iPhone 5: Why It’s Not the New iPhone

For months, we’ve heard rumors that the iPhone 5 would be called the “New iPhone.” Of course, I doubted this and hoped it wasn’t true, but I let it play out. Hours before today’s Appleannouncement we learned that it would be iPhone 5, and then hours later at the conference we learned why that is: it’s not new. Okay, there are some pretty cool features in the new device and iOS 6 has functions I’d like on my current device (iPhone 4). Steve Jobs was one of my heroes and Apple is my obsession, so you can trust that it’s not easy for me to say this – don’t rush out and buy the iPhone 5.

The Good.

• It’s pretty. The big thing Apple is trying to push is that it’s thinner and the screen’s bigger. This is pretty significant considering it’s the first time Apple has ever made its screen bigger. It’s longer and not wider. This isn’t a huge deal for me because I don’t play a ton of games or watch movies, but I do think it was a necessary update for them. All my Android friends (yes, I still hang out with non-Apple folks…sometimes), tell me their device is better (it’s not) and their big selling point is the screen size. Well, I don’t pay extra to see movies in IMAX and I’m not paying for a phone because it has a bigger screen. Big is big enough. Still, a lot of folks did want this, so I say it was a good move for Apple. And oh yeah, this phone is thin – 18 percent thinner than the iPhone 4S, which was already pretty thin. The folks at CNET observed that it looks to be about as thin as the current metal strip on the sides of the iPhone 4/4S. Speaking of that metal strip, the iPhone 5 is made entirely out glass and aluminum. The aluminum finish is different on the black and white models – silver for white and slate for black.
• It’s fast. The iPhone 5 will run on iOS 6 (more on that later) and will have an A6 chip – which is fast. And now Sprint will get LTE too, not just AT&T and Verizon. So this iPhone should be two times faster than A5, with faster graphics too. Word on the web from folks who were there is that the graphics looked incredible during the demo. Software on the phone has been updated as well, which means more email and web pages in Safari. Not sure I needed these, but it’s fine to have.
• Great photos. I love a great photo as much as the next gal, and I’m definitely one of those who has replaced my digital camera in favor of my iPhone. In fact, when my camera recently died, I took photos of the Collessuem in Rome with my iPhone and I have no complaints about the quality. But, even better quality is always welcome, so I’m excited about the new camera features. There is “dynamic low light,” which enables better photos without flash. There’s also spatial noise reductions, a smart filter and a lot of other technical stuff that make photos better. As Mashable put it, “bottom line, pics should look better and be captured 40% faster.” The coolest feature of the camera though, is the Panorama feature. There are apps out there that do this, but now it will be built in to the iPhone’s camera. It takes photos in real-time and stitches them together, with 28 megapixel panoramics.

The Bad.

• Lightning. I was praying each day until this announcement that the rumors about the power connector were wrong. Unfortunately, they weren’t. All of your iPhone, iPad, and iPod car charges, wall chargers and USB connectors will be useless on their own, ditched in favor of a smaller cord. Now, it does appear that Apple will sell you a small connector so they’re not useless, but good luck keeping track of that small part when you probably have power cords hanging around in several rooms in your house and your car. And, oh yeah – what about my iHome, where I charge my iPhone every single night? The connector is reversible, which is…interesting, but altogether unnecessary. It’s not that difficult to turn a cord around. The worst part of the new connector, they’re calling it Lightning. I love Apple and almost all of its branding, but is it really necessary to name your power cord? Maybe they’ll prove me wrong.
• App overload.  Turns out that the iPhone 5 will have five rows of apps on the home screen instead of four…why? Is there really a need to crowd my home screen with 24 apps (including the bottom stationary row)? I’m not sure if the designers were trying to say we’re too lazy to swipe to our next page of apps or not, but this is not an update I’m excited about. I get that the screen is now longer and the size of the app icons may not be all that different, but it does seem too crowded to me. The other unfortunate part is that any apps that aren’t updated will remain the same size as they are on the 4 and 4S, so app developers are strongly encouraged to update the apps. The good part is that they won’t be stretched or scaled, but the user will see a black rectangle to offset the size difference. Supposedly it won’t be that difficult to update apps, but I’m curious to see how quickly this all happens.

 iOS 6

I have nothing bad to say about iOS 6, and it might be the only reason I consider buying the iPhone 5. Here’s why:

