When Apple introduced the iPhone 4S, with its artificial intelligence voice assistant service Siri, tech writers and consumers were gushing over the feature. Now, more than a month into the life of Apple’s new smartphone and its artificial intelligence system, some critics are not so hot for the service anymore.

In a post titled ‘Siri is Apple’s broken promise’, Gizmodo writer Mat Honan expresses his disappointment. He believes Apple misrepresents Siri’s ability, particularly in its commercials. ‘What those Apple ads fail to report – at all – is that Siri is very much a half-baked product. Siri is officially in beta. Go to Siri’s homepage on Apple.com, and you’ll even notice a little beta tag by the name,’ Honan writes. A secondary problem Honan notes is that ‘Siri requires a network connection to work. Lose your connection and you lose your assistant.’

He concludes his piece, saying: ‘And for me, once the novelty wore off, what I found was that Siri is not so intelligent after all– it’s simply another voice program that will obey very specific commands.’

Apple watcher agrees

Apple watcher John Gruber agrees with Honan in part, saying: ‘the whole thing still isn’t up to Apple’s usual level of fit and finish, not by a long shot.’ He explains that he is still happy the Apple iPhone 4S has Siri built in, and that the reason Apple shipped it incomplete is to improve on it based on usage feedback. Nevertheless, Gruber concludes his piece echoing some of Honan’s sentiment, saying: ‘But there’s no denying that it’s damn weird for the flagship new feature in Apple’s flagship new product to be so rough around the edges.’

Thoughts

I use Apple’s voice assistant for very few functions. The functions I use it for, I enjoy using it for, but it is not my first call for all solutions it has been built for. It may not be all that which Apple’s commercials represent, but the early promise of what could come cannot be ignored.

One of the foremost rumours for the iPhone 5 was that it would have a larger edge-to-edge display. While that handset has yet to be, instead giving way to the iPhone 4S, reports of an iPhone with a larger display coming to market continue nevertheless. Apparently it will have a 4-inch screen, and Apple has already engaged LG to have them build it.

4-inch iPhone

The report of a 4-inch iPhone 5 comes courtesy of the Korea Times [via IDG], who cited ‘industry sources’ for the news. An unnamed executive reportedly told the publication that ‘Next year’s iPhone to feature a 4-inch display by LG Display, half an inch larger than the 3.5-inch display and retina display resolution will remain unchanged because LCD is currently being regarded as the right solution to offer value with better cost-cuts.’

A meeting between Apple and LG is reportedly scheduled to take place over the next few days, presumably to iron out the details and to put an agreement in place.

Pinch of salt?

What’s interesting about the latest iPhone display size rumour is its timing. We’re only a month into the lifecycle of the iPhone 4S and the rumour mill for the iPhone 5S has already kicked into gear. It’s far too early to put money on a 4-inch iPhone being released, especially given how off the mark the last rounds of reports about what was eventually the iPhone 4S were. The closer to the time, and the more evidence that surfaces, the more excited we’ll become about the prospect.

For now, Apple seems set on its 3.5-inch display size, which has featured on every single iPhone model ever released. This approach has been interesting, especially as competitors’ handsets have been running on ever-larger displays. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus, for example, has an enormous 4.65-inch display. More screen real estate is not necessarily a good thing, but when implemented correctly, it’s not a bad thing either.

The man behind the UK version of the iPhone 4S Siri voice assistant has gone public, even though Apple attempted to prevent it from happening. In an interview with The Telegraph, Jon Briggs, who voices ‘Daniel’, the voice assistant you get if you change your system settings to English (United Kingdom), broke down the process behind recording voice samples for the application.

Five thousand sentences recorded

‘Five thousand sentences over three weeks, spoken in a very particular way and only reading flat and even,’ Briggs explained to the publication. ‘Then they go away and take all the phonics apart, because I have to be able to read anything you want, even if I’ve never actually recorded all those words.’ He explained that he felt they did a pretty good job of recreating human speech, and that the service ‘gets everything right, more or less, apart from the inflection.’ More or less is still pretty darn impressive.

