all of these sw features are already possible on android, while they aren't built into the os, they are available through the use of a handful of apps. i can appreciate apple's innovation but nothing in yesterday's announcement warrants this kind of fanfare.

as an aside, do we really need people interacting with their phones in this way in public? isn't the state of cellphone etiquette bad enough?

I understand that Siri translates to buttocks in Japanese.

Siri has been around for years; you know how often I used it in real life? Never. I tried it when I downloaded it, it was on my phone, but I never used it. I simply don't talk to my phone.

You know how often I've used FaceTime? Never. And that was supposed to be the future too.

I'm not saying this won't be useful to some people. I'm sure some people would love voice activated software and video conferencing. But these things have been around for literally decades, and people just don't use them.

I waited in line for hours to buy the first, second, and fourth iPhones, but even I can admit that at this point Apple is coasting, if not catching up. Android had voice activated software years ago, just like they had notifications years ago, and cloud services years ago. Basically everything they're coming out with is yawn-inducing.

Are they providing a nicer face on things? Yes, that's what Apple does. But they're not providing anything revolutionary. It's not the groundbreaking innovation we saw when the iPhone first came out. And you know what, that's fine, Apple's done enough and I don't expect them to hit it out of the park year in and year out. This wasn't an impressive announcement, and that's OK, but don't tell me it is something it's not.

What did they expect? They were expecting Steve Jobs.

One thing you have to realize is that these "analysts" are mostly tools. These analysts - who by and large are just like anyone else on the Internet except with fictional credentials - spend much of the year between product launches inventing things out of sheer wishful thinking and, through the Internet echo chamber, convince each other - and us - that their wishful thinking has some relation to what Apple is actually working on.

It's easy and profitable. Make up a claim by an anonymous but knowledgeable source, put together a mock-up image, post an article about said claim and showing said image, and sell advertising on that page. Or, make up a mock-up case, and claim this reveals the shape of the future model, as secretly provided to case-makers by Apple, sell cases and advertising. And you get to impress people by saying you are an "inside analyst". Doesn't that sound awesome? I'm one too!

This year's keynote presentation sucked. Tim Cook was pacing slow like he was trying to run out the clock. So instead of being struck by the features that the presentation was trying to sell, they focus on their unfulfilled expectations, like no LTE, no NFC, no new design, no 4" screen, no wide button, no whatever else that these so-called analysts spent the last year wishing for and then pretending was likely to be implemented.

Everyone thought Apple was going to zig when it zagged. And Apple didn't have another Steve Jobs to really impress them about how awesome zagging is and instead they were disappointed that Apple didn't zig.

I'm excited about the 4S. I think the new antenna, camera, and processor are getting downplayed. I'll wait and see for Siri. It sounds cool but I'm not convinced that it will be as easy-to-use as advertised. It wouldn't be the first time Apple has oversold ease of use of something, but it also wouldn't be the first time Apple launches something that turns out to be every bit as transformational as expected.

I wish they had given us a 4" screen and I hope we see a larger screen sometime soon. The current phone's bezel is large enough that the phone itself doesn't have to be that much bigger if they just fill the bezel. That's the only feature I'm disappointed about.