Reader's take: iPhone 4S is a Siri story

Get Ahead reader Daya Kaduri says the only novel idea on iPhone 4S is the voice recognition technology that goes by the name of Siri. Had it not been for Siri, 4S would have been one of the biggest mistakes from Apple Corp, says he.

Daya is a poet, author, and a blogger apart from being slightly techie and likes everything Bollywood.

With iPhone 4S hitting the stores by October 14 in the United States (may get a November launch in some other parts of the world), there is a procedural excitement in many sections, from the press to the various layers of Internet. But when it comes to the buyers, they are as confused as the Apple iPhone rumour mongers.

Picture this:

iPhone 4 was launched in 2010, June 2010 to be precise and as many manufacturers -- especially Samsung, proved its mettle with the heartening revelation called the Galaxy S II, buyers were expecting a bang, but what they are getting is a thud.

The problem with iPhone 4S is that it doesn't differentiate itself from the version 4, barring a few aspects.

First the new things, which unfortunately are finger-countable.

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Camera

Instead of the 5 MP and 2592 x 1944 pixels offered by the Apple iPhone 4, now we have 8 MP that comes loaded with 3264 x 2448 pixels.

The camera quality is great, but that cannot be the USP of a phone at least. Video capabilities have risen to 1080p @ 30fps (earlier 720p @ 30fps) but unfortunately even seasoned users wouldn't be able to come to know that this aspect has been enhanced.

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Processor

The new 4S has a dual-core A5 processor which has been rated highly, but nothing spectacular. Dual-core processors actually are available even with the phones in the Rs 28,000 segment. Also, Dual-core A5 works 'ok' kind of, nothing out of this world.

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Siri

The only good thing about the new 4S is Siri. Siri is a built-in voice recognition technique which allows users to hold a conversation with the phone and vice versa (not in the literal terms, but a small personalised help based dialogue).

Be it the weather, calendar appointments or finding stores and bars, Siri combines trendiness and help better than any other voice recognition programme.

Sample this...

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On the October 4 launch, a demonstrator from Apple asked the 4S, whether there would be any need of raincoats? Siri or rather iPhone 4S answered: It sure looks like rain today.

Now that's what gives Siri a more personal touch and that too in sty#8804 imagine getting boring answers like yes, no, maybe.

Voice recognition technology has been around for some time, but Siri works well, well enough to be a user's buddy or personal assistant, whatever you call someone who helps you.

But Siri won't help 4S's sales much because traditionally users haven't shown much of an interest in voice recognition softwares. Also, most of the features, size aspects, design etc. are the same like the iPhone 4.

So, the verdict: 5 stars out of 10 (had it not been for Siri, 4S would have been one of the biggest mistakes from the Apple Corp.)

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