Tuyen's Blog

Posts for Tag: iPhone 4S

New iPhone, iOS6, etc.

Can't believe it's been two months since I last posted.  Things got busy, I got lazy, etc.  But lots of things coming up so felt it was a good time to get back on the saddle...

According to UPS, my new iPhone 5 arrives by 10:30am tomorrow.  Should be sweet.  

The biggest thing I'm looking forward to?  64GB of memory since I've got about 1.5GB left on my 32GB iPhone 4S (damn baby pictures/videos).

I've been reading about a ton of backlash with iOS6, especially maps.  I think this is great!  When everyone is constantly patting you on the back, you get complacent.  I even think all the success coming from the Android camp is welcome because it forces Apple to be better.  Competition helps everyone.  On a side note, I think the iOS6 maps aren't as bad as everyone makes it out to be.  Sure, there are some warped looking satellite images but I don't rely on that as much as I do the turn-by-turn directions which though aren't perfect, don't seem to be any worse than apps like Waze or TomTom.  I've gotten plenty of wrong directions from those guys.  Plus it's free and Apple will make it better.  I've been using the iOS6 developer beta for a couple of months now and trust me, after a few months of usage, you do get used to the maps.  The only glaring exception is Street View which I liked.  If Google decides to release a new Maps app for iOS, I'll probably download it.  If they decide to give it turn-by-turn directions, I'll probably use it over the Apple Maps app.  Outside of that and the occasional need to use Street View, I'll be using Apple's Map app most of the time as I'm sure most people will.

Siri is pretty damn cool … Once you get over how foolish you look talking to yourself

I love the new iPhone 4S. Super fast and extremely responsive when navigating through apps, browsing, games, etc. Of course, Siri is the huge new feature on the phone and it pretty much works as advertised. I give it a B+ so far but know that it will get better over time. Having to connect to the network to use Siri is a little annoying but it's manageable. And certain voice commands don't work too well like asking it to play certain podcasts that have similar names to songs in your library will more often trigger the playing of the song. For things like setting reminders, calendar meetings, initiating phone calls and having it read/reply/send text messages, it's amazing - to the point where my preferred method of doing these tasks is now via voice. It actually is faster and more efficient. One place it is perfect for is when driving. I've carried on full text conversations with people without missing a beat. Of course, you have to deal with the "looking crazy talking to yourself" issue. Still haven't quite crossed that hurdle yet so when I'm in the office or a public place, I go back to finger inputs. But the dream of Star Trek computer will one day be realized...

iPhone 4S launch had no lines ... Good thing?

I picked up an iPhone 4S yesterday (launch date). It's a great phone that's broken a ton of sales records but that's not the interesting part. I dropped by the Emeryville Apple Store at around 2:45pm and there were only five people in line. Got my phone in 15 minutes. At last year's iPhone 4 launch I came at around the same time and waited in line for four hours. Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining. It's just odd that a phone that obliterated sales records didn't have an accompanying crush of folks showing up at the stores. Could it be that most folks got it via preorder? Or maybe Apple got their act together and actually produced more phones at launch. Not sure but perhaps the Apple propaganda machine is running a little differently these days. Maybe Tim Cook is more interested in selling as many phones as possible and not how they are sold. I wonder if the mystique is wearing off and Apple will just make and market good products minus the buzz. If so, Apple may be falling back to just being any other consumer electronics company instead of the one people insanely love.