Analysts have given the new iPhone 4 the thumbs up with executives from research group Ovum, claiming that the new model which has a 40% improvement in battery life will push Apple back into the Smartphone race despite having some inferior features to other Smartphones in the market.
“The iPhone 4 is a continuation of Apple’s existing strategic direction, representing a solid refresh of the product’s features and capabilities packaged in typically excellent Apple industrial design, but with few surprises” the Company said yesterday.
“The new handset’s specifications bring it back to near the top of the smartphone pile, but not beyond. Ovum’s Smartphone capability analyser also shows there are already several handsets in the market with higher specifications than iPhone 4.” They added.
The fourth-generation iPhone is powered by the new Apple A4 processor and is 24% slimmer than the current model.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs claims that the new processor will increase battery performance by “up to 40 per cent for talk time”. It runs on the iOS4 platform, and features a new touch-screen display which supports a 960 x 640 pixel resolution, which is four times more powerful than its predecessor.
Tim Shepherd, an analyst at Canalys, claims that the iPhone 4, is an evolutionary, rather than a revolutionary, step.
“The hardware was leaked, but it still looks good as does the iOS 4, software. The camera is a huge improvement and the inclusion of HD video is not surprising,” he said.
Ian Fogg, a principal analyst at Forrester Research, said that Apple has not gone far enough to make synchronising between different Apple products more seamless.
“The hardware has dramatically improved and it is visibly different from the 3GS. It looks compelling and the operating system is a long way ahead of the opposition and Apple can add to it,” he said.
Both analysts claimed that Apple has placed too much emphasis on their new FaceTime video chat feature, and that Skype are likely to out-innovate Apple in the future.
Analyst’s at Ovum said that Apple has a track record of successfully popularising pre-existing technology. “It could do for video calling what it did for digital music players and mobile applications,” the firm noted.
