On today’s journey into Applebizarroland the company’s share price dropped 4% because … um, because a product name didn’t have a 5 in it. Kill me now.
Look, Apple’s new iPhone 4S is a perfectly good smartphone. It’s a step up from the previous model, the iPhone 4. It sits just fine in the marketplace against competing devices from the likes of HTC and Samsung. Dual-core processor, 8 megapixel camera, HD video, yada yada.
Plus there’s cloud storage and data synchronisation between the iPhone and, say, your laptop through iCloud. All tech companies have to have a cloud service, right?
And the iPhone 4S also has Siri, software that blends voice recognition and artificial intelligence to create a personal assistant. It’s seriously cool. This puts Apple well ahead.
But for some reason the Apple rumour industry — an entire category of journalism on it own, one that puts lie to the idea that journalism is dying, kinda — wanted something more.
They wanted an iPhone 5.
And what is an iPhone 5, exactly? This “insight” from International Business Times is typical of the genre.
“Apple didn’t unveil the iPhone 5, just a phone that’s a replica of the iPhone 4S [sic], although it has artificial intelligence in it and a more powerful processor …
“In June this year, Apple was expected to unveil an iPhone 5 that would have both under-the-hood and aesthetic changes that will push Apple to unprecedented levels.”
Unprecedented levels of what, exactly, is not specified. Maybe it’s some of the now-proven-false rubbish listed in in Gawker‘s “The iPhone 5 Failboard: How Everyone Got It Wrong”.
In times like this I turn to mobile software developer Leslie Nassar, who may or may not be off his meds today, as he tweets some truth.
“Here’s some f-cking STAR TREK SH-T RIGHT HERE [in Siri]” “Whatevs. Why did you call it 4S instead of 5?”, he said.
“HERP DERP HOW CAN AN IPHONE BE BETTER WITHOUT MOAR NUMBERS CAN I GET A STICKER FOR THE BACK OF MY IPHONE 4S THAT SAYS “IPHONE 5″???”, he also said.
FFS, people! Apple will sell a metric squillion of these things. And that’s despite the competing Android operating system for smartphones and tablets looking like it’ll soon reach a million new device activations every single day. Why are you whingeing?
As a goon (somethingawful.com forum member) and Crikey subscriber I love the fact that “herp derp” has made it to Crikey. For those who would like elucidation, please try urbandictionary.com
You know the answer to that question full well, Stil. Apple is a victim of its own success in this regard; cultivating daydream expectations among rusted-on fanbois and grls, who feel perfectly happy to line up overnight for this gear. In the rain.
Should Apple have just called it the iPhone 5 an be done with it? Dunno, probably not – they would have had to deal with the inverse of the same problem. But when your marketing breeds disciples like those of Brian of Nazareth, this is the mess that’s left for you to clean up.
Problem is, there’s no boasting rights with the iPhone 4S — it looks just like an iPhone4. You can’t slap it down ostentatiously on the table of a Brunswick St cafe, and show everybody how special you are for owning the latest bit of Apple magic. Nobody will be peering over your shoulder trying to check out the new Apple iPhone. Nobody will know. And for the cult of Apple, that’s a big issue.
The name wasn’t important, incidentally — an iPhone 4S by any other name would still look as dated. What Apple needed was a new design — preferably lighter and thinner, but at least visually different.
The other, more grounded problem is that this phone has only just caught up to the tech specs Android phones have had for most of this year. Given the unusal release cycle, unless there’s an iPhone5 hidden around the corner it’s not a good look. For the first time, it seems as if Apple is in serious danger of being left behind.
Don’t Apple deserve a little credit for not even pretending this new phone is anything more than an upgrade to the one they already have out?
Can you call people on it?