4 ways the iPhone 4S beats its predecessor

Computerworld - The new iPhone 4S unveiled Tuesday has four important wireless networking enhancements that its predecessor lacked, including dual-network world phone capabilities and the fact that it is available through a third U.S. carrier: Sprint.

But more important to many would-be buyers, however, may be that it comes with unique technology that switches a radio signal between its two exterior antennas to provide better reception.

Those two antennas were behind the 'Antennagate' brouhaha that erupted last year after the iPhone 4 launched and users found that holding the device a certain way led to dropped calls. With the iPhone 4S, Apple seems to have come up with an internal fix for the "death grip" issue, analysts said.

Apple officials only briefly mentioned the new antenna design in their presentation, and an Apple statement about the new phone, which goes on sale Oct. 14, was succinct: "Improving on the innovative stainless steel external, dual-antenna design of iPhone 4, iPhone 4S is the first phone to intelligently switch between two antennas to send and receive."

Apple didn't respond to a request to more details. But Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg said the company probably tweaked the new phone's hardware and software to eliminate reception problems that plagued some iPhone 4 devices.

"Apple didn't go into details of what they are doing, but they were clearly laying to rest early on the issues over reception seen in iPhone 4," Gartenberg said. "Since the iPhone 4S exterior design is relatively unchanged from iPhone 4, people were obviously wondering if there would be any issues with the antenna again, call it 'Antennagate' or whatever."

Sprint as third U.S. iPhone carrier

With the arrival of the iPhone 4S, Sprint has joined Verizon Wireless and AT&T to become the third wireless carrier to support the iPhone. Sprint has waited four years for this opportunity, and some analysts believe Sprint's iPhone 4S will sell especially well with customers in the Midwest and among lower-income users.

Ironically, Sprint didn't crow about its big win; it didn't even issue a press release calling attention to the development on Tuesday.

"We are delighted to be part of this announcement," a Sprint spokeswoman said. "We will have more details to come shortly, but for today we would like to keep the focus on these exciting new devices that will be coming to Sprint customers."

Still, the iPhone's arrival on Sprint is significant, analysts said. "The iPhone 4S is a much bigger deal for Sprint than for Apple," said Kevin Burden, an analyst at ABI Research.