Opinion: If you're disappointed by the iPhone 4S, you've lost perspective

Tonight I felt a great disturbance in the force, like a million tech-savvy smartphone owners cried out at once and were suddenly silenced.

Okay, not silenced - the general apathy after the unveiling of the iPhone 4S earlier this evening continues on Twitter and internet forums. But the disturbance in the otherwise normal balance between praise and disappointment at a new Apple product was for once firmly tipped towards the latter.

Some are complaining about the lack of major upgrades to the hardware, others about the fact that iOS 5 is yesterday’s news (well, three months ago to be exact), and yet others are wondering why Apple is suddenly so keen on its customers making birthday cards for their mums. (Beats me).

Let's get one thing clear. iPhone 4S is good. While its detractors are saying the hardware isn’t quite enough of a leap to justify a new digit (it runs on the same chip as the iPad 2, after all), it's still one of the fastest smartphones available, if not the fastest.

Yes, Nvidia has announced a quad-core processor for Android devices, and the Galaxy S II is no doubt clocked higher, but the former isn’t due for another six months at least while the latter packs a distinctly weaker GPU by quite some margin.

Then there’s the simple fact that, no matter how much more powerful the other manufacturer's phones are, they’re always going to get hand-me-downs when it comes to games.

Like it or not, the latest iPhone dictates how good-looking or intensive a game can be - barely any developer would risk launching an expensive title on a platform with such high piracy and low purchase rates as Android. So it won't really matter if the iPhone 4S is ‘beaten’ by Samsung in June.

Oh, and did I mention that it was seven times more powerful than an iPhone 4 when it comes to graphics? Hardly an incremental improvement.

Of course, there’s always the mythical iPhone 5 looming overhead like the Sword of Damocles, ready to cleave anybody foolish enough to buy 4S next Friday (by the way, good luck with that - it’ll be sold out in seconds when the pre-orders open).

But isn’t this always the case with a new iPhone? How many of you held back on an iPhone 4 or 3GS knowing that another model was on its way?

And why would a newer model be a threat anyway - it’s taken up to now for the 3GS to approach obsolescence when it comes to the latest games, and even that’s being a little melodramatic (it can still run FIFA 12, for instance).

It’ll be another year before Apple decides to refresh the line. It doesn’t have the same pressure to one-up the competition in hardware as Android manufacturers do, because, quite simply, it's the only one making iOS phones.

Then there are the great new features the naysayers have conveniently ignored.

The 8MP camera may not match the the Nokia N8's 12MP, but then the iPhone camera when it was 5MP took consistently better photos than almost every other phone I’ve used, thanks to packing a better sensor.

No LTE must be a bit of a downer for those that can get it, but seeing as the British wireless infrastructure is about five years behind the select parts of the US that have it, this shouldn’t bother most people.

Meanwhile, the feature that will apply to most phone users - the download speeds on a normal data network - have been theoretically doubled.

Add to the increased power a battery that lasts as long as the iPhone 4's (something that might annoy Galaxy S II owners given that model’s woeful battery) and you have a phone that’s far better than its detractors give it credit for.

If you're disappointed by the iPhone 4S, you've lost perspective.