First thoughts on foldable devices

March 2, 2019
by Riccardo Mori
Tech Life

Ah, the Samsung Galaxy Fold. “Be the first to see the future”, says Samsung.

Ah, the Huawei Mate X. “Meet the unprecedented”, says Huawei[1].

Here they are, the fabled foldable phones. The next thing a lot of tech people are hastily calling ‘the future’. But are they foldable phones? From where I stand, I see these more as foldable tablets — you fold something so that it takes up less space, after all. Maybe I’ll call them unfoldable phones, because they can be opened or spread out from a folded position. This is what you do when you unfold something.

If my pedantry is already making your eyes roll, you’re exactly experiencing my current degree of enthusiasm towards these devices. Is it the price what’s killing my excitement? Not at all. Price is, for now, the least of my concerns.

My tech-savvy friends and acquaintances are already teasing me: Oh, you’re not excited about this, why am I not surprised!? I’ll ask here what I asked them. Let’s turn the tables for a moment and let me ask you, Why are you excited about foldable devices? What makes you think they are the Next Big Thing?

In his short piece on the subject, Matt Birchler concludes:

I say all this because I think it’s important to get excited about this sort of technological advancement. I know some people have a “if it’s not ready for Apple, then it’s not ready period” attitude towards tech, and I find that attitude very tiresome. It leads to simply mocking everything anyone else does, and then backtracking when Apple adopts that same tech soon after. See big phones. See the notch. See wireless charging. You get it.

I’d say it’s important to approach technology with an increasing degree of critical thinking, because I’m personally fed up with all the current “It’s new and it’s cool and it’s the future” spoon-feeding in tech. I don’t have the attitude Matt mentions. I honestly don’t care where the innovation comes from. What I care about is questioning whether something is truly innovative or just novel. And at this stage I’m not entirely ready to call these foldable devices ‘innovative’.

What problem do they solve?

From the reactions I’ve read around the Web, the answer seems easy — It’s like having a 2‑in‑1 convertible device but even more portable. It’s like having a smartphone and a tablet always with you. 

That sounds cool on the surface. Assuming that most people today carry with them smartphones with 6‑inch displays on average, how many times do you think they’ve found themselves wanting a bigger display when out and about? “Man, I wish I had a tablet now to do [insert task]!” Sure, there are cases where extending the screen on the fly could help, but are they enough to make people want to carry a cumbersome foldable device with them?

But these devices are cumbersome today, Rick — you object — Just wait a few years…

Remember in 2010, the debate following the introduction of the iPad? The Post-PC era? Just wait a few years, and everyone will be replacing their computer with a tablet. Almost ten years have passed, and that hasn’t happened. Again, just because something “will be better” it doesn’t necessarily mean it will revolutionise the status quo.

It’s typical for technology advancements to progressively integrate solutions and produce devices that incorporate features of other devices as to reduce the number of discrete devices needed to perform a series of tasks. If in the 1990s we were carrying a portable CD player to listen to music, a camera to take photos, a newspaper and maybe a book for our reading needs, a mobile phone for calls and text messages, and then other stuff such as a calculator, a notebook, a planner, maybe a city map, etc., now we can just carry a smartphone to do all that. Not only has the smartphone unified such disparate objects and their purposes, it has done so increasingly brilliantly, often offering a degree of usefulness and versatility far superior than the one of the devices it replaced.

Now, foldable devices. You can have a phone that can act as a (small) tablet if need be. More specifically, a phone with a 4.6‑inch screen (Galaxy Fold) or 6.6‑inch screen (Mate X) that turns into a bigger device with a 7.3‑inch or 8‑inch screen, respectively. Is that modest increase in screen real estate enough to transform these smartphones into useful tablets? Ehh, I don’t know. 

Another related issue to evaluate: do these foldable phones actually become good tablets? What about the user experience? What about the software? Is Android flexible enough to provide a seamless user experience? Do apps just ‘inflate’ and adapt to the bigger screen when switching modes or is the system smart enough to optimise them? Are transitions seamless or will apps lose your position when you switch display modes? You’re using the device in tablet mode and you get a call. You want to answer by first folding the device back into phone mode. Is it going to be a smooth interaction? Will the UI reposition graciously or will it reshuffle elements so that you’ll have to wait a second for the icons and buttons to readjust before answering the call? 

