This May Be Our Moment [Opinion]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM9RO-GAKjE

This may just be our moment.

Yesterday Apple held their “Let’s Talk iPhone” event, revealing the iPhone 4S. While most (including myself) were expecting a redesigned iPhone 5, Apple decided to iterate on the internals of the iPhone 4, much like they did with the jump between the iPhone 3G and the 3GS. The improvements made to the device are great, but it left many disappointed. In fact, almost 60% of the people polled at TiPB (an iOS enthusiast blog) said that they were not going to get the iPhone 4S.

So far I’ve been skeptical about what Ice Cream Sandwich will bring. I’ve been worried that ICS will be another iterative improvement, much like Gingerbread was. After watching the above video, however, I’m a lot more excited. The message of the video is cryptic, but it’s exciting to think that we’ll finally be able to see something new from Google.  

The thing that excites me most, however, is the idea that the Nexus Prime (or Galaxy Nexus or whatever) might actually best the iPhone 4S on some specs. I have no idea what the processor or RAM will be, but I’m sure they’ll be competitive. Hopefully Samsung will include an amazing camera and hopefully the ICS camera will show some marked improvements in speed and usability. With a cleaned up UI, ICS may even bring the polish that many of us have been clamoring for to really compete with iOS.

The screen on the Galaxy Nexus may be a big selling point for a lot of us. As we reported earlier this week, GSMArena scored an early shot of the Nexus Prime. The lack of any physical buttons was to be expected, but what I did not expect was a better resolution than the iPhone’s. The iPhone’s screen resolution has been one of the major things that I really liked about the phone and disliked about phones like the Incredible 2 and even the Droid Bionic. Sure, Motorola and others have begun to use qHD screens, but the iPhone still had the best screen available. It looks like that may be about to change with the Nexus Prime.

I can remember when the Nexus One was first announced. I was absolutely ecstatic. I loved the design, the new OS, the Nexus logo, and the potential for me to have the best Android phone on the best U.S. carrier (Verizon). When none of that panned out, I was disappointed, but I hoped that we would one day see a return of the Nexus program in full swing on all carriers.

When the Nexus S came out last year I was very, very disappointed. It was a Samsung Galaxy S with stock Gingerbread. I liked it, but it wasn’t as innovative as the Nexus One before it had been. The Nexus One was a brand new device by HTC with state of the art specs, whereas the Nexus S was really just a celebration of all things 2010. I have a feeling that the Nexus Prime will be a phone that jumps the curve and that outdoes the competition in some meaningful ways. We’ll have to wait until next Tuesday to find out, but my hopes have definitely been raised.

The iPhone 4S is a great product, but it’s essentially the same phone that Apple shipped 15 months ago. The Nexus Prime might be the phone that shows consumers what innovation should look like in this new era of mobile technology. This is a rare moment where Android’s main competition has failed to really do anything that the average consumer will notice. Sure, Siri is a massive improvement in voice recognition software and the camera looks great, but overall it’s the same old device. The Nexus Prime just may be our shot at showing the world that Android can go head to head with the iPhone and come out on top because unlike Apple, Google doesn’t stop innovating.

What do you think? Will the Nexus Prime blow the competition out of the water? Will you be disappointed if it’s just a Galaxy SII with stock Android? Sound off in the comments to let us know.