• Siri.  Now, I have the iPhone 4, so I don’t have Siri and that’s never bothered me much. But version two, as with any major feature or product update, will be better than version one. In iOS 6, much like the rest of the first world, Siri’s on Facebook. This could be potentially disastrous for late-night posts after a few cocktails, but it’s a cool feature. For sports fans out there, Siri can also now give you sports scores and recaps. And if you want to check your Fantasy League, no worries there, because Siri can now launch apps – a much anticipated feature from yours truly. Siri better not be a Yankees fan though, or we may have some SIRIous issues.
• Maps. I like Google Maps, they’ve always gotten me where I need to be. That doesn’t mean I love it, it just did its job. For obvious reasons, Apple got rid of Google Maps to replace it with its on version. I used to have a Tom Tom and I truly miss having a voice physically tell me where to turn while I’m driving. After all, it is better for safe driving. Apple’s new Maps feature uses Siri to tell you where to go with turn-by-turn directions and it’s in 3D, which is pretty cool. The major bonus that Google didn’t do is that this Maps feature integrates from Waze to include real-time traffic information – super helpful. Oh, and Maps has a print option displayed so you can easily be old school if you choose.
• Passbook. Welcome to Apple’s virtual wallet app. CNET said it right, too: “other apps do this, but having it centralized and improved really will be useful. This is the virtual wallet most people will use for the first time.” You can integrate movie passes, Starbucks cards, concert tickets, sports tickets, flight information, store loyalty card, etc. It might not be a fully loaded virtual wallet, but it’s one step closer and I’m all for that.
• 196 others. Yes, there are over 200 new iOS 6 features and a lot of them seem pretty cool. For example, you can now Tweet from whatever app you’re in. One thing I still haven’t seen though, and maybe I missed it, is better Facebook integration. I complained about iOS 5 because I couldn’t share photos to Facebook directly from the Photos app, and I really hope they fixed that for iOS 6.

Those are the gist of the things that everyday Joe should care about for the iPhone, in my humble opinion. A few other things to consider are that FaceTime is available over cellular data now, but some carriers will charge extra for this  - I’m looking at you, AT&T. The earpiece is 20 percent smaller as well, for more noise cancellations. There’s also a five-day week view in calendar, for those of us (everyone, right?) who has ditched appointment books for digital calendars. Of course, I have to give a shout-out to CNET andMashable, since I got my information and photos as quickly as possible from their live-blogs.

My recommendation is not to run out and buy a brand new iPhone. If you have an upgrade available and you want it, then go for it. But certainly don’t pay full retail price for it and if you have an iPhone 4S, consider hanging on to it a little longer. The improvements aren’t revolutionary and there were no Siri-like game-changers this year.  It’s nothing new, it’s just updated. Considering the mobile world makes product and feature updates more often than my tween cousin updates her Facebook status, you probably won’t have to wait long for an actual game-changer to come along. Let me be clear though, I still recommend iPhone over any other mobile phone on the market so if you’re thinking of the switch from Android then it’s time to stop thinking and do it already – 400 million people can’t be that wrong. (Apple sold its 400 millionth iOS device last quarter).

I’m interested to hear other people’s thoughts, will you be buying the iPhone 5? Let me know in the comments section.

A version of this post also appeared on prSPEAK, a blog from PAN Communications. 

Too Young For Facebook? Social Network Says Yes to 13 Year-Olds

Hey ’05 high school graduates, remember when we first joined Facebook? Fresh out of high school, it was the cool new network to connect with other freshmen we met at orientation, as well as our high school friends to see where everyone was headed in the Fall. You had to have a “.edu” email address and you couldn’t update your status every 10 seconds. Facebook arrived just in time, too, because MySpace was getting “too emo,” and we were all tired of the sappy songs our friends put as their away messages on AIM. We couldn’t chat with friends, we didn’t plow our fields and we didn’t have to worry about our grandparents commenting on our photos from Saturday night parties. Facebook was meant to replace the actual physical Face Books that college freshman received to learn about their new classmates as a part of orientation. It was simpler then and I miss it.

From an advertising and revenue-generating perspective, it makes sense. And I’m not saying the expansion of Facebook’s almost all-inclusive user base is entirely a bad thing – I enjoy connecting with multiple generations of my family from all over the country. Yesterday, however, the social networking revealed that it is exploring ways to let children under 13-years old join the network – with parental permissions of course.  Is this necessary? Who do they need to network with exactly? If it is for a gaming perspective, there are plenty of other tools and platforms out there. Additionally, there is the risk. There are parental controls, but there are also ways to get around those controls. With all the issues cyber bullying causes, do we really need to provide children with another outlet to potentially taunt one another?