I can’t stress enough the importance of providing a smooth user experience and interaction here, both when going from phone to tablet mode, and vice-versa. Have you ever unfolded a map or the leaflet inside a medicine’s package, only to struggle with it when it’s time to fold it back after use? You don’t want to create a similar frustration with the UI of a foldable device. 

Those who are excited about these devices point out two other bonuses of having access to a bigger screen on the fly: one, multitasking; and two, a better gaming experience (this latter example seems to have Dave Lee convinced about foldable phones). These are not bad points, but again, even when unfolded, these displays still look too small to me to offer a comfortable multitasking experience; and if you are a serious gamer, are you sure a foldable device is what you’re looking for?

Maybe it’s just me. But I’ve tried to recapture the feeling I had when I first saw a product that would become revolutionary. Every time something just clicked inside of me and produced a sort of a‑ha! moment. When I played with a bondi blue iMac G3 twenty years ago (goodness gracious, it’s been twenty years already…), I immediately thought that it would become a huge deal. When the first iPod came out, while I wasn’t personally interested in getting one straight away, I quickly realised its potential, and soon it was clear to me that the iPod would remarkably change the way we listen to music. When I finally bought one in 2003, it immediately transformed my listening habits on the go. 

And before getting to the iPhone itself, when I first saw Jefferson Han’s Multi-Touch Interaction Research in 2006 (there are videos on YouTube, like this one), I had no doubts that such technology was simply too compelling to just pass unnoticed. I kept seeing so many possible use cases and scenarios. When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in 2007, I was blown away. And not because it was Apple. I was blown away because I didn’t think it was possible to implement multi-touch technology on such a small display so smoothly while maintaining its intuitiveness, practicality, and usefulness. 

Foldable phones? I watched Samsung’s unveiling and demo. I watched videos of the Huawei Mate X in action. And instead of going a‑ha! I went… meh. Are they cool? Yes. Do they have some sort of wow factor? A bit, yeah, though I suspect it gets old quickly.

But you know what? All I kept thinking while watching those demos was gimmick. Gimmick gimmick gimmick. Oh look, it folds and unfolds, it has screens everywhere… How usable is all that, really? How long do those hinges remain tight-as-new? (For other possible hardware-related issues, and an intriguing take on the whole topic, check out TechAltar’s video How Huawei beat Samsung with a worse foldable).

What is the target audience? Apart from technophiles, I mean. People whose only computer is a smartphone! — you say — They could make the most of such foldable devices. Yeah, sure. Maybe! Or maybe they’ll complain that these foldable phones are too awkward and bulky to operate and carry around (even folded). Don’t look at me, it’s what I usually overhear in stores when people evaluate phones like the iPhone XS Max or the Galaxy Note 9. On Twitter, Nick Heer shared a thought with me: …As prices come down, I have a feeling that bendy phones could be popular in countries where smartphones are most people’s only computers. It’s possible, but prices really have to come down, because even an iPhone SE is considered rather expensive in those countries.

What other kind of users could be wanting these devices? “People who want both a phone and a tablet in a single device” could be a candidate category, but again I wonder: would 2–2.5 inches more in display size (from phone to tablet) make enough difference for these users to convince them they’re getting the best of both worlds? Too early to say, I guess. Still, when I take my walks in the city centre, when I take the bus or the metro, and see people with big smartphones (say, in the 6 to 6.4‑inch range), such phones look pretty much tablet‑y to me. I see people browse the Web, read ebooks, chat, play games, check directions, and the screen real estate already looks ample enough for the person to perform such tasks comfortably. What do those extra 2–2.5 inches of unfolded screen really add to the experience? 

Another possible target audience: “People who want both a phone and a tablet but don’t want to spend as much money as they would if they purchased the two devices separately”. Well, these people too will have to wait for the prices of foldable phones to go down, because for now they pretty much cost like a regular smartphone and a tablet. If I had €2,000 to spend, I’d certainly get an iPhone and an iPad instead of these ‘transformers’.

Speaking of Apple, I really hope they approach this smartly. No, I don’t mean “I hope they make a truly great foldable phone”; I mean “I hope they stop and think whether it’s a good idea to make a foldable phone in the first place”. I don’t want a better foldable phone from Apple, I want a better idea. I want a better solution. I want Apple to stop me in my tracks with something that makes me go a‑ha!, like it happened in the past.

