Should You consider upgrading to the new iPhone 4S?

There have a lot of articles written in the past few weeks that would leave you to believe that the iPhone 4S is the best smartphone that has ever been made and for a person like myself that love new technology the twinge has started deep inside me to make the leap. I am still sitting on a iPhone 3GS and it still does the job it was designed for fairly well. In all honesty, I really only use the app side of the phone for very limited functions and routinely pull out one of my iPads to do most of the things that I use these types of devices for. The reason is quite simple, I like the bigger screen. In fact, if the iPad was available in a 12 or 13 inch screen I would probably jump on that before upgrading my phone.

So let’s get back to my question. If you are a heavy phone user and want the technology upgrades that the iPhone offers then you may be a candidate. My first question: What are you upgrading from? If you own an Android, haven’t you already made the commitment in that camp to continue with the apps you have purchased and the learning curve of using that particular interface? I would probably stay with Android because you probably are there for many reasons the IOS technology cannot give you. However, if you don’t have a smartphone yet, or have and earlier version of the iPhone, then you are probably a good candidate to make the upgrade except if you are an iPhone 4 owner.

I’m not sure the difference in technology between the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s is great enough to take the financial hit you will probably take jumping out of you current service agreement. And how will you feel when in 8-10 months from now the new iPhone 5 finally does come out with whatever wonder technology it will bring to the table. I would really be tempted to wait and see in that case.

If you are a proud owner of an iPhone 3GS or earlier then the differences between the devices is much greater. You will get a better camera (8 megapixel) with a better lens, and two cameras at that. MG Siegler noted in his October 11^th post for TechCrunch:

The camera is an even bigger deal to me. As I’ve been following for some time, and Apple noted last week, the iPhone has become the most popular camera in the world if you go by the images uploaded to Flickr. And it’s not even close. This new camera in the iPhone 4S goes above and beyond. And it’s going to push that lead even further.

If the point-and-shoot market wasn’t in trouble before, it will be now.

Much will be made about the upgrade from 5 megapixels to 8 megapixels with the iPhone 4S. But the bigger difference is the engineering behind the new camera. Apple notes with pride that their engineers were able to completely re-architect this tiny camera to produce images that are on par with the nicest point-and-shoots available. They credit five “precision elements” to record incoming light (versus four in the already excellent iPhone 4 camera) and the inclusion of a larger f/2.4 aperture to bring in more light.

Also great is that the iPhone 4S camera can shoot 1080p video for the first time. The iPhone 4 is limited to 720p. The 4S also features video stabilization, to ensure your home videos won’t make viewers want to vomit. Testing this out, it seems to work pretty well.

You will have a much faster processor so that those applications that you are running will run much more smoothly. There is even a big difference between the 4 and 4S which might make you iPhone 4 owners to make the leap anyway if speed is important to you.

You will get Siri, your own personal assistant, though it is in its beginning stages it is really kind of a neat application. In the coming months when Apple opens up the API to its army of third party programmers it will be interesting to see where they will take this part of the 4S. The limitations currently are that there only a few apps that it integrates with and they are all Apple applications. We need to see better integration with some business functions but it is really a fun and interesting start anyway. This one feature will probably be the tipping point for most new buyers and will be the ONE main competitive feature that other phones will need to compete against. The biggest downside with this technology is that it uses server side software to function and this means that you need to be connected to the internet for it to work.

So what do you think?

iPhone 4 owner – if you still have time on your contract this is a pricey upgrade. If the camera, speed and/or Siri are important to you then you may want to do this. If not you will need to wait out your contract and then take a look at what is out there at that time. You will get the IOS 5 upgrade anyway, just not with Siri.

iPhone 3GS or earlier or a new smartphone want-to-be’s – This will be a much easier decision. All of the features, including the IOS 5 will make a big difference in how you work with your phone. For me it’s an easy call. I have the 3GS, the camera will allow me to carry a much better point and shoot with me (I am a camera buff you know), I love faster and love Voice to Text Recognition functions (I use this a lot in my daily work when writing up long winded descriptions). So I will be one of those sitting in queue shortly to get my hands on this new device.