Apple attempted to block Briggs

Interestingly – and perhaps unsurprisingly – Apple tried to prevent Jon Briggs from going public as the face behind Daniel. He says that Apple PR contacted him, explaining that Apple employees were prohibited from discussing any of the company’s products. He explained that he had never signed a contract with Apple, and had recorded the snippets some six years ago with a text-to-speech company called ScanSoft. As such, he never even had a contract with Apple.

How then did Jon Briggs become the UK voice for the British version of the iPhone 4S Siri App? Well, ScanSoft was acquired by Nuance, who began working on the software under the Siri moniker. Nuance was later acquired by Apple and, well, the rest is history.

Even with the interaction with Apple, Briggs told The Telegraph that he loves Apple products and that he thinks the iPhone 4S Siri voice assistant is a game-changer. The early sales performance of Apple’s new smartphone seems to suggest that customers are very interested in the software, at the very least.

When the iPhone 4S debuted it promptly broke global records for fastest-selling smartphone in the world. The handset sold a remarkable 4 million units in just three days, demolishing the previous internal record the iPhone 4 set for the company. Now, a Deutsche Bank report says that the company’s handset continues to sell at breakneck speeds, and advises investors ‘buy’ stock in the company, setting its share price a $530 target.

Hot demand

Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore wrote a report, saying that supply was ‘still a gating factor’ for the iPhone 4S, meaning demand is so high, if Apple had more handsets available, sales would soar further still. He writes [via Barron’s]: ‘Our retail checks reveal Apple is experiencing daily stock outs at ~85-90% of the ~30 retail stores we called. Apple employees are directing customers to make an online appointment (first come first serve) for next day pick up at nearby Apple retail stores as stocks appear to be refreshed daily at most locations.’

28 million unit quarterly target

Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore says that lead times for the handset are two weeks in North America, while they span one to two weeks in the 22 other countries where the device was available from 28 October onwards.

He’s particularly bullish that strong iPhone 4S sales will result in Apple posting a bumper quarter wherein they will sell 28 million units of their handsets. This is remarkable, in that it’s more than 8 million units in excess of Apple’s current record, and well above the 17 million iPhones Apple sold this last quarter.

Smartphone industry growing insanely fast

iPhone 4S sales are certainly buoying Apple’s prospects, but they are also testament to the accelerating adoption of smartphones in general. I think it’s safe to say that feature phones are living on borrowed time.

Google made a big gaffe. The company yesterday released a native Gmail app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad that was pulled from the store soon after because it was underwhelming at best, or so buggy it didn’t even start up at worst.

What’s the problem?

In short the native Gmail iOS app had absolutely nothing over the web app when viewed from that platform, other than being presented in app format. It was reportedly slow, too. What’s more many users couldn’t even get the app to fire up, being greeted with an error message that read ‘no valid apps environment entitlement string found for application.’ What that means doesn’t matter, so much as it simply not working matters.

Google’s reputation damaged

The worst part of it all for Google is that the news of the app being below par or, at worst, not even launching, has spread like wildfire on technology sites, with many of tech’s most prominent voices publically lamenting the application. In a comment on a TechCrunch story, regarding the native Gmail iOS app, Robert Scoble wrote: ‘The error isn’t why I am totally disappointed. It has no features over the web version.’

He continued, saying: ‘If you are going to release an app at least make it more functional than the web version. Why waste everyone’s time? Where are filters?  Where’s a new look? Where’s the speed (it’s pretty slow)? Where’s the automatic loading of email? Why do I need to ask to see “more” email? The bar is high for a company like Google. They did NOT meet it.’

Faith lost

Tech writer turned venture capitalist MG Siegler, who broke the story that a native Gmail iOS app was on the way had some egg to wipe off of his face, too. In the follow up post, Siegler writes: ‘My sources are very good. Unfortunately, they apparently do not have very good taste.’

He concludes his piece saying he has lost faith in Google’s ability to deliver. If he and other writers is a reflection of how Google’s users feel, than this is not good at all.

