Why buying a discounted iPhone 4s now is stupid

iPhone 5 will likely be announced next month and everybody who follows tech news knows it. And every who does follow will know that many vendors and even Apple themselves have dropped the price of their iPhone 4s. A good,time to buy you say? Not unless you think you cannot afford a brand new iPhone 5 which maybe 50-100 bucks more costly. But, if you can afford it and you still want to get it, it is downright silly.

Here's why...

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Apple will very likely refresh the look and feel of the iPhone. History tells us that this is possible. iPhone 3 to 3Gs did not have much aesthetic changes. Then came iPhone 4 which was quite different. Then iPhone 4s kept the same look and feel of the iPhone 4. So it is safe to say iPhone 5 will be a new design. However, one can't stop feeling that iPhone 5 would have to feature a larger screen and probably a slimmer thickness. What with all the competition has pushed into the market, it is nigh time Apple catches up (how rare is that!)

Of course there will always be the upgrade of the camera, processor, memory, etc. But all those aside, what is most important? With Apple, it doesn't matter what screen size, processor, memory or even camera you have in your hardware. Whenever they release a new model, there is almost always a new feature that will be the highlight; that is not available in older models. So what are we talking about? The software...

Apple announce the iOS 6.0 recently and there is already new feature that is only available on the iPhone 4s (for e.g. Maps turn-by-turn navigation). And very soon, iOS 6.01 or iOS 6.1 will be release and guess what, a bundle of new features will be added but will have some which are exclusive to the new boy in town iPhone 5. So ask yourself this before you purchase a cut-price iPhone 4s, are the feature available now enough to quench your crave? Or would you cry and complaint when a new iOS has features available only for iPhone 5? If your answer is the latter, then you should already know what you should do.

Here's are examples of some major software features that were missing from the various iPhone upgrades:

• 3Gs to 4: HD video recording
• 4 to 4s: Siri (iPhone 4 is more than capable to handle that as proven by the jailbreak community)
• 4 to 4s: in coming iOS 6, turn-by-turn GPS is only available for iPhone 4.

So do yourself a favor and wait up for the iPhone 5.