Smartphones started by devouring the personal digital assistant, as any former Palm Pilot aficionado can testify. They terrorized the market for fixed-line phones, which are now in sharp decline. Apple's newest gadget shows just how hungry smartphone makers, and Apple in particular, are to eat rivals' lunches.
The new iPhone's camera offers sharply better video. That will further hurt sales of digital still and video cameras. Its software allows easy and free texting to other Apple devices. That's bad news for telephone operators, who make fat margins on such services. Instant messaging has also been the killer app for BlackBerry users.
Apple also unveiled a function that lets users digitally create their own greeting cards and send them in physical form. That may not excite Apple's most ardent fans, but it was enough to send shares of card-makers American Greetings and International Greetings reeling. Oh, and the new iPod Nano allows runners to track their performance, which will take a chunk out of the market for personal fitness monitors and shoes with sensors.
In a sense, though, these are the easily quantifiable effects of the new iPhone. The device also comes with voice-powered software allowing users to search the Internet, answer queries, take dictation or set up phone commands. It's hard to judge how effective this software is until it actually hits the shelves. But investors on the lookout for Apple's creative-destructive impact are surely drawing up a new list of victims.
In this iPhone 4S shot, you can see how sharp the new iPhone’s camera is. Hair can become a muddled mess in low-quality photos. Notice how you can see individual hairs hanging off the squirrel’s front legs. His whiskers are also visible and in focus. Notice how the background is blurred, which makes the squirrel in the foreground stand out. This is a result of the larger aperture used in the iPhone 4S camera.
The above photo isn’t perfect however. If you look at the squirrel’s neck and shoulder you’ll see that the highlights are blown out (overexposed).
The iPhone 4S can take macro photos, which means you can get really close to subjects and keep everything in focus. There’s a lot of detail in this show and again you can see how sharp the new iPhone’s camera is. Take a look at tiny spider web strand that spans the two petals at the top of the flower to the right.
This landscape isn’t terribly impressive and appears flat. The sky appears to be over-saturated, which is a little trick some camera manufacturers play to liven up outdoor photos. The greens aren’t as vibrant, which makes the blue look out of whack. You can also see that the upper left and right of the image is soft.
This is the closest thing to an action shot that Apple provided. I wouldn’t recommend wading into the surf to take a picture with your iPhone 4S, but it is a nice shot. Imagine how good this photo would look with a loved one standing near the rocks.
This is my favorite photo fo the bunch. It’s a carefully crafted still life scene that gives you a great idea of how much information a single iPhone 4S photo can capture. The iPhone 4S camera has an optional grid that can be displayed when you’re shooting photos like this so you can make sure everything is straight.
The camera’s f2.4 aperture and selective focus makes it possible to take photos like this one. Typically, this sort of photo is what you see from photographers that know how to use their advanced compact cameras or DSLRs.
Apple hasn’t bothered to provide sample iPhone 4S photos taken indoors or in low light, such as a party. A lot of the horrible pictures that end up on Facebook are taken with iPhones at family events and venues with sub-par lighting. We’re very interested in seeing how the iPhone 4S camera handles these tough shots.
The iPhone 4S camera appears to be a marked upgrade from the iPhone 4, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should get rid of your dedicated camera. Apple has to make sacrifices to keep the iPhone 4S slim. There’s simply no way to pack in a large sensor or high-quality lens like you’ll find on a lot of dedicated cameras. The iPhone 4S can clearly take great pictures if you’re patient and are willing to do more than just hit the shutter button.
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