The big feature of the iPhone 4S is the Siri voice assistant. As amazing as the service is conceptually, it does come with the one drawback that every query uses up mobile data, since all queries run through a data service before being sent back. Yes, even queries for tasks that happen natively on your phone, such as setting up calendar appointments and so on. Ars Technica investigated just how much data Siri consumes in total.

The data problem

Considering how heavily capped data services are on most carriers around the world, this could be problematic, especially for those who use the Siri voice assistant actively while away from WiFi.

Definitely a data consideration

Ars Technica split their study into two areas, one of which was for local tasks, as in things that Siri needed to do on your phone itself, and the other was for tasks Siri needed to query web-based servers for answers.

Regarding the local searches, of which setting an alarm, making an appointment, retrieving contact details and setting up a reminder were examples, Ars reports that: ‘the tasks added up to a total of 220KB of data usage, or an average of 36.7KB per query [over six tasks]. The actual numbers ranged from 60KB down to 18KB, and we believe this is correlated to the complexity of the specific query and language we used to perform it.’

Unsurprisingly, tasks that required access to web-based services (i.e.: non-local tasks) demanded much more data. The team performed five tasks, with the iPhone 4S Siri voice assistant using Wolfram Alpha and Google to come up with answers. They reported back, saying: ‘These five tasks added up to a total of 473.5KB of data use, or an average of 94.72KB per query. The range went from 23KB to 187KB, depending on the question at hand.’

Conclusion

If you’re on a data cap where all you get is 300mb to 600mb of data per month, using Siri indiscriminately is ill-advised when away from WiFi. All in all, each query’s data usage is not a train smash, and depending on how often you ‘speak to Siri’, you could be comfortable, or be prepared to pay data overages. So, iPhone 4S users, how often do you speak to Siri?

The initial excitement of getting the iPhone 4S and talking up Siri was very quickly tapered by poor battery life, as reported by some users. Apple has publically acknowledged the problem, saying that an incoming software update would fix the problem.

On Speaking to The Loop, an Apple spokesperson said: ‘A small number of customers have reported lower than expected battery life on iOS 5 devices.’ The spokesperson continued, saying: ‘We have found a few bugs that are affecting battery life and we will release a software update to address those in a few weeks.’

This is the first time Apple has officially admitted that the iPhone 4S had battery life issues – about a week after prominent tech sites first began reporting on it.

Temporary fix

Apple was not specific about what the problem is, but there’ve been several theories bandied about the web, that range from how the handset handles setting time zones to location services.

Various tips for at least alleviating some of the iPhone 4S battery drain have hit the web. These include turning off your WiFi completely, as well as location services. We wrote about a solution Oliver Haslam of iDownloadBlog suggested, where he claims: ‘It appears that iOS 5′s GM release introduced a bug that causes the Setting Time Zone function to keep the location tracking circuitry running constantly, draining battery power considerably. Switching it off may mean that your iPhone will no longer set its own time zone when you travel, but that’s a small price to pay for having your iPhone last more than 12 hours on a full charge.’

A few weeks wait then, for those who’ve experienced the iPhone 4S battery drain issues. Not ideal at all, but you’ll have to make do.

Apple’s iPhone 4S has gotten off to a scorcher of a start, selling 4 million units in its opening weekend, and piling on sales in several countries around the world. The launch has not been without its problems, though, with widespread reports of serious battery drain issues that Apple is reportedly contacting some users directly to find out more about. Recent suspicions suggest that the battery issues are attributable to location services.

Atrocious battery life

The iPhone 4S battery problem first got high profile attention when Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch wrote a blog post about it. He reported that his handset died in a far shorter time period than Apple claims the iPhones last for – reportedly 200 hours on standby mode. He writes: ‘Today, my iPhone died after about 8 hours—not even enough to get me through a full day without recharging (and this is typical). This was not 8 hours of constant use.’

Problem discovered?

The iPhone 4S battery problem reports quickly gathered momentum thereafter, with reports that Apple engineers had begun contacting some affected users to tackle the problem at the source. While firm reports on what is causing the battery issues have yet to emerge, some think it may do with the handsets location services, and that a solution in the interim may have been found.

