Mac Musings

Everyone Wins with Today's iPhone Announcements

Daniel Knight - 2011.10.04 (updated) -

As far as I can tell, almost everyone comes out a winner with Apple's announcement of the iPhone 4S earlier today.

And current iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 users will be able to upgrade to iOS 5 on October 12, giving them most of the new software features of the iPhone 4S with a free update. That plus Apple's free iCloud service will let you sync photos between your iDevices and iPhoto on your Mac, install future iOS updates with no need to use iTunes, and integrate Twitter with almost everything, to name just three of 200+ new features in iOS 5.

AT&T and Sprint will be the big winners here in the US, as both will have the $99 iPhone 4, and the $199 to $399 iPhone 4S - and AT&T will also have the no-cost (if you sign a two-year contract) iPhone 3GS. Verizon will gain its first iPhone below the $199 mark - the $99 8 GB iPhone 4 - which should help it as well.

Carriers and users around the world won't have to choose CDMA or GSM. If they choose the iPhone 4S, they get both, which also means a world phone that you can use when you travel overseas.

The only losers? Low-end Android smartphones. Who would want one of those when they can get a free iPhone 3GS or a $99 iPhone 4?

Well, there are the open source purists, the technical specification geeks, and the Apple haters, but outside of those three camps, almost everyone who compares the two platforms agrees that the iPhone simply provides a more consistent user experience.

Join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Google+, or subscribe to our RSS news feed

Dan Knight has been using Macs since 1986, sold Macs for several years, supported them for many more years, and has been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. If you find Dan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

Links for the Day

Recent Content