Wired’s 2011 Review of the iPhone 4S

From Wired’s review of the iPhone 4S:

Apple never specified what the “S” stands for in iPhone 4S, and it may as well stand for Siri. Sure, the fifth-generation iPhone’s superb camera and speedy dual-core processor are classy additions. But Siri is the reason people should buy this phone. […]

The iPhone 4S looks exactly the same as its predecessor — but who cares? If it was shaped even slightly differently or came in a new color, people would still go nuts over the stuff that’s more important anyway: the insides. And both inside and out, this is a magnificent smartphone.

The late Steve Jobs once called the computer the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds. I think of the smartphone as the rocket ship for our minds. With increasingly powerful sensors and technologies, and access to hundreds of thousands of apps enabling us to do just about anything, the iPhone keeps soaring to incredible heights and taking us to places with limitless potential. I guess that’s what you have to do to create a ding in the universe.

I don’t know what happened to the fellow who wrote this review 10 years ago, but The New York Times could sure use a personal tech critic with this sort of enthusiasm and insight into the way that incremental improvements aggregate in just a few years in profound ways.

★ Wednesday, 22 September 2021