Phones with larger screens, widescreen, higher resolution (1280x720 is common now), NFC, and LTE. Like last year's Galaxy Nexus and the HTC One X and Galaxy S 3 that have been out for months.
The Nokia 920 announced last week has all of that too, plus wireless charging, and a genuine leap forward in camera technology for phones.
Apple is under no obligation to match anyone feature for feature, but for people who follow phones of various types, it seems bizarre and somewhat frustrating the way new iPhones get vastly outsized publicity for devices that are increasingly becoming trailing indicators of where the mobile industry is going.
A large screen is not always a feature. You can type on an iPhone screen with one thumb, I couldn't comfortably manage that on my old Evo 4G. The DPI is the same as last year's iPhone, basically identical with the Lumia 920 due out later this year (330 vs 332).
It almost was at the time, I think only 2 phones had been produced with higher DPI before, and the iPhone blew them away on color gamut, viewing angles, etc.
There are many. The easiest answer is being able to run iOS apps -- which for many overrides almost anything else. Another is deep integration with Macs and AppleTV -- that solves real problems for me that (for example) wireless charging does not -- it's better, but not along a vector I care about (i.e. would make a decision on or pay for).
Even just counting hardware, a giant battery and a much better processor enable a lot of use cases. Does the S3 have three mics, equivalent WIFI speed, as good a camera?
Cmon man, besides the fact that it's thinner, lighter, sturdier, has a higher density screen, a better screen technology, better graphics performance, better phone quality, a better camera, better media ecosystem, better apps, and will get timely & regular OS updates for several years what else have the Cupertinians done for us lately?
A list of barely perceptible (and some unproven) differences won't help Apple as the market share steadily trends away from them.
I like to keep it simple. Larger screen, faster processor, expandable storage, Flash, Google Navigation, freedom to from Apple's draconian grip...take my money Samsung!
It's no wonder Apple is suing. They know they're playing catch-up.
They are getting all of the profit share (and actually increasing market share slightly). In the long term, if you take all the profits, others can't compete unless they do so asymmetrically (make profit some other way). No one has shown that they are doing this yet -- Google and Amazon have plays, but I don't see how Samsung can do this -- they need to make profit from the phone, and they don't make enough to compete long-term.
2) My Android has seamless integration to my Samsung TV and home media as well as laptop and PC via OSS apps and software. Again, we're debating branding at this point whether you want to say your AppleTV is better than my media solution, subjective.
Objectively your points about speed and camera are true though. I'm wont deny its a quick phone but I have to agree with others saying it didn't bring anything innovative or new.
True but saying The Dark Knight is better then Clooney Batman is also a subjective judgement. Despite being a subjective judgement, if an overwhelming number of reasonable people agree with something you can comfortably assert it.
"didn't bring anything innovative or new"
Well console quality graphics will certainly be new if they deliver on this.
Wideband audio + beamforming promises superior telephone performance which the iphone has always been sort of meh at. I'm only aware of one phone each that brings either of those (latest evo has HD audio and HTC one has beamforming) and none that have both
Being able to run an app I want is a feature of my phone.
It's all subjective. Even if you have an objective, measurable difference (processor speed), that only matters if I value the difference (subjective) -- which I don't. The iPhone 4S is fast enough for me -- I can't make use of an improvement in speed.
I can make use of new iOS apps (and do on almost a daily basis). If there were apps I wanted that needed the iPhone 5 to run, that might persuade me. If a Samsung phone could run iOS apps, then I would choose based on price (probably).
If you don't agree, then of course, the iPhone isn't interesting. It's just a glass box with components without the apps. I wouldn't even have a smart phone at all without the App Store.
I'm not sure about real-life speeds, but the iPhone's 802.11n is the bare-minimum 1 antenna, 1 channel version. Even my 3-year old laptop has a 300 Mbps chip built in.
How is "new connector" a good thing? It's still not USB.
Looks like iPhone is playing catchup. How times change!