I am not now and unlikely ever to be an iPhone user, but for some reason unfathomable to me my wife likes them. To the best of my knowledge, she has never used any of her iPhones for any purpose other than to make telephone calls.

Her friend in California is an iPhone fanatic. Let's coin a new word and call him an iPhreak. As I type this, he is currently standing in line at the Apple store to buy an iPhone6. He has been there since 5:30 this morning, a period of about six hours, and reporting from his iPhone5, there are still a lot of people in line ahead of him.

Jean [my wife] bought the iPhreak's iPhone2 when he upgraded to the '3. Then she bought is iPhone3 when he upgraded to the '4. Then she bought his iPhone '4 when he upgraded to the iPhone5. I am now trying to talk her out of buying his '5 when in a few hours he finishes his iPhone6 purchase.

She says she wants to learn to take advantage of the many iPhone features. [This is unlikely to actually happen.] K447 changed my outlook on smart phones when he pointed out: so I can understand what my wife is thinking.

What would an iPhone5 do for her that her present '4 will not? She says she is mostly interested in learning to use Siri. Are there different versions of Siri in the different generations of phones? Does Siri become more powerful/useful as the iPhone hardware becomes more capable? For that matter, does the iPhone4 even support Siri?

What do you think she should do?

tanstaafl.

What she will gain mainly is a much faster device and a much better camera. From the 4 to the 4S to the 5 to the 5S, the phone basically doubled in speed every year.

Siri isn't supported by the iPhone 4, it was first supported by the iPhone 4S. Of course, given your ambivalence towards the device and her lack of technical clued-up-ness, she may well have a 4S already

Siri is pretty much the same on all devices that it is supported on.

If she does upgrade, bare in mind that the resale price on her aged phone may be higher than you'd expect. For example here in the UK a 16GB iPhone 4 gets you £90 at one of the "we'll buy your phone" sites.

Though to be honest, if she has had an iPhone this long and not used the non-phone side by now, it seems unlikely that she is suddenly going to start just because she has a new phone.

Siri is clever and works better than such voodoo has any right to, but I pretty much only use it for setting timers, I don't know anyone else who uses it for much more than that.

He's right, I've not come across anyone else who has a top end smartphone (iPhone or other) whose primary use is phone calls. It really is an embodiment of all those slates in sci-fi books/films rather than being a telephone. Something that Steve Jobs made very clear the day he introduced the iPhone.

"Apple today introduced iPhone, combining three products — a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, Web browsing, searching and maps — into one small and lightweight handheld device."

I use my iPhone for probably 8 hours most days, but I probably make less than a dozen calls a year (and receive not many more).

My iPhone is:

- my podcast player (accounts for most of my daily usage timewise)
- my primary camera
- my primary rss reader
- my primary twitter checker
- my primary email reader
- my mobile music player with all the music I own
- my mobile webbrowser
- my map, compass and gps (and not just Apple/Googles maps either, I have detailed maps for hill walking etc)
- my weather forecasting station
- my calculator
- my train time table
- my TomTom
- my calendar (which syncs with my wife's calendar)
- my address book (which syncs with my wife's address book)
- my alarm clock
- my pedometer
- my remote for my Squeezeboxes
- my notebook (which syncs with my wife's notebooks)
- my mobile scanner (for receipts and the like)
- my video camera
- my photo and video editor
- my shopping list (which syncs with my wife's shopping list)
- my bookshelf, when I haven't got my Kindle
- my password vault (1Password, which syncs to all my devices)
- my bank account management

I'll stop now But that is just the stuff that I use it for day in day out, there are plenty of other things I use it for less frequently.

It is so great having a device in my pocket all the time that can quickly and easily do this (the original image is 7362 x 2510):



https://www.flickr.com/photos/andynormancx/15229489806/

It's like a computer upgrade, something you're familiar with. There is an incremental difference in speed and minor features. Nothing earth-shattering. I think the biggest improvements are:

- Siri was added in models 4s, 5, and later. I consider Siri to be useful in some cases, and it's a fun feature to play with.
- The camera gets slightly sharper and better with each new release (4->4s->5).
- You can unlock the lock-screen on the model 5 with your fingerprint instead of a passcode, making it easier to start using the phone when you pull it out of your pocket or purse.
- Model 5 supports faster LTE data networks if such a network is available in your area. (Note: I have a 4s and I don't miss LTE, nothing I do on the phone needs that much data.)
- Model 5 is slightly taller, with a slightly taller screen. The screen is taller but not wider. So technically the screen is bigger but its aspect ratio has changed slighly.
- IMPORTANT NOTE: Model 5 uses a completely different kind of charger/connector plug from all previous models. If she is currently making use of more than one existing charger/connector cable (for instance, one in the bedroom, one in the kitchen, one in the purse, etc), then she will need to buy extras of the new type of cord if she wants to continue having the convenience.