This announcement certainly isn’t helping Facebook’s PR given its advertising problem, arguably its biggest issue right now. How will marketing to children on Facebook help brands? I'm pretty sure their purchasing-decision influence is very low. It seems that Facebook is set on ignoring the advice of almost any tech reporter or blogger out there telling them to stop with all the feature updates. Its simplicity made it popular; its increasing complexity annoys its users. But more importantly, this announcement to potentially include young children goes back to something I blogged about last week, regarding Facebook’s obsession with pleasing the end-user. As end-users, we don’t make Facebook its money – advertisers do. So here’s my message to Facebook – stop ignoring your advertising problem. If it focused as much on its B2B strategy as it does with its B2C strategy, major brands wouldn’t be pulling their marketing dollars from this social giant – poised to be a great ad platform, but failing to capitalize on the opportunity. That’s my PR thought for the day.

A version of this post originally appeared on prSPEAK, a blog by PAN Communications. 

Facebook 's Got 99 Problems, And Advertising's One

For those of us who pay attention to social media news, we’ve all heard it – Facebook needs to figure out its advertising platform or else their advertisers will jump ship, just as GM announced it was this week. This is bad for Facebook because it will lose the $10 million in advertising revenue GM spent with Facebook last year, but it’s far worse because of the publicity this move is generating in the media. GM executives didn’t achieve the ROI they expected from Facebook. If a well-known brand like GM is spending a ton of dough and not seeing consumer impact, it will prompt other companies to second guess how they spend their marketing dollars, too.

From a consumer’s perspective, one might think that it doesn’t affect me if advertisers are opting out of Facebook’s platform, except that I may see fewer ads. The issue though, is that much like a PR agency’s success relies on client revenue and making sure we deliver results, so does Facebook rely on its clients. Although we want to believe that we, as the consumers, are its clients – we’re not. That role belongs to the advertisers that pay the social network’s bills. And as Forrester Analyst Nate Elliot blogged this week, companies across several industries are deciding that Facebook isn’t the best place to spend their social marketing budgets, regardless of its massive user base. As Nate states, if Facebook paid as much attention to its advertisers as it did to enhancing the end-user experience, it may not be in this pickle, right on the eve of its IPO on Friday. 

Facebook’s Mobile Experience

Even if Facebook figured out its advertising problem on desktops, there are still major concerns regarding its mobile platform. I don’t even recall when the last time I saw an ad on my Facebook mobile app was, let alone what it was promoting. Of course, for me it has more to do with the fact that I rarely use my Facebook app, due to its incredibly slow load times that GigaOm’s Kevin C. Tofel addressed in a post this week. For those who do use it regularly, what’s the last ad you saw in the app? Did you engage with it – do you even remember what company or product it was for? I can’t stress enough how much of an issue this is for Facebook and its advertisers, considering that users spend more time accessing Facebook via mobile apps per month than by the traditional website. It seems that Facebook makes a new advertising announcement about how it’s enhancing its platform every six months. Well, the next announcement desperately needs to address its mobile marketing strategy, and it needs to be better than sponsored stories. 

A Fortune article on Thursday details how Facebook can collaborate better with Apple and Google, who manufacture the two most popular mobile operating systems. The article expresses concerns about Google integrating supposed Facebook competitor Google+ into its devices. Here’s why this doesn’t concern me – no one would care. It would probably get a lot attention from the tech press, some critics and some supporters. But this integration would follow in the footsteps of everything else in Google+’s short history: a lot of talk and no engagement. All these people would have Google+ easily accessible on their smart devices, but much like its 170 million users now, there would be little activity and engagement. Then again, maybe this mobile integration would prove me wrong and drive more usage out of its members. Google+ would still have to tackle the millions of mobile Apple consumers, and I don’t foresee Apple agreeing to Google+ integration on their devices. After all, they won’t even let me share a photo to Facebook directly from the iPhone photo app yet, which is incredibly frustrating, by the way.

Maybe Facebook’s IPO tomorrow will kick its mobile ad planning into high gear, since they’ll critically need to maintain current advertisers to remain profitable, as well as sign new ones. For now though, we’ll sit back and watch Zuckerberg fumble his TV interviews while the IPO hogs the tech media outlets tomorrow. Down the line, we’re hoping for big things from the Facebook mobile team. The number of Facebook end users is unparalleled to any other social network, so the advertising potential is there; it just needs to be capitalized on much better than it is currently. That's my PR thought for the day. 

A version of this post also appeared on prSPEAK, a blog by PAN Communications.