Finally, am I really that unimpressed by these new devices? Well, I’d say that bendable and foldable displays are certainly worth paying attention to and getting excited over, for the possibilities they open. But foldable phones seem to be a first myopic implementation of an otherwise very promising technology. 

 

  • 1. As I’m writing this, the Mate X page doesn’t seem to load properly in any of my browsers, even with content blockers turned off. Check Michael Fisher’s hands-on video to see the Mate X in action, so that you can actually see the phone and not just a blank page with a tag line. ↩︎

 

Readjusting the sync

February 22, 2019
by Riccardo Mori
Software

I was beginning this piece by writing, If you, like me, use several computers and devices of very different vintages on a regular basis…, but I reckon I’m a bit of an extreme case here. Anyway, I use several computers and devices of very different vintages, and for years I have relied on a syncing solution that truly unified and harmonised my workflow, letting me write notes e.g. on a 2004 12-inch PowerBook G4 to then resume my work on a 2017 iMac, to then add yet another idea using my iPad 1 (with iOS 5), and so forth.

This solution consisted of three simple ingredients: the Notational Velocity app on my Macs, the Simplenote app on my iOS devices, and the Simplenote sync service.

What made this solution great was that Notational Velocity works on both PowerPC and Intel Macs, going back as far as Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger (but also 10.3 Panther by downloading an earlier version), and that the Simplenote app works even on older iOS versions.

But, as it always happens when using vintage devices and PowerPC machines, you’re constantly wondering when the good things will eventually come to an end. And that’s what happened recently, when something that was updated in Simplenote broke the authentication process in Notational Velocity, which now throws a “Not found” error when it tries to synchronise.

A possible, promising workaround was switching to nvALT, a very nice fork of Notational Velocity with some interesting extra features, but while using nvALT 2.2.8 (the current version at the time of writing) solves the Simplenote syncing issue, it only solves it on my Intel Macs. While the app can be downloaded and installed on PowerPC Macs, it just doesn’t launch. The earlier version 2.0 works well under Tiger and Leopard (PPC), but the Simplenote syncing is broken just like in the original Notational Velocity. 

A bit of brainstorming

Yesterday I stopped and thought about finding an alternative solution with the same level of versatility as the previous NV+Simplenote scenario when basically everything worked everywhere. These are the first three options I came up with:

  1. Equally seamless workflow, but more limited in scope — I could switch to nvALT on all my Intel Macs. This would maintain things in sync between the Intel Macs and (hopefully) all my iOS devices, but all PowerPC Macs would be cut off.
  2. Equally extensive in scope, but more cumbersome workflow — I could move the Notational Data folder where all my notes are stored (it is located in ~/Library/Application Support/) to a place like Box.com or even to the storage space for morrick.me, and then switch from using the Simplenote sync service to pointing every instance of Notational Velocity to the new, shared folder location. This would be a rather awkward artisanal syncing solution, because every time I want to use Notational Velocity on a PowerPC Mac I would have to first mount my Box’s ‘cloud drive’ via WebDAV[1], or access my storage space on morrick.me by connecting to the server via the Finder.
  3. The radical approach — This could work as seamlessly and cover an equally wide range of devices and Mac OS and iOS versions, but it would mean a complete change in the tools I use. This solution involves switching to Evernote. I have a basic account since 2008(!) there. I could probably try to import my archived notes in Evernote, and then I could access them and keep them in sync from everywhere. Evernote has maintained an overall decent degree of backward compatibility. Their older PowerPC client still works, and the last time I checked their iOS app it still worked under iOS 4.2.1. But while this would manage to preserve the seamlessness of my workflow, I would dearly miss using Notational Velocity. It is among my very favourite Mac applications of all time (I’ve praised it more than once on my blog, and I talked about it in more detail in Synchronised writing, a post that is now nine years old) and I’ve been using it for so long I’ve become quite fast and productive with it. Further, it works in a way that deeply reflects my mindset — if this makes any sense — and to me Notational Velocity has reached the same indispensable status as Alfred has for many Mac users.

