Mostly incremental improvements on last year's largely winning formula. While some will complain about the glass back, the industrial design of this device is virtually unparalleled. It has a solid, dense feel in the hand without being heavy. The A5 processor makes its way over from this year's iPad2 and along with that comes not only a dual-core CPU, but the most exciting GPU in mobile gaming as of this writing, the dual core SGX 543MP2. With a beautiful IPS display and one of the top three cameras ever to grace a handset along for the ride, it's hard to lose here. While some will say they don't want to be locked into an ecosystem, the sales figures of any platform with an ecosystem will put the lie to that every time. The addition of a few iPhone 4S exclusive features like the natural language Siri (your context-aware personal digital assistant) and system-wide dictation (Android users, feel free to giggle smugly here), its more of a good thing.

The bottom line is that when the silly uproar over a lack of external redesign died down and the dust cleared, it was the fastest selling smartphone of its time and for good reason.