To put the disappointed reaction in perspective, I'd say it was roughly the same reaction the iPad received upon its introduction - it was just a "big iPhone". I can't believe it's still going over people's heads, but Apple releases simple products with limited feature sets. Well after the iPhone's release, many people argued somewhat persuasively that Nokia phones from 2004 were light-years ahead of the iPhone. Almost every iPod (excepting the Nano and Touch) was met with that same kind of "eh, nothing new" derision.
They haven't necessarily been proven wrong. Firstly, disappointing is subjective, not objective, so the people who were disappointed might not be the ones ordering it, and neither of those choices is right or wrong.
But more importantly, when the Blackberry 9000 was released I was disappointed with it, I'd hoped for more. I still got my pre-order in, because I wanted to upgrade and it was better than the phone I had at that time. And I have friends now who say they are disappointed with the 4S, but they are still upgrading from their 3/3S/4, just because it's still better and they've had their current phone for a while.
I think this is a stretch. This is the absolute best product launch in the history of Apple in terms of pre-order. We still have all the people that are actually going to go in and buy the thing on Friday in real life! Not to mention it has been more than 24 hours so who knows how big the total number of pre-orders is.
So you got a Blackberry 9000 despite it not being everything you wanted? But did you get it in the first 24 hours? Did you do it first thing in the morning as many people must have since at least 200,000 were sold in the first 12 hours by ATT? These are not the actions of disappointed people.
And sure, I guess technically no matter how well it performs the product could still be "disappointing" under some definition, but then the word starts to lack meaning.
It's 'disappointing' in the sense that, although it is more powerful and arguably better than the previous generation, people were wanting more substantial improvements.
SunSpider results show that the browser is twice as fast as the previous generation. The processor is twice as fast with a 7x graphics performance improvement. That's a substantial improvement over an already good product.
When you say people were wanting more substantial improvements, what you really meant was that they wanted a different name (iPhone 5) and case design. If the iPhone 4S internals were put into a different case and was called the iPhone 5, we wouldn't be hearing complaints. These complaints are superficial (at best), and the overwhelming initial demand is showing that many people don't find those issues at all.
I think we are arguing the same point: the iPhone 4S is a great product and does have solid improvements.
I am not disappointed with the 4S, but it is apparently clear that a few vocal people are. Why are they disappointed? I can only guess that it would be because it doesn't have a 'next generation' design.
At first I was disappointed because I was after a larger screen (or just more of an 'edge-to-edge' display) for my iPhone and I would happily upgrade to that, but that is the extend to my disappointment. It is evident that the 4S an improvement upon the second generation and will be welcomed by people coming off their 3GS contracts
I'd say they were expecting the iPhone 5 because Apple did not upgrade the iPhone 4 in the summer like they did with the iPhone 3G and also because iOS 5 was already announced.
Now about what would they expect from the iPhone 5, that's more complicated. Look, they created an amazing smartphone out of nowhere, then they did the iPad and then they even did the cheaper MacBook Air. I guess people could be expecting something really new again. Can't say it was a smart decision to expect it because iOS 5 is pretty much the same thing but still...
So, now we can all expect an iPhone 5 coming next year by this time but what can they do while keeping iOS 5 around?
Ditch? No, it's a success! What I am saying it that smartphones probably won't change much its hardware format for some more years (with just tiny differences) so if I had to guess I'd say software is pretty much everything on this race in the medium term.
So, back to my iPhone roadmap, I can't see Apple releasing iOS 6 just after one year so iPhone 5, to be released in 2012, will still feature iOS 5 thus there won't be magical changes (the ones I was talking about on my previous post). Either Apple do something amazing hardware-wise or they hurry iOS 6 to be a major update to the platform in 2012 already.
Disappointing just means it didn't meet expectations - there's plenty of scope for something to fall below expectations yet above the level which makes you want it badly.
Yes, with the Bold 9000 I pre-ordered the instant it was available.
I'm quite disappointed (disclosure: I mainly develop iOS applications) not because of the specs, but I'm disappointed because Apple on this one appears to be even more greedy [1] than before. I don't necessarily want change for change but when you reuse components or design you are expected to lower the price a bit.
I find the current release pattern very similar to the Intel Tick-Tock model [2] where the Tick would be a big software update (iOS 5 in this case) and where the Tock would be an emphasized hardware update on the same platform (maybe a new iPhone 5 next year on iOS 5).
Of course Apple has higher manufacturing margins. They do more than other manufacturers; other manufacturers don't necessarily design the CPU or write the OS. Google writes the Android OS for free in an attempt to subsidize people's consumption of web advertising, but Apple has to make their money by actually selling phones. Software talent isn't exactly cheap in Silicon Valley.
You're right about the Tick-Tock, but since Apple hasn't announced it as a policy, people expect every release to be a Tick.
I think you're wrong about Apple being greedy. Didn't they double the RAM? 16/32/64 for the price of 8/16/32 in the past? Also, the camera, processor and radio chips are all new from the original iPhone 4. The form factor is the same, but the antenna are a new design. And I think they are still working off the margin hit from the retina display.
Indeed not - with the 4S they added unlimited storage at the same price, and retrospectively added it to any device running iOS 5, with 5GB for some uses.
It may not be flash memory, but it has to count - it is what Apple intend to be used for bulk music storage with iOS 5.
It just means that the 16 GB iPhone 4S is worth $100 more to people than the 8 GB iPhone. Since I assume most people buying one are coming from the 3GS after their 2 year contract is up. The 4S is certainly not going to get iPhone 4 users to upgrade early for an extra couple hundred bucks.
I’m not really sure whether that’s Apple’s goal in the first place. Realistically the vast majority of people is not going to buy a new phone every year. Apple is not selling the iPhone to a handful crazy devotees, those are (at least by now) clearly a tiny minority. Consequently it doesn’t seem wise to optimize everything for one-year upgrade cycles.
I think we can't judge if this product is disappointing or not by the sales number. I am not saying that the 4S is not a good phone, but the sales are obviously heavily influenced by the Steve Jobs death. Many of my friends who weren't considering a new phone are now going to buy it because it is the last iPhone launched with Jobs alive.