The most reasonable solution

Sometimes we devise complicated workarounds when a simpler solution lies just before our eyes. I’m sure there are sharper — or at least less sleep-deprived — people than I among my readers, who will already have figured out what I’m getting at. The best, more reasonable course of action is to implement Option №1 above — i.e., to switch to nvALT on all my Intel Macs — and use a browser on my PowerPC Macs to access Simplenote’s web app. This is way less cumbersome than Option №2, it doesn’t involve switching to a whole new service like Option №3, and is overall tolerable enough. I really don’t like not being able to use Notational Velocity on my PowerPC Macs, as it certainly is less resource-intensive than having to keep a browser tab open in Simplenote’s web app[2], but it’s honestly better and less painful than the alternatives I’ve considered. 

I’m sure I had overlooked this solution during my initial brainstorming because I was fixated on finding a solution that would have allowed me to keep using Notational Velocity (or nvALT) on both Intel and PowerPC Macs. 

I admit I’m a bit bummed by the progressive disappearance of cloud/sync services that play nice with PowerPC Macs. I realise it’s essentially a matter of older Mac OS versions not supporting current security protocols, and that a browser like TenFourFox is a lifesaver because at least you can authenticate correctly and use a web interface. At the same time, if you offer a Dropbox-like online storage and sync service via the cloud, consider creating an HTML-only version of your file browser, so that it can be usable when accessed by older hardware. Navigating through my Dropbox files and folders and doing some basic operations using the web interface is unnecessarily slow and cumbersome even on my Mac mini G4 at 1.42 GHz, the fastest PowerPC Mac in my arsenal. 

 

 

Retail: C

February 19, 2019
by Riccardo Mori
Tech Life

When I got to the end of John Gruber’s 2018 Apple Report Card, I liked that he added his evaluation of the state of Apple’s Retail, and I agree that Retail should be one of the categories of Jason Snell’s report card. Gruber writes:

I’ve disliked the experience of buying stuff at the Apple Store ever since they did away with queues for checking out. I just want to get in line, wait my turn, pay, and leave. Instead, the way to check out at an Apple Store is to wander around until you get the attention of an employee who has one of the handheld checkout iPod Touches. This can be maddening. My wife refuses to shop at an Apple Store for this reason. I know you can use the Apple Store app to check yourself out, but I don’t like it. Part of the reason Apple’s stores are too crowded is that people are wandering around trying to pay for things.

And getting technical support at Apple Stores is terrible now. In the old days you could just walk in with a broken or otherwise problematic device and get an appointment at the Genius Bar within the hour. Now, the Genius Bar is booked for days in advance — sometimes close to a week. In some ways that’s inevitable — Apple is way more popular now than it was pre-iPhone. But inevitable or not, the result is that getting support at an Apple Store now stinks. And frankly, the technical acumen of the Genius Bar staffers is now hit-or-miss. 

I rarely visit my local Apple Store. Friends of mine have been to “Today at Apple” events and they told me they had a nice time. I wanted to see for myself, but I’ve always had scheduling conflicts, or I didn’t book my slot in time. If I just want to pay the store a visit to look around, it’s a frustrating experience because the place is usually crowded and I don’t want to fight with stubborn 12-year-olds to have a chance to put my hands on a new iPad Pro.

Thankfully all my Apple hardware has been reliable, so I can’t say anything about the Genius Bar service of my Apple Store, but the anecdotes I’ve heard paint a similar scenario as the one Gruber describes.

But the one time I needed actual information, and acted on the information I was given, it was a disaster; for the simple reason that the Apple Store clerk who ‘took care’ of me gave me incorrect information. This happened in June 2018 when I was trying to purchase an iMac. I simply asked if it was possible to do a partial financing at the time of purchase. For example, suppose you want to buy a €1,500 Mac and you want to pay €1,000 up-front and the rest in a few instalments. The clerk told me this was “totally possible”. Even online, without coming to the store? “Sure! You can, for instance, buy a €1,000 gift card, go to the store, go through the payment process, do a partial payment by typing the gift card code, then choose the financing option when the system asks you how you want to pay the rest of the amount.” This sounded logical to me, so I did as instructed.

Except, after typing the gift card code, the only option was (if I remember correctly) to pay the remaining amount by using a credit or debit card. Since this was late in the evening, the following morning we phoned Apple Support and, after waiting a while, we talked to someone who told us that no, partial financing was not possible. “Who gave you such information?” they asked. “One of your guys,” we replied bitterly.