More details of the differences:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/ip...s-iphone-4.html



No, as was already said earlier in the thread, Siri is pretty much the same on all phones that support it (4s and later). It is possible that Siri might respond a hair faster on the 5 than on the 4s due to the faster CPU.



Model 4 does not support Siri, only 4s and later supports Siri.



If her current model is a 4s then I wouldn't bother, because the differences are not huge. For me, I have deliberately avoided upgrading because I worked very hard on building a custom car dock for my iPhone, and the new connector on the model 5 would mean I'd have to do that work all over again. I'm very happy with my 4s for now.

If her current model is just a 4, then yes, I'd do it. I think the 4->5 jump is worth it, but not the 4s->5 jump.

One last note: The operating system upgrades.

They keep upgrading the IOS operating system. My 4s is running IOS7 right now, and they just came out with the latest IOS8 operating system. Historically, the older phones got slower and slower with the newer operating systems. I haven't put IOS8 onto my 4s yet, because I've heard it might slow it down. At some point I will have no choice though, because there may be a feature or an app that I want that will only run on IOS8 in the near future. So I may want to upgrade to IOS8, and at that point, I may change my tune about upgrading to a model 5/6 phone if IOS8 makes my 4s slow down too much.

Oh, and you can't tell by looking at the case whether it's a 4 or a 4s.

My 4s just says "iphone" on the back. Sigh.

You have to dig into the settings screen, a couple layers deep, to get the "about" screen that shows for sure whether it's a 4 or a 4s.

Quick clarification on the iPhones released every year, and the corresponding OS:

2007: iPhone - iOS 1 (max iOS 3)
2008: iPhone 3G - iOS 2 (max iOS 4)
2009: iPhone 3GS - iOS 3 (max iOS 6)
2010: iPhone 4 - iOS 4 (max iOS 7)
2011: iPhone 4S - iOS 5 (max iOS 8)
2012: iPhone 5 - iOS 6 (upgradable to iOS 8)
2013: iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C - iOS 7 (upgradable to iOS 8)
2014: iPhone 6 and 6 Plus - iOS 8

Each year generally brings a faster device, and chops one off the support list for getting the latest OS release. Think of the hardware and iOS release as seperate, just as a computer could start with Windows XP and later be able to upgrade to Vista, 7, etc...

2013 did complicate things, the 5s was the faster phone (first 64 bit ARM smartphone out), while the 5C was just the 5 in a plastic shell. Apple keeps a few years worth of phones on the market to offer a variety of pricing options.

Apps in the app store can and often do have a minimum iOS version they need to run. And older phone is going to lose access to those updates sooner.


You can, as long as you are a member of the iFreak community (hint, it's all about the location of the antenna breaks).

Finger print unlocking didn't appear until the 5S.

And the model number on the rear shell.

Mine says "Model A1429"

Just heard from him again. It is now going on 13 hours, and he is getting near the head of the line. There was a story in today's newspaper about a couple who have been waiting in line outdoors since the end of August. You really gotta wonder about people like that.

It looks like Jean will want the '5 model, then, if she wants to play with Siri. Of course, I suspect that Siri won't be all that useful to her when she is in Mexico, which is most of the time.

tanstaafl.

Those people are crazy. I ordered my 5 from Verizon and it arrived the day they came out. I had it around noon, and by the afternoon the apple store was out and turned the looneys in line away.

Almost nothing is worth waiting in line for.

Siri does support Spanish language for Mexico.

For iOS 8 here is a list of features Siri supports in each country .

The growing issue in some cities with the lines is black/grey market activity. Nearly everyone in the front of the lines in New York were buying them to then immediately hand off to a handler somewhere. Most end up back in China being sold before the official release there, or in a few other countries.

Some of the others at the front are simply there for the publicity. Often wearing a shirt for advertising when the media comes around to interview them.

Vastly different then a few years ago when the iPhone was a new concept. I personally haven't bothered with the lines in ages, instead preferring to preorder and have it shipped. Will likely be preordering whatever new iPad comes out next month, to hand mine down to family members.