For any AT&T iPhone 4S users who have updated to iOS 5.1 today, you may have noticed that your phone now shows “4G” next to the AT&T on the top left of your phone.
HOLD UP!
The iPhone 4S is not a real 4G phone! Apple, you know that, and AT&T stop lying to us all! I get it that AT&T (and T-Mobile) are calling their HSPA networks 4G, but for the love of God stop lying to us all!
I am actually quite disappointed the most in Apple. Apple has essentially bowed to AT&T’s misleading marketing ploys here, and this is coming from the company that told the wireless industry to go F themselves in 2007 with the iPhone. I expect AT&T to pull this kind of misinformation with their customers. I mean, in principal, what’s the difference between calling 3G 4G and having a limit on unlimited data plans?
So Apple and AT&T, let me just show you something to make things crystal clear, and reaffirm for you and Mind Of The Geek readers that the iPhone 4S is NOT a 4G phone. Below are screenshots taken in the same place at the same time with the same signal strength using the Ookla Speedtest app. The first photo is from a Verizon Galaxy Nexus, a real 4G LTE phone, and the second is an iPhone 4S from AT&T using HSPA+, the fake 4G phone.
So Apple and AT&T, stop telling me that the Death Star can make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.
Comments
[...] in order. I’m going to start by saying that I am a regular iPhone user, with the iPhone 4S, even with its fake 4G, is the current phone I carry everywhere. However, I have used Android in the past, and believe [...]
Dear fan page Android did the same crap when they called the inspire, and infuse “4G”.
Duno where he’s at but that’s wrong, his speeds are way slower than mine.
My AT&T 4S gets 3.5-4, twice as fast as my girls 4 who gets 1-2, still not 9-10 like you but still twice normal 3G speed…
The AT&T 4S is still twice as fast as the VZW 4S.
So dude is just dumb if he thinks they shouldnt differentiate between vzw 3G and att 3G+.
In the end it’s all still 3G. Not 4G. The point is that we shouldn’t be calling any flavor of 3G as 4G. It’s misleading when all the carriers are not measuring up to the same standards.
True they did. However, I would like to think that Apple wouldn’t allow this. I would expect other manufacturers to do this as their Android ROMs have to be signed off and sometimes are built by the carriers.
Apple typically has higher standards than this, and makes me wonder now if they are regretting no LTE in the iPhone 4S.
they called it 4G, but didnt put an indicator on it saying it runs on a 4G network…
then just like you did right there.. they should make it a 3G+ and not 4G
Apple and AT&T being disingenuous? What a surprise, never seen that before…
[...] Mind Of The Geek reported that with iOS 5.1, AT&T iPhone 4S models were now showing “4G” next to the signal [...]
Whatever they call it, my phone now runs at 6.0mbps on the “4G” whereas it used to only get 3.0mbps with the 3G. Apple is a company. It doesn’t care about you or me, only $!
[...] good argument against the notion that 4S owners on AT&T have a “real” 4G phone here. It all has to do with the technical difference between 4G LTE (which carriers such as Sprint and [...]
LTE wouldn’t meet the original definition of 4G either, since the requirement was for 100 Mbps throughput. LTE Advanced would meet this definition, but not LTE. So, both phones in your comparison are running a “fake” 4G.
Honestly, it’s not that big of a deal. 4G just means faster throughput than 3G, and you have that on your AT&T iPhone.
I tried both iPhones with AT&T and Verizon, and in different areas with only the safari browser running. Verizon won most of them. So yes, the AT&T has a bit slower 3G. Well although Verizon’s iPhone has a bit faster prossesor then other carriers ( I’m not so Shure though).
…anyone else remember in late 2010 when they re-wrote the definition of ’4G’ to include the already existing 3G technology of LTE and HSPA? so basically they caved and allowed all the phone companies to come out with an all-new, decieving, name for the stuff they were already selling, to sell more. so, really, no phone nowadays is true 4G. its glorified 3G (or 3G+ as they used to call it, in attempts to, again, sell more by making everything else seem obsolete)
[...] enhanced 3G network – not the same as a 4G LTE network – with the term 4G being used as nothing more than a marketing ploy. Despite marketing ploys and corporate advertising jabs, this is definitely encouraging news for [...]