Now, normally gift cards aren’t refundable. I was too angry and frustrated for this, so I let my wife handle the situation. She later told me that, once at the Store, she explained the issue to a manager. The manager asked her who gave us the incorrect information, and luckily that clerk was present, so my wife was able to literally point at him. The manager kindly refunded us the €1,000 of the gift card, and that was that. 

That was an annoying setback for me, however, because at the time my old MacBook Pro was behaving in such erratic and unreliable ways that I truly feared I couldn’t complete the work assignments for which I would earn the remaining money I needed to buy the iMac. Fortunately the MacBook Pro didn’t leave me stranded, and I could purchase the iMac the following month. 

But that clerk’s incompetence had cost me time and unnecessary grief. And in case you’re wondering why I didn’t cross-check the information he gave me before proceeding, well, it’s because I trusted the guy. And I trusted that a company such as Apple would prepare their retail employees enough to provide what I consider basic information. This is what ‘taking care of the customer’ ultimately means, not just being superficially kind and welcoming and displaying a confident attitude. Design is how it works, not just how it looks, even in retail.

I don’t cover my webcams

February 18, 2019
by Riccardo Mori
Handpicked

When my main job keeps me exceptionally busy, I don’t have time to react to the tech’s topic du jour as quickly as others do. So I try to take a few notes and publish my views when I can.

I’m sure most of you will have read Joanna Stern’s piece for the Wall Street Journal about webcam security, What I Learned From the Hacker Who Spied on Me. [If this link doesn’t send you to the full version of the article and you hit the WSJ paywall, just google the exact article title and click the search result link.]

While I’m all for giving security advice, especially to non-tech users, and while I certainly agree with most of the tips Stern provides in her article, I’m also in full agreement with John Gruber: in both the Windows and Mac scenarios, the hacker was considerably helped by a series of intentionally careless steps Stern performed to lower the built-in security of her machines.

Gruber’s commentary here is spot-on:

Stern also claims she’s now using a physical stick-on camera cover. But why? In both cases — Mac and PC — the built-in system software did its job and issued clear warnings that she had to ignore for the attack to proceed. And even then — on both Mac and PC — the light next to the camera went on when it was in use.

There’s nothing in Stern’s story that makes me worry in the least bit about the security of my Mac webcams, and I don’t see anything that should worry someone running Windows 10 with Windows Defender (Microsoft’s built-in security software). The path to compromising Stern’s cameras was like a test of your home security that starts with a request that you leave your door unlocked and turn off your alarm system.

I have never understood the mass paranoia over laptop webcams — which have in-use indicator lights, which I’ve seen no evidence can be circumvented on Macs from the last decade — and the complete lack of similar paranoia over microphones, which cannot be blocked by a piece of tape and which have no in-use indicator lights. And I don’t see anyone taping over the cameras on their phones. This story is only going to feed that paranoia, because the takeaway is going to be “The Wall Street Journal says you should cover up your webcam.”

Apologies for the extended quote, but this is exactly, exactly the point I would have made even before reading Gruber’s take. And, like him, I don’t cover my webcams either. 

That doesn’t mean I don’t care about the underlying issue of an attacker having remote access to my webcams and microphones (the latter for me is a more serious concern than the former, actually). So I installed a very nice, very unobtrusive utility called OverSight written by Patrick Wardle. As the exhaustive webpage informs, OverSight monitors a Mac’s mic and webcam, alerting the user when the internal mic is activated, or whenever a process accesses the webcam.

I recommend it. It’s a more elegant and effective solution than taping your webcams, and it monitors the internal microphone’s status as well. The app is free but you can support Wardle on Patreon.

On the camera of the iPhone 4S

February 16, 2019
by Riccardo Mori
Tech Life

Iphone4s camera

When the iPhone 4S was introduced in October 2011, people were looking at a device that on the outside was essentially identical to the iPhone 4. Same size, same design, same materials. But Phil Schiller delivered a good presentation explaining how, under the bonnet, the iPhone 4S was a completely different beast than its predecessor. And one of the key differences was in the camera system. 

