1. The iPhone Is a Smartphone First and Foremost
I am looking to sell my iPhone 3GS and replace it with the iPhone 4S, but not because of overhyped
reports that it more than matches the processing power of Microsoft’s Xbox 360. It does, at that; but
that’s no reason for people to suddenly think that the iPhone 4S (or even the new iPad) are all of a
sudden big players in the videogaming market.
The hype started amidst iPhone 4S spec reports of the gadget having the A5 chip (a proprietary Apple
design) which houses a dual-core processor. Add to this the 512 MB of RAM and (depending on the
model you purchase) the 16-64 GB of memory space, and you can see why many people were salivating
over the prospect of the iPhone as a legitimate gaming machine.
Before you go and sell your old iPhone and get the new one, you have to first understand that Apple
thinks of its smartphone as, first and foremost, just that: A smartphone. Everything else about it comes
second: the camera, the video playback, the internet browsing, and yes, the games.
Not that multi-focused gadgets haven’t been introduced to the market before. Take the case of Sony’s
PlayStation 3: It is, of course, a dominant presence in the current gaming console wars, but Sony has
also seen fit to market it as a Blu-ray player; and not just any Blu-ray player, but a dedicated one. In fact,
during the first year of the video format’s existence, the PS3 was outperforming other BD players on the
market; and it is still currently one of the more viable options for BD movie playback, since Sony keeps
on upgrading the system’s firmware to accommodate further advances in BD playback software.
And then of course, there’s the case of Nokia’s N-Gage; a cautionary tale which seems to be the one
Apple is heeding. The N-Gage cellular phone was developed during the seminal days of the sixth
generation game console wars (fore-fronted by Sony’s PlayStation 2, Microsoft’s Xbox, Nintendo’s
GameCube, and Sega’s Dreamcast; just to give you a timeframe). It pitted itself against many other
handheld gaming consoles being released at the time; most prominently Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance,
which eventually dominated the handheld gaming market as expected.
See, the N-Gage had a serious design flaw in that its screen was horizontal instead of vertical (sprite-
based video games traditionally moved from left to right; the N-Gage’s horizontal screen severely
limited the gamer’s view of the playing field). It was obvious that Nokia really had no idea what it was
getting itself into from the get-go.
Apple, of course, is no stranger to video games, having allowed certain games to be playable on the
Mac. Nevertheless, it is clear that, even then, the company really isn’t focused on video games as a
selling point for their products. What they are more focused on are the core functions for their gadgets;
and that means, the iPhone will always be just what its name implies: A smartphone.
So yes, sell your old iPhone for cash and get the iPhone 4S if you really want to. Just don’t let the gaming
hype surrounding it be the reason.
SOURCE: SmartphoneMistress - Weebly