Oliver Haslam of iDownloadBlog, writes: ‘It appears that iOS 5′s GM release introduced a bug that causes the Setting Time Zone function to keep the location tracking circuitry running constantly, draining battery power considerably. Switching it off may mean that your iPhone will no longer set its own time zone when you travel, but that’s a small price to pay for having your iPhone last more than 12 hours on a full charge.’

Solution works across several iPhone models

Haslam says that his team ‘tested this method on 4 different iPhone 4s handsets, including an iPhone 4 and an iPhone 3GS. All have reported drastically improved battery life after switching “Setting Time Zone” off.’

Given how rarely people actually time zone hop, it might be a good idea to test the method out.

A Swedish telecommunications executive has come forward and said that if Apple’s next smartphone, presumably the iPhone 5, does not have 4G connectivity, Apple’s competitors would overtake the company in innovation and overrun the iPhone in the process.

The innovation dilemma

Tommy Ljunggren, who is SVP and head of system development for mobility services for Sweden’s TeliaSonera in an interview with Dawinderpal Sahota of Telecoms.com said that: ‘If you asked me two years ago I would have said Apple would be very important. But now it will be a bad mistake not to include LTE in the iPhone 5 as otherwise they will really be run over by the others.’

His big issue, of which the potential absence of an iPhone 5 LTE version is just a part, is what he considers Apple slowing down in innovation. He feels the company’s new smartphone does not stand out, saying: ‘[Apple] are not unique enough and there is disappointment over the 4S – it was too small [a] step for them.’

LTE the future

While many 4G smartphones have been shipped in recent months, a consistent problem they have all been plagued with is the battery drain the technology has. It’s been thought that this factor coupled with the limited availability of LTE networks to date is the primary reason Apple has not introduced the technology to their phones. Ljunggren says that the next generation of LTE phones – due to arrive as soon as 2012 – would mitigate this problem, and it is at this point that the iPhone 5 LTE problem could rear its head.

Given that LTE technology and high-speed networks capable of supporting 4G smartphones are still limited, it’s difficult to conclude that he is right or wrong saying the technology will be a must-have feature in 2012. Moreover, there is legitimate argument that he is mistaken about a slowdown in innovation on Apple’s part – it all depends on your perspective.

After going several quarters in a row topping their own guidance, as well as blowing industry consensus out of the water, Apple’s Q4 2011 earnings report has fallen short of industry expectations on softer than expected iPhone sales.

Even then, the company posted record iPad and Mac sales, as well as the highest September quarter revenue and profit figures in its history.

The numbers

As has become customary with Apple’s earnings report, the important figures to look out for are revenue, profit, iPhone sales, iPad sales and Mac sales. Apple PR announced that: ‘The company posted quarterly revenue of $28.27 billion and quarterly net profit of $6.62 billion.’ By comparison, Apple Q4 2010 revenue totaled $20.34 billion, with net profit of $4.31 billion. Analysts were disappointed, however, with industry consensus pointing to revenue of $29.45 billion.

Product sales

The company sold 17.07 million iPhones in the quarter, up 21 per cent year-on-year but down on the 20.34 million iPhones the company sold last quarter. Sales of the iPad totaled 11.12 million units in the quarter, up an incredible 166 per cent from the same time last year, and in excess of the 9.25 million iPads the company sold last quarter. Mac sales totaled 4.89 million units in the quarter, up a meteoric 26 per cent year-on-year. Given overall growth in the PC industry slowed to just 3 per cent, according to Gartner, that’s certainly an impressive achievement.

The fast-declining iPod continued its downward spiral, with Apple selling 6.62 million iPods in the quarter – a 27 per cent year-on-year sales drop.

The takeaway

Outside of slowing iPhone sales – perhaps attributable to the imminent arrival of the iPhone 4S – Apple Q4 2011 sales suggest that all is well in Apple land. The company is already confident it will post record iPhone and iPad sales next quarter, and with the 4S selling three million units in its first three days of availability, there’s no reason for alarm bells to go off.