Should you get an iPhone 4S?

Should you upgrade from whatever you have now to an iPhone 4S? The answer to that depends entirely on what exactly you have now, or whether any of the features of iPhone 4S are compelling enough to makes it worth upgrading regardless of what you have now.

Read on for the full breakdown.

If you’re currently using an original iPhone, iPhone 3G, or iPhone 3GS than your contract has likely expired and you can get an iPhone 4S at full, subsidize price. You can also get an iPhone 4S on Verizon or Sprint in the US, which wasn’t an option for any of the pre-iPhone 4S models.

The improvements to iPhone 4S for iPhone 3GS owners are significant. For iPhone 2G or iPhone 3G owners, they’re stratospheric. Retina display, a much better camera that shoots HD video, silky smooth multitasking, incredible gaming power, FaceTime video calling, Siri voice control — the list goes on and on.

Also, you get to keep your apps, you maintain easy access to any iTunes music, TV shows, and movies you might have bought, and your cables stay compatible.

iPhone 4S is almost a no-brainer update from those early iPhone models.

If you’re currently rocking an Phone 4, the answer isn’t as easy. You’re probably still on contract with the carrier, so you may not be able to get the fully subsidized price unless you qualify for an early upgrade or you lean on them and their retention departments. There’s also not a huge difference in functionality — more speed, a better camera, Siri voice control, availability on Sprint, and world-phone CDMA roaming being the major differentiators.

iPhone 4S is not a compelling upgrade for most iPhone 4 owners unless you really want or need a specific new feature.

If your current phone of choice runs Android, Windows Phone, or webOS or is a BlackBerry, here’s where it gets tricky. If you’re not on contract, it’s easier. If you are, you need to weigh the pros and cons and see if the features you get outweigh the penalties you’ll have to pay.

That said, you get the most powerful web browser on mobile, the biggest app ecosystem, the least carrier-controlled experience (no crapware, no feature lockouts, no random casing changes) and a product that invented the “just works” cliché.

If you’ve only been using another platform because you were waiting for the 2011 iPhone on your choice of carrier — go get it.

If you like your current platform but are curious or considering the jump to iPhone 4S, wait until you can try one at the store and really get a feel for it.

Yes. Do it now.

(If you’re really hard up for up-front cash, consider a $99 iPhone 4 or free iPhone 3GS, but if you can scrape together the $199+ for an iPhone 4S, considering the contract will cost you ~$2000+ over two years, it’s not really much of a savings.)

If you’re still not sure, hit up our iPhone 4S Forums to get the help you need to make up your mind.

Yes, iPhone 4S is HSPA+

There were rumors the 2011 iPhone would have an HSPA+ radio for faster download speeds but when Apple announced the iPhone 4S, while they said it would do 14.4 mbps, they only listed it as an HSPA device. Some don’t believe that anything under 21 mbps shouldn’t qualify as HSPA+, so iPhone 4S shouldn’t qualify. However, 3GPP release 7 doesn’t mandate that faster speeds are necessary to qualify as HSPA+ — a device can support any 3GPP release 7 feature and be classified as HSPA+. The Qualcomm chipset in iPhone 4S uses 3GPP features, and so it’s an HSPA+ radio, speed be damned.

So while iPhone 4S did indeed get its HSPA+, it didn’t get the 21 mbps or 42 mbps speed to go with it that many were hoping for. Also, Apple chose to neatly sidestep the whole 4G/fake 4G issue, so we won’t open that can of worms here either.

More: AnandTech

Thanks: @nerdtalker, @justin_horn, @varek, @shuxley

TiPb Asks: Are you pre-ordering an iPhone 4S and if so, which one?

In a few hours, at 12:01am PDT / 3:01am EDT, iPhone 4S pre-orders will begin. So… are you pre-ordering? Or if you’re reading this later, did you pre-order already? If so, let us know what you’re getting (or what you got!) Black or white? 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB? GSM/AT&T or Verizon or Sprint CDMA?

Any problems with the ordering process? Did you get a confirmation? What’s the shipping date? So. Many. Questions!

Make sure you jump into the TiPb iPhone 4S forums and help us keep track!

If you’re not pre-ordering, are you waiting to stand in line at the Apple Store on launch day? Are you waiting for some other reason? Are you skipping iPhone 4S entirely?

