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Steko

I've read or skimmed through another 10 reviews today and Gruber's review was arguably the most critical.

"Apple has added ZERO product innovation this time in software or hardware."

This is just exposing your ignorance and bias. In hardware alone this phone:

(1) has the best SoC available;

(2) has a solid unibody metal construction but weighs less than creaky plastic phones;

(3) pairs world class thinness with world class battery life (according to Engadget);

(4) has a camera that's only beaten by the nokia 808 pureview;

(5) supports beamforming, something almost no other high end phone does;

(6) supports HD audio, another something almost no other high end phone does;

(7) has a full sRGB screen, something we've only seen in mobile from in iPad 3 and ???;

(8) probably has the best included headphones of any phone.

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>(6) supports HD audio, another something almost no other high end phone does;

Well. Unless you count Nokias and SGS3... Also it won't be available in USA, which I guess is its primary market.

"SGS3"

US model does not support. Imagine how bad people would freak if Apple shipped a significantly higher spec phone to China and the shitty version for the US.

I stand corrected on Nokias though. I had thought the new EVO was the first phone in the US with it but it looks like Nokia's whole range has it.

You must have confused innovation with improvement. This time on, they picked safe improvements from the competitors and integrated them. Very nice improvements which make a very nice phone, but nothing I would call innovation.

I hope at least the competitors will come up with truly novel ideas. Hardware improvements are more than expected from every manufacturer as time goes. But no one can predict innovation.

Would you not call the manufacturing process for the aluminum case innovating?

"You must have confused innovation with improvement."

You're mistaken, there's a good deal of overlap between improvement and innovation. Thomas Edison didn't invent the light bulb (nor did Swan the only other person remembered in connection to it). Edison's actual technical innovations for the light bulb boiled down to more efficient materials (higher resistance, longer lasting) and more exacting industrial standards (better evacuation). He also had a better ecosystem.

The "revolutioniphone revolution occurred at the precise time that a large number incrementally improving technologies -- processors, batteries, flash memory, screens, capacitive touchscreen, multitouch language library -- first allowed you to build something like the iphone at a consumer price.

Yes sometimes improvements are just improvements. But sometimes improvements lead to a new level of viability for consumers. Miniturization matters when you hit certain levels. A clock you can put in your pocket was one such level, the next was the pocketwatch small enough to put on your wrist. Incrementally better hardware and software has by many accounts erased Android's lag deficit. Lag still exists for all devices of all OS's but the key step is the one that takes you over a certain level of perception and if you look at early iOS they employed all sort of hacks and tricks to help erase the perception of lag. If you're making an audio product CD quality is one such plateau that matters. Audiophile quality may be the next major one. Similarly for tiny computers console quality graphics is an important improvement.

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