If we take a step back and look at the evolution of the camera and optics in iPhones, this is when the biggest jump forward took place. From the 5‑megapixel camera found in the iPhone 4, the 4S got equipped with an 8‑megapixel camera. Other important highlights, taken from the 2011 introduction, were:

  • An 8‑megapixel sensor, taking photos at 3264×2448, also meant 60% more pixels than on the iPhone 4.
  • The sensor featured backside illumination, allowing the iPhone to gather 73% more light per pixel than the iPhone 4 sensor, and provide better low-light performance.
  • It was also 33% faster at taking pictures.
  • The camera system also featured a Hybrid IR filter, for better colour accuracy and more uniform colours across the picture.
  • The optics consisted of a five-element lens (the iPhone 4 had four), allowing 30% more sharpness.
  • The lens provided an ƒ/2.4 aperture versus the ƒ/2.8 of the iPhone 4.
  • Inside the A5 chip there was an Apple-designed ISP (Image Signal Processor), which allowed for features like face detection, a 26% better white balance, and the ability to capture photos at faster speeds (according to the graph shown by Phil Schiller, the iPhone 4S’s ‘time to first photo’ was only 1.1 seconds, and the ‘shot to shot’ time was even shorter — 0.5 seconds).

I remember at the time how a lot of iPhone 4S owners were really amazed at the results taken with the camera. I also remember, when the iPhone 5 came out, how some people even said that the iPhone 4S’s camera was better than the one in the iPhone 5 (which still had an 8‑megapixel sensor). So, when I finally acquired my ‘new’ iPhone 4S a month ago, I was curious to test these claims. 

Before proceeding with my (informal) observations, though, I wanted to know exactly how the iPhone 5 camera was different from the one in the iPhone 4S. After rewatching the iPhone 5 introduction from September 2012, here is a brief summary of what was added and changed in the camera of the iPhone 5:

  • The base specifications are the same as the iPhone 4S’s camera, but the system is 25% smaller. (The iPhone 5 is 7.6 mm thin versus the 9.3 mm of the iPhone 4S).
  • New dynamic low-light mode. Schiller: “When you’re in low-light situations, the ISP senses that and is able to combine multiple pixels together to give you up to two f‑stops greater performance in those scenarios. You really see the difference in your low-light pictures.”
  • Precision lens alignment.
  • Sapphire crystal cover protecting the lens.
  • Next-generation ISP, allowing enhancements such as:
    • Spatial noise reduction. Schiller: “It removes the noisy particles especially in low-light images; by looking at surrounding pixels we can determine where the noise is and help remove that.”
    • Smart filter: “It looks at the image before the ISP does its noise reduction and can figure out where there are areas that should be uniform colour like a blue sky, and other areas with textures you shouldn’t be doing noise reduction on.”
    • Better low-light performance.
    • Faster photo capture: 40% faster than the iPhone 4S.

iPhone 4S vs iPhone 5: comparing cameras

Of course, in broad daylight and in generally favourable lighting conditions, both phones have given me very nice results. Night photos are an interesting story, though. 

I want to emphasise that I’m not a professional photographer, but as a long-time enthusiast shooting both film and digital cameras/devices, I have enough experience to make certain assessments. Still, my aim here is to keep things casual, present a few captures and add a bit of informal commentary. 

Night photos, I was saying. Everyone has their way of evaluating camera performance when it comes to actually using it and forgetting about tech specs and benchmarks. For me, taking photos of the city at night is a good initial test to see how a camera or smartphone behaves. You can see how the camera system handles dark areas, highly contrasted areas (bright city lights against the night sky and next to dark corners), white balance, etc.

Here are three pictures I snapped a few nights ago with the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 5. I have attempted to keep the scenes framed as similarly as possible. Each photo was taken first with the iPhone 4S, then with the iPhone 5. For each photo I’ve kept my hands steady, let the phone focus, then took the photo. Of course, I used the built-in Camera app for both iPhones, with the exact same settings (Flash and HDR off), and of course in both cases there was no filter, no effects, no post-processing applied of any sort. 

Comparison 1

Comparison 01

As a general impression, what I’ve noticed in all the photos I took that night, is that the automatic white balance in both iPhones does a decent job at rendering the different colour temperatures of the various light sources. Another thing that will perhaps be more obvious in the following comparisons (here the scene is rather well-lit, so it’s less noticeable at first sight) is that the iPhone 5 tends to deliver ‘moodier’, more contrasty results, especially in darker areas of the photo; while the iPhone 4S returns a lighter result in those same areas, often preserving a little bit more detail. 