Sincerely Brings IRL Postcards To Every Photo App

href="http://www.everythingicafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/photo_16.PNG.scaled500.png">class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-24129" title="photo_16.PNG.scaled500" src="http://www.everythingicafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/photo_16.PNG.scaled500.png" alt="" width="320" height="480" />

Remember href="http://www.everythingicafe.com/postagram-mails-out-your-instagrams-for-0-99-a-pop/2011/04/13/">Postagram? The cool little app that would allow you to print your Instagram photos as postcards, and send them to anyone in the USA for just $1? Well the engine behind that service is called Sincerely, and href="http://blog.sincerely.com/the-new-photo-sharing-option-print-ship">they’ve just released an API. This means that any photo app on the planet can now add their tools, allowing you to take your photo, print it, and send it — href="http://blog.sincerely.com/the-sincerest-form-of-flattery">for less than Apple’s Cards.

The service already worked with Postagram and Popbooth, but now Sincerely is expanding it to twelve more launch partners:

iOS 5 Leaked, Now Available

The iOS 5 Gold Master was href="http://www.everythingicafe.com/ios-5-goes-gm-starts-accepting-apps/2011/10/04/">just released to developers, a version that’s identical to what will be released as iOS 5.0 on October the 12th. There’s a rumor that you didn’t need a dev account to install the update, just the correct IPSW files. Well, said files href="http://www.lockergnome.com/ios/2011/10/05/how-to-upgrade-to-ios-5-right-now">have now leaked onto the internet, and if you’re willing to take your device’s life into your own hands, you can have iOS 5 a week early.

We’re not endorsing this, because frankly we’re only a week out from release, and from the comments we’re seeing some people are having real trouble getting this to work. It seems like you might neet an iTunes beta, too.

If you absolutely must get your hands on iOS 5 before your friends, all the info is in the link above.

Or you could just wait a couple of days, and not screw anything up.

[via href="http://lifehacker.com/5847135/upgrade-to-ios-5-right-now">Lifehacker]

European iPhone 4S pricing round up

Apple has announced some of its European launch pricing for the iPhone 4S. The countries with pricing available are the United Kingdom, France and Germany. These are the countries that will get the iPhone on October 14 with pre-orders starting on October 7. The prices are for a SIM free unlocked iPhone 4S and cell service would have to be taken out separately.

iPhone 4S 16GB         £499.00

iPhone 4S 32GB         £599.00

iPhone 4S 64GB         £699.00

iPhone 4S 16GB         €629.00

iPhone 4S 32GB         €739.00

iPhone 4S 64GB         €849.00

iPhone 4S 16GB         €629.00

iPhone 4S 32GB         €739.00

iPhone 4S 64GB         €849.00

We will keep an eye on the major European carriers who have yet to show their hands when it comes to pricing or availability for the matter. When they do, we will let you know.

Source: Apple

Daily Tip: How to Jailbreak iOS 5 GM with RedSn0w 0.9.9b3

If you’ve got the iOS 5 GM seed on your iOS device, you can now jailbreak via RedSn0w 0.9.9b3. This one is also tethered like the previous beta versions of RedSn0w for iOS 5.

Be advised that not all jailbreak apps and tweaks have been updated to support iOS 5. If you’re alright with running tethered and don’t mind a few bugs here and there, follow along for a quick walkthrough.

By this point, almost anyone jailbreaking is already familiar with RedSn0w and how it works. It’s not too much different this time except that RedSn0w has a nifty little tool to automatically detect the iOS 5 GM IPSW which makes the process a bit smoother.

And I can’t say this enough times, if your device is not listed above, please do not attempt to jailbreak it on any version of iOS 5! And if you rely on a software unlock and don’t have an older boot rom, stay away from iOS 5 altogether.

After you have iOS 5 GM installed on your device, your device backed up, and your version of iTunes upgraded to the newest beta version, follow the steps below to jailbreak.

RedSn0w has also thrown in a little bonus for Windows users. You can copy the redsnow.exe file to your desktop or anywhere you like and rename it something like justboot.exe. As long as you have the word “boot” in the file name you can just double click that file to perform a quick tethered boot with RedSn0w.

That’s it boys and girls. If you need any help, be sure to check out our TiPb jailbreak forums. Until next time, happy jailbreaking!

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