iPhone 4S Reviews: "Best iPhone Yet", Great Camera, Siri is "Straight Out of Science Fiction"

11 2
Photo courtesy of TechCrunch

The early iPhone 4S reviews are in. Apple has provided some publications with an early review unit of the iPhone 4S and here are the reviews. We've extracted some of the more interesting points from each review, but you can click each title to read the full writeup.

TechCrunch Review

- "The iPhone 4S blows away the iPhone 4 when it comes to speed."
- "The true killer feature of the device is Siri."
- "The amount of times Siri hasn’t been able to understand and execute my request is astonishingly low. I’ll say something that I’m sure Siri won’t be able to understand, and it gets it."
- You need to be connected to internet for Siri to work.

iph4 scre13 1ThisIsMyNext Review

- "[The iPhone 4S is] easily one of the most capable handsets on the market."
- "The 4S is more than capable of going through a full business day without needing a charge, and if you’re a lighter user, you’ll rarely have to worry about it."
- On Siri, "The software even has a good sense of humor. Asking it “what is the meaning of life?” will bring up a number of responses, both serious and not so serious. The first time I asked, Siri simply said “42.”

AllThingsD Review

- "My advice is that owners of the iPhone 4 needn’t rush to upgrade; they can get the new operating system. But owners of older iPhone models, or those with basic phones, will find this latest iPhone a pleasure and a good value."
- In Washington suburbs, was able to get nearly 7 megabits per second.
- AT&T Model still dropped calls.

NYTimes Review

- "This phone comes dangerously close to displacing a $200 point-and-shoot digital camera."
- "Apple says Siri will improve with time — both because she adapts to you, and because Apple itself will periodically upgrade her brain."

Wired Review

- "Before, with the standard iPhone calendar, I would often forget to add an event because I was too busy to type it, and as a result I would forget I had something scheduled altogether. With Siri and Apple’s new Reminders to-do list app, it’s unlikely I’ll forget anything important again because the process is so effortless.
- "From my experience, talking on an iPhone 4S on AT&T sounds noticeably clearer than it did on past iPhones I’ve owned"
- Several amusing examples of Siri responses including 'I'm Drunk' (Here's a list of cab companies)

Macworld Review

Macworld includes a video showing Siri:

LoopInsight Review

- An amusing exchange with Siri at the top of the review
- A 1080P sample video is included (edited with iMovie on a Mac)
- More praise for Siri: "Siri is not your typical voice recognition technology. You don’t dictate to Siri, you interact and have a conversation with Siri. It’s difficult to explain how good Siri is, but you’ll find out soon enough."

Stephen Fry's review for The Guardian

- "So good is the voice recognition that it is now built into all apps that use a keyboard. For the first time I've found that I can happily and accurately dictate texts and emails."
- "There is an option to enable Photostream, which keeps every picture you take for ever. Be warned. You cannot delete a picture once it is in Photostream. There may well be blushes within families who share devices and discover that a photo they would rather not be seen is permanently on view, but they'll have to learn the hard way."
- "Once again Apple is taking a lead and asking a lot of its competitors. I wish those competitors luck, for the better all smartphones are, the happier I am. If Steve Jobs's true legacy is that the devices every other company makes are so, so much better than they otherwise would have been, I don't think he would mind one bit."

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro 34ths Perspective

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 10 New Features

Sunday March 23, 2025 10:00 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
maxresdefault

Apple Releases iOS 18.4 With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music, New Emoji and More

Monday March 31, 2025 10:03 am PDT by
Apple today released iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4, the fourth major updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating system updates that came out last year. iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 come two months after Apple released iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to...
top stories 2025 03 29

Top Stories: WWDC 2025 Announced, iPhone 17 Pro and iOS 19 Rumors, and More

Saturday March 29, 2025 6:00 am PDT by
Apple's big developer event is a little over two months away, and rumors about what we can expect to see in Apple's next major operating system updates are becoming increasingly frequent. A public release of iOS 18.4 is also imminent with a number of updates and improvements, although we won't be getting the major Apple Intelligence Siri upgrades that had reportedly been planned for this...
Magic Mouse Green

What to Expect From the Magic Mouse 3

Saturday March 29, 2025 10:15 am PDT by
Apple is reportedly working on a new Magic Mouse. Below, we recap what to expect. The two key rumors for the Magic Mouse 3 so far include a relocated charging port, along with a more ergonomic design. It was briefly rumored that the Magic Mouse 3 would also feature voice control, but that was misinterpreted information. Relocated Charging Port While the Magic Mouse switched from...
iOS 18

iOS 18.4 Expected Next Week - Here Are the Release Notes

Friday March 28, 2025 2:01 pm PDT by
With the second release candidate of iOS 18.4 that Apple seeded out today, the company finally provided us with release notes that give a full rundown on what to expect. There's an Apple Vision Pro app, new Apple Intelligence features for notifications and additional language support, plus an Apple News Food feature for Apple News+ subscribers, and several updates that should improve the...
Foldable iPhone 2023 Feature Homescreen

Six Things to Know About Apple's Upcoming Foldable iPhone

Friday March 28, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by
We've been hearing rumors about a foldable iPhone for almost a decade now, but it looks like we might finally see the device come to fruition in 2026. We're going to be waiting many more months for the foldable iPhone, but so far we're hearing good things. Apple wants to make it creaseless. It's taken Apple multiple years to design a foldable iPhone that it's satisfied with because Apple ...
iOS 19 visionOS UI Elements

Apple Codename Provides Clue About iOS 19's Rumored New Design

Sunday March 30, 2025 6:40 am PDT by
Multiple sources have claimed that iOS 19 will introduce a new design with more translucent buttons, menus, notification banners, and more, and there is now another clue that points towards this glass-like appearance. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today said the new design project is codenamed "Solarium" internally. A solarium is a room with glass walls that allow in plenty of sunlight, so this...
macOS Sequoia Feature

Apple Releases macOS Sequoia 15.4 With Mail Categorization and More

Monday March 31, 2025 10:04 am PDT by
Apple today released macOS Sequoia 15.4, the fourth major update to the macOS Sequoia operating system that launched in September. macOS Sequoia 15.4 comes two months after the launch of macOS Sequoia 15.3. Mac users can download the ‌‌macOS Sequoia‌‌ update through the Software Update section of System Settings. It is available for free on all Macs able to run macOS 15. With...

Top Rated Comments

FroMann Avatar
176 months ago
One week everyone complains about the 4S being junk, next week people will call it the best phone ever.
Score: 42 Votes (Like | Disagree)
slrandall Avatar
176 months ago
Oh, did Giz not get one? :rolleyes:
Score: 35 Votes (Like | Disagree)
macrumorsuser10 Avatar
176 months ago
Absolutely amazing reviews. The reviewer feedback on Siri is fantastic. It's this type of overall integration (hardware, OS software, OS features like Siri, the wealth of third party applications and peripherals) that Android fanboys just don't understand. They're the ones putting tails and lights on their cars and thinking the specs make it superior to a high-end sedan. They can go f* themselves.
Score: 25 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bpeeps Avatar
176 months ago
Want. This week has been the slowest week ever.
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
iGobbleoff Avatar
176 months ago
And only a couple of weeks ago people were complaining about the specs and threatening to go to Android
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
rick snagwell Avatar
176 months ago
Did anyone else notice that when he did the dictation bit in Notepad, on the screen it said 'Iphone Ass" and he didn't mentioned it, but after the camera cuts back to him, he kind of laughs for a second. around 4:16.

dude..ever read the thread before you post? your the 20th to post this...sooo cool OMG
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)