Taking the image as a whole, there isn’t a clear ‘winner’, because on the one hand, the iPhone 4S captures the scene more faithfully from a lighting perspective; on the other hand, the iPhone 5 processes the scene in a way that tends to give more pleasing results. Certain parts of the image have more contrast and appear sharper on the iPhone 5, and I presume it has to do with the way the iPhone 5 handles noise reduction.

But let’s look at a 100% crop of this photo:

Comparison crop 01

If we examine the area inside the ‘a’ frame, we’ll see that it’s lighter and slightly noisier on the iPhone 4S, but also less muddled. The ornamental railings are a bit more defined, as is the architectural element on the left, whereas the whole area is darker on the iPhone 5, and slightly more blotted due to the noise reduction process. So I’ll say that I prefer the iPhone 4S version for this area. 

Now, the area inside the ‘b’ frame is intriguing, because we can notice how the iPhone 5 does a better job at delivering the fine details of the cornice — you can see its various layers — while the iPhone 4S’s camera returns a less defined, less sharp area. Note, however, how the two iPhones deliver essentially the same result for the illuminated parts of the tower between the clock and the upper part of the ‘b’ frame. 

Comparison 2

Comparison 02

Here it’s more apparent how the iPhone 5 camera returns darker shadows and gives the photo a more contrasty look. This is especially noticeable in the stark shadows under some of the windows, and in the horizontal lines in the lower part of the building. Again, by looking at how the whole scene was rendered, I’d say that the iPhone 5 version looks slightly ‘prettier’, at least to my eyes. The restaurant signs (‘VIENA’ and ‘¡Hola Valencia!’) are sharper on the iPhone 5 version, as are the backlit ads on the newsstand on the right.

But this 100% crop is interesting as well:

Comparison crop 02

It turns out that when you examine the scene more closely, the iPhone 4S camera is hands down the better at preserving detail. If you compare the area inside the ‘a’ frame, you can clearly see more details in the capital’s ornaments in the iPhone 4S photo, while the iPhone 5 renders the capital’s details with less accuracy (again, I assume due to the noise reduction filter). The area is simply darker and a lot gets lost in the shadows.

The window inside the ‘b’ frame shows again how things are a little bit clearer and defined in the iPhone 4S crop, while the iPhone 5 crop is darker and harder to make out (especially the area surrounding the window pane on the right). The ornamentation just above the window is also blurrier in the iPhone 5 crop.

Comparison 3

Comparison 03

Something peculiar happened with this capture: in the previous two examples, and in several other night shots I took in the same session, the iPhone 4S would on average be slower than the iPhone 5 both at focussing and at taking the picture. In this case the opposite happened. The iPhone 4S captured the scene right away, while the iPhone 5 struggled with the focus. The one on the right is the third and better shot I managed to get with the iPhone 5, and if you look at the right dome of the building in the background, you’ll see it’s still out of focus.

This is another picture where the iPhone 4S did a noticeably better job than the iPhone 5 at capturing the scene. Superficially, the iPhone 5 photo just looks moodier and more contrasty, but the loss of detail is visible in various spots in the foreground. Let’s have a look at a 100% crop of part of the first scooter and bike on the left:

Comparison crop 03

The first thing you see is just how the iPhone 5 failed at focussing properly[1]. Just look at the area inside the frame, at how blurry the rear of the bike, the trunk luggage box, and the licence plate are compared to the iPhone 4S crop, where you’re able to actually read the licence plate. 

The scooter in the foreground isn’t much better, either. The suspension spring is clearly more detailed in the iPhone 4S crop; the chrome parts are better defined and shinier; the shadow under the scooter is just a dark stain in the iPhone 5 crop, while in the iPhone 4S crop you can still make out some of the veins of the marble floor. In general, the darker areas in the photo (and in this crop) have better detail in the image captured by the iPhone 4S than the one captured by the iPhone 5.

Notes

I admit I was the first to be blown away by the iPhone 4S results, especially because in certain situations it seemed that the 4S had more trouble locking focus than the iPhone 5, and I had to be more patient if I wanted to take a good shot. When the photo walk was over, I came away with this first impression about the two cameras — that the iPhone 5 camera was ‘quick & dirty’, while the iPhone 4S’s was ‘slow & accurate’.

