+1000
My iPhone 3GS 32GB from June 2009 will receive iOS6. Of course with less features, BUT with latest API, thus with the ability to install latest Apps.
Since I bought my iPhone in June 2009, I got the following enhancements:
- video/photo and text copy/past (with ability to copy past sub sections of a video)
- iMessages so I can target WifI only idevices
- Multitasking
- directorys/groups of applications
- iCloud (realy great)
- EAP-SIM for WiFi authentication
- AirPlay (audio and video, but no mirror)
- New apps (Kiosk, Game Center, ...)
I was left out with the following enhancements:
- Video editor (only 256MB RAM is insufficient. even when jailbreaking and installing the app, it crash with out of memory): hardware limitation
- FaceTime (no front camera (hardware limitation))
- Siri (marketing limitation?): not extremely usefull for now (can't command my GPS software to enter destination, so pointyless).
- tabbed browsing: app exists for that
- Wifi internet connection sharing (only bluettooth sharing and cable sharing): still works fine with my ipad using blutooth.
- AirPlay mirror (hardware limitation)
- iOS6: no GPS turn by turn navigation: (already have CoPilot Live)
- iOS6: no 3D maps (hardware limitation; it's already slow on the new iPad).
=> Now lets compare to Windows Phones:
You buy a WP7 phone last year (or today) and you can't have proper multitasking: it prevents receiving skype calls when skype is not running in the foreground.
WP8 is out: (I don't know if it solves the problem), but one thing is sure: your phone is obsolete and won't get update AT ALL. I mean, no apps designed for WP7 will run on your less than a year old device! What a shame.
=> Now lets compare to Androïd phones as well: updates varies depending on the manufacturer, but one thing is sure: updates never occur on a more than one year old phone (or very rare). Even worse, you still have phones that get released todays (more than 9 months since ICS is out) with 2.3 installed and no planed updates: example: Motorola Defy variants. This means that you're stuck with API level 10 while other are already running API level 16 (with Open GL 2D which appeared in API level 14). Thus games using this API won't run on the device you've just bought. The problem is that many customers won't know that when buying a device (not everybody is a geek or developer) and this will make people angry...
IMHO, the big issue here is that if manufacturer want to really compete with Apple, the only thing to concentrate about NOW is maintenance! They need to maintain a device more than a year for the following reasons:
- 1/ If you purchased an app like CopilotLive, the latest version requires a recent OS: you can't get it even if your phone is less than 2 years old!
- 2/ There are security issues that don't get fixed. having a device that is not fixed just one year after purchase is a shame.
- 3/ It's a nightmare for developers: they need to stuck to old API to target more audience: => more work, less functionality, less efficient (manual 2D scrolling instead of OpenGL 2D scrolling as an example).
Common excuse is that there are too much hardware to maintain all the flavors. Bullshit: cyanogen mod is able to do that for all brands versus one brand can't do it for its devices??? It's marketting to for people to renew their device.
Why so much device gets out each year. Right now, Motorola is selling (in France) 10 different Androïd smartphones! Samsung (also in France) is Selling no more than 19 Galaxy variants (not counting the 2 SGII variants i9100 and i9100g) and not counting the 2 variants of the SG-SIII (4cores 3G in EU and 2cores 4G in US).... That's insane! What the hell do they want to achieve? Flooding the market with many models to artificially boost the market?
Really, they need to look at the whole picture and understand why Apple is doing fine with only 3 phones and 2 tablets. that would increase competitivity and help price to drop (especially Apple prices which are insane). Instead of that Samsung is going on the "high end" market by raising it's prices....Not sure it's the way to go IMHO...
