Instead of the highly anticipated iPhone 5, the slightly disappointing iPhone 4s was recently released. I was one of the few people excited for the new iPhone. Yes, it might not be the iPhone 5, but it is still brand new, and comes with some pretty cool upgrades. One of the most exciting features is the addition of “Siri”.

“Siri” is what Apple named its revolutionary voice software. Siri can send messages, schedule meetings, place phone calls, and more. Siri can also do one thing that other voice recognition software can’t: talk back. It will only follow your basic commands, but it will give you directions and answer all kinds of wacky and serious questions. She’s surprisingly intelligent and rather entertaining. Siri is extremely fun to play with, and when no one will respond to your texts from your brand new iPhone, you will always have Siri to talk to.

On one of my recent expeditions to the Apple store, I played around with Siri. Siri was surprisingly accurate, and not only gave me restaurant options, but was pretty sassy when I was messing around. It is definitely a feature that makes the new iPhone worth buying.

Another new feature is “iMessage.” The app allows people with any type of Apple product free text, picture, and video messaging. It seems fantastic, especially since messaging with iPhones can get pricey; but there is a catch. In the app, you can see when the other person is typing, and when they’ve read the text you sent.

This could be cool, because it provides more of a “chat” feature, but to me, it’s a breach of privacy. If I get an annoying text from someone or I’m fighting with someone and I ignore them, I obviously don’t want them to know I read their message and just didn’t care enough to respond. It’s a feature I hope I can disable when I get the 4s.

Overall, I think that the iPhone 4s is a nice way for Apple to get enough new software updates in without really updating the phone’s design. Instead of waiting for the iPhone 5 to possibly come out next June, I would reccommend heading to the nearest Apple store to buy a 4s.