In case you were wondering: no, these aren’t just three cherry-picked accidents; I took more than 20 photos with each phone during my walk, and the results I have not included here were pretty much similar, so for brevity’s sake I selected the examples that I felt stood out the most. Yes, I didn’t just shoot once and included a photo. Especially in the third case, I shot the scene a few times until I decided I couldn’t get a better capture than the one I have presented here.

Overall, the iPhone 5 was a faster performer — quicker at focussing, quicker at taking a shot after another. Its CPU gives it an undeniable speed advantage over the 4S, so that when it comes to take a quick shot of something I’d otherwise miss, my choice would be the iPhone 5, no doubt. But when there’s no rush and I just want to capture a nice night city scene? There’s no question I’d choose the iPhone 4S any day. With photos taken in daylight, both phones are equally good choices, and in this case it becomes a matter of personal taste: the iPhone 5 tends to deliver more contrasty looks and saturated colours, so if you prefer vibrant results out of the box, you’ll want the iPhone 5. 

One last fun comparison

How about an indoor capture, with plenty of artificial light, different surfaces with different colours and textures? The following day I was at the university library, and I also had with me the iPhone 4 and the fourth-generation iPod touch. So here’s the same scene captured with all four devices:

Comparison 04

The very first thing you notice is how the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 return warmer colours when compared with the iPhone 4 and the iPod touch 4. The iPhone 5 is the best at picking up certain details in selected areas of the image, but you really have to squint, because the iPhone 4S is a strong contender here. As for colour accuracy, the iPhone 4S is the best at rendering the ceiling. The other devices all deliver darker results that don’t really correspond to the real thing. 

But here’s the kicker: the iPhone 4 is the best at rendering the colour of the floor. Both the 4S and 5 give too warm results, while the iPod touch 4 paints the floor with too cold a hue. And the iPhone 4 is again the best at rendering the white of the semi-transparent glass separators of the table on the left and the white of the table surface. The same elements in the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 captures are too warm. The iPod touch 4, like the iPhone 4, gets this particular white right, but since its camera is only 0.7 megapixels, there’s loss of detail in the highlights.

Speaking of the iPod touch 4: I added it to the mix just for fun, but given how limited its camera is[2], I honestly expected far worse results compared to the other three iPhones. Sure, once you look closer you can’t miss the general softness and lack of fine detail (look at the books in the three shelves visible on the right, for example), but again, I’ve seen far worse photos taken by older smartphones and feature phones with 1- or even 2‑megapixel cameras. And colours are decent, all in all.

Conclusion

I know, I’ve currently written more than 2,500 words to talk about a camera comparison between two iPhones — the 4S and 5 — that are now more than 7 and 6 years old, respectively. But my casual, informal tests could be of use to someone who maybe wants a still usable smartphone with acceptable specs, and has next to no budget for it. If you’re that someone, I’d recommend the iPhone 5 because it’s generally more capable than the 4S, it runs iOS 10.3.3 much better than how the iPhone 4S runs iOS 9.3.5. But if what you’re looking for is a vintage, bare-bones solution for a few basic tasks yet with a respectable camera, the iPhone 4S is a nice device for the very little money you’ll pay for it today.

Another thing I wanted to demonstrate with this article is that just because these iPhones don’t have ‘bionic’ processors providing ‘computational photography’, that doesn’t mean they can’t take good photos. My examples above are taken in difficult, complex lighting conditions, so they may not be really striking at first glance, but when there’s plenty of natural light, both the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 deliver stunning results for their age and technical specifications.

And last but not least: to those who told me the iPhone 4S’s camera was generally better than the iPhone 5’s — you were right, and I’m sorry for my initial scepticism.

 

  • 1. Could this be human error? I tend to exclude it, firstly because with all the other photos taken during this session the iPhone 5 didn’t have much problems at focussing. Secondly, I was shooting undisturbed and I wasn’t in any particular rush: my hands were steady. Thirdly, this iPhone 5 has been my daily driver from March 2015 to November 2018, I have taken thousands of photos with it, and I know how to handle it in difficult light conditions. ↩︎
  • 2. So limited that if you check its tech specs on Apple’s website using the Internet Archive’s WayBack Machine, you’ll notice they never mention megapixels, only that the back camera delivers Video recording, HD (720p) up to 30 frames per second with audio; still photos (960×720). But images at 960×720 resolution means they’re taken with a 0.7‑megapixel camera. ↩︎