I have been using the iOS6 beta for a while, but only just really had a play with the new maps app, which now includes voice guided navigation. I know this is nothing new for some users of other phones, Nokia, and Android phones have had navigation included for some years, but i've never been too impressed with them, and always ended up using an extra application such as tomtom or co-pilot.

But in the case of Apple Maps, the voice is based on SIRI, and anounced road names and instructions very well.  the map layout while very basic is clear and accurate.

Some of the nice extra's are missing, such as traffic alerts, poi's etc, but we must remember this is still BETA software so some changes may happen yet!

Initially i didnt really like how plain the maps are, but i soon realised that it was easier to view than some other applications where there is just too much information.

Could this spell trouble for satnav companies?, the iPhone has already sold millions of handsets, and with the release of the iphone 5 not being too far away free navigation software will be in thier hands, not just free, but high quality free!  As a result, many non frequest travelers will probably not invest in a dedicated unit as it simply wouldnt be worth the cost.

But it is another knife in the back of some iOS developers, the last few updates to the platform have seen integration of software that directly mimics that of an existing app, so why would people buy the original when apple includes a free competeing product??

here are a few screen shots

photo credit: rsearley
Start of journey


photo credit: rsearley


photo credit: rsearley
When ignored, rerouting was fast and accurate


photo credit: rsearley


photo credit: rsearley

I expect a very common question for iPhone owner is ‘ is it worth upgrading to the iPhone 4S”

if you have either the iPhone 3 or 3GS then the answer is most certainly yes.

Te iPhone 4 on the other hand is a very good handset, and apart from early problems with the antenna which were resolved by using a bumper. i have has my iPhone 4 for about 15 months and had no complaints.

So what's new on the 4S??

iOS5

Faster A5 processor

Improved camera

improved antenna

Siri

iOS 5 has been covered a lot over the last few months, and as its available for the iPhone 3GS and 4, its not really a selling feature of the 4S

The A5 processor is almost the same as the iPad 2 processor, except it only has 512mb of ram, but this does seem to be an improvement over the iPhone 4, and i cant wait to try out some of the new games as seen in the demo at the apple event, but i don't think the processor alone is good enough to warrant an upgrade.

The Improved Camera is good, i have taken a few shots and the quality is good, the time to first shot is an improvement, and the time between shots is very good at only 0.5 seconds, so if you like taking photos the the iPhone 4S is a good companion, its better than some of the point and shoot camera’s that i have used.

The improved antenna seems to work quite well, there does not seem to be improved signal, but there is certainly no more ‘death grip’

The biggest overall improvement is the voice integration ‘SIRI’, now i have used this quite a bit over the last day, just saying thing to it, to see what response i get, and i must say its quite impressive, but this aspect of it will only be short lived!!   there is only so many times you can say things like ‘i love you’ or ‘i hate you’ to your iPhone to see what the response is.

on a serious side though things like creating reminders or calendar events are so easy, and much faster than doing it through the calendar app its self, just saying ‘ make an appointment with Dr. Cole next Wednesday at 10 am” creates the appointment in the calendar and ‘Just Works’ as Steve would have said.

Finding music is also very fast and just saying something like ‘Play Duffy’ will start playing the tracks by Duffy.

HOWEVER this single most impressive thing is speech to text, when you see a keyboard like the one below:

photo credit: rsearley

then after clicking the microphone (next to the '123 button')

photo credit: rsearley

you can click on the microphone and start dictating, now i have used quite a few of these dictation apps over the years, and many of them needed quite extensive training to learn your voice, and even then the error rate was quite high, so high that it used to spend longer reading and correcting than it would have to type the document in the first place.

i have used this to test the dictation quite a bit, to see just how accurate it is, and i have to say, it is quite simply the best i have ever used, it made almost no mistakes, the only mistakes it did make was when i started testing swear works, it would often substitute these for something else.  in the past if i had to reply more than a line or 2 to an email i would use either my iPad or IMac as i couldn't stand the small iPhone keypad for too long, however now with the new speech to text it is possible to compose much longer replies without the need for another device

Speech to text is the single thing that most impresses me about the iPhone 4S, and in my opinion, this along with the other improvements makes it very worth the upgrade.

A lot of people seem to be upset that there was no ‘iPhone 5’, the only thing stopping this being the iPhone 5 is that there was no new case design, Had apple gone one step further and changed the case shape, they could have badges this the ‘iPhone 5’ - personally i like the fact that the case design didn't change, as it means most of the accessories already on the market work, most importantly all the accessories i already have work!

The IPhone 4s get my thumbs up!!