Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 12 years and 1 month old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

I got a brand new iOS device this week, but it wasn’t the one everyone else was getting. I couldn’t hold out any longer: after getting my first iPhone 3GS back in 2009, I finally upgraded to the 4S. There was nothing physically wrong with my old iPhone, but after upgrading and jailbreaking iOS 5.01 back in January my old phone continued to get slower and slower and more frustrating to use.

My in-store upgrade with AT&T was actually pretty painless (for once). I was in and out in about 20 minutes with my new phone. Then, within 15 minutes of getting it home, I had successfully completed the jailbreak with Absinthe.

Fantastic. Then I started the slow process of setting everything up again just like I did back in January when I foolishly did a clean restore of iOS 5.01 before jailbreaking it on my 3GS. At least this time I had my old phone still so I could easily put them side-by-side and get my apps installed and my springboard icons arranged just so. I was able to use DataDeposit to transfer some of my save data across via Dropbox, but for the most part I had to re-sign in and set everything up again. The end result, after some effort, was the same exact setup as before, just on my new iPhone.

Other than the obvious performance increase thanks to the A5 processor I’m enjoying the 8MP camera (which I believe Apple is now calling the iSight camera), high resolution retina display, and, of course beta testing Siri.

Playing around with Siri right now is a novelty because it’s new but I don’t really see myself using it (her?) all the time. I ran into a problem defining relationships (i.e., so-and-so is my brother) which turned out to be a problem with using Exchange for my contacts (the workaround is to create a local contact for yourself and use it for Siri so it the proper relationships (father, mother, spouse, etc.) can be created). I did install Assistant Extension which lets me do extra things like switch SBSettings toggles on and off, run apps, or even get sports info via the Siri interface so that’s some nice added functionality. We’ll see how my “relationship” with Siri progresses.

The only other problem I’ve had so far is with my Belkin TuneBase FM in the car. The dock still charges the 4S and the FM transmitter portion works fine, but the multi-function button for play/pause doesn’t work at all (it still works fine when my 3GS is docked). I’ve opened a support ticket with Belkin on this but am not optimistic that it’s something that can be fixed without buying something new.

In two weeks I’ll be heading out to Arizona for my annual spring training trip so that’ll be the first time I really put my new phone to the test on the road. Looking forward to it …