The iPhone 4 is shiny and new again under the name “iPhone 4S”. Place the two phones side by side and they look identical, but in use the iPhone 4S is faster, with better graphics, and a camera that demands to be taken seriously. It’s enough, just enough, to induce a twinge of want even if you’re not due for an upgrade.

 

Truthfully most of the toys in Apple’s new mobile toy box are included in the iOS 5 update. If you own an iPhone 4, 3GS, or 3, then you have the most significant new features for free. Photo-editing tools, wireless syncing, and a tabbed browser join an elegant notification system as enhancements that you’ll use every day. Apple’s iMessage and Reminders dive into entirely new and valuable areas with an instant messaging system that is free and a task manager that incorporates your location as well as the time.

Siri

The only new technology you won’t have access to is Siri, a virtual personal assistant. She is a personality powered by voice recognition. She can speak, listen, and perform common tasks. Siri is impressive because she does this without needing you to memorize key phrases or commands. You simply speak to her like you would a human being and she gets it.

You can ask her in plain English to place a call, book a meeting, take a note, look up the weather or search the web. She can play music, arrange reminders set to GPS locations, take dictation for an e-mail and even use a select number of apps. She does all of this with the capacity to learn and understand context. If you ask her to call your mom, she will know which of the women listed in your contacts you mean. She’ll analyze your speech, adapting over time to your specific syntax and speaking habits. In this way she works far better than any speech-recognition system before her. She’s in “Beta”, meaning she’s still a work in progress, promising more sophisticated tricks for the future.

She comes with a number of friendly quirks. You can change her name to whatever you like and even have her refer to you as her “Boss” or “Master”. Key questions will trigger amusing responses such as asking her to sing (“Daisy, daisy, give me your answer do”), to describe her looks (“In The Cloud no one cares what you look like”), or even to consider marriage (“That’s sweet, Kris”).

To activate Siri for each task, you must hold down a button, either on the phone or with a hands-free headset. Some by-laws may not accept this for driving, which is where Siri is most useful, and her need to always be connected online means she’s unavailable in subways. I still find her useful even at home for complicated tasks such as setting the alarm, placing a quick call, or sending an emergency text, actions that would normally need a lot of screen-tapping, but she’s far from being a replacement for the touchscreen.

Camera

In upgrading the camera Apple has removed one of its popular features, the digital zoom. I’m sure it’s coming back in a future software update when they feel it performs to their high standards, but it’s sorely missed and its absence is frustrating. The sacrifice allows for an 8MP camera with a lens that sees the world with beautiful clarity and a video camera equipped with a fast autofocus and impressive image stabilization. Apple has transformed what was just a modest feature in the original iPhone into a one of the main reasons to buy it.

Performance

I haven’t found an improvement in battery life, but the rest of the phone’s performance certainly feels revved. It’s faster at opening websites, rendering Google Earth imagery, and you can see a visual upgrade in graphics-heavy games like Infinity Blade. The new A5 Dual Core processor should give game designers significant tools to push their boundaries which is something to look forward to if you’re a gamer.

The iPhone 4S is a rejuvenated version of last year’s model. It’s as if Apple sent the device off to a resort or spa and its come back refreshed and renewed. This still makes it the best iPhone on the market and the ideal choice for someone whose waited a few years to buy a new phone, but for those crazy fools who feel compelled to buy a new smartphone every year, well an upgrade here would be even more foolish.