my apologies, seem to have missed that in my initial read.
I still think there were no breakout features this time round though. Siri being '4S' only is a bit of a cheek - and everything else felt firmly incremental. Even iOS 5 doesn't excite me much except for the notification system (though that is much appreciated).
Apple are experts in taking a feature their competitors technically have, but few customers use - and taking it 'mainstream' - nothing along those lines this time.
It seems to me that their next breakthrough in that regard is likely to be the NFC stuff, presumably to arrive with iPhone 5.
I don't think breakout features are really that necessary, though. There's tremendous value in incremental improvements. The 3GS was "only" an incremental improvement over the 3G, but the net result was a vastly better device. The iPhone 4's only breakout features were the screen (which is pretty impressive, but not ultimately all that consequential) and the new look. I don't think there's anything wrong with taking a great product and just making it greater. In fact, it seems to me that a lot of other companies miss that part and instead try too hard to come up with new stuff that will amaze people, which results in a worse product overall.
The iPhone 4 brought FaceTime/Mobile Video Calling to "the masses" too. Granted, the iPad 2 (and eventually the Mac) got that as well - but the forward facing camera was new (though entirely expected, granted).
I now FaceTime with my Family quite regularly.
I agree though, I love my iPhone 4 and am sure the 4S with it's incremental updates will simply be more-awesome. But for better or worse, I think version number bumps are now associated with big upgrades on iPhones.
Expectations are set high, but then Apple will quite happily just ignore everyone's expectations and do what they want.
Good point, I had completely forgotten about FaceTime. I still think people would have treated this as a major upgrade if it just had a different name and form factor, with everything else the same, but you're right that it is a bit less, in terms of completely new features, than previously.
Personally, I look at the specs for a 4S and have trouble coming up with anything new that I'd want to add. But of course that doesn't mean other people can't, I may just be unimaginable.
