If you're disappointed by the iPhone 4S, announced Tuesday, you haven't been paying attention.
Apple's flagship smart phone gets an upgrade to a dual-core processor, a re-engineered camera, and what looks like a very polished voice-enabled digital assistant, dubbed Siri.
To keep pace, however, Apple will have to do more -- much more -- with the next iteration of the iPhone.
Apple, of course, says very little about its future product plans. The Cupertino, California-based company's smartphones, however, rely on the same broad base of technologies as the rest of the industry.
So while it's impossible to say what Apple will do to get ahead, it's easy to see what they'll have to do to keep up.
For starters, Apple will need to keep fresh mobile processors coming.
Powerful quad core processors from Nvidia will begin showing up in tablet computers by the end of the year, and in mobile phones shortly thereafter.
So don't be surprised if Apple upgrades the iPad with a quad-core processor early next year, before shifting that processor to its next iPhone several months later.
That is, at least, if Apple follows the broad roadmap created by ARM that it shares with Nvidia, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Broadcom, and other ARM licensees.
While the next iPhone will almost surely get a more powerful Silicon 'brain,' it should also be able to move data at much faster speeds.
Baseband procesors -- the chips that link mobile handsets to wireless networks -- are due for another around of upgrades.
While ATandT and Verizon are still hustling to build out advanced 4G LTE networks, the handsets that run on those networks remain bulky and sport short battery life.
Apple supplier Qualcomm's MDM9615, due in bulk next year, promises to reduce the heft and boost the battery life of LTE handsets. If Apple doesn't use Qualcomm's baseband processor, its competitors surely will.
The iPhone's display will also need to get a substantial upgrade. While iPhone 4S' Retina display is identical to the iPhone 4's 3.5-inch iPhone 4 display, it remains competitive. That screen's 960 by 640 resolution lets it cram 326 pixels into every square inch, making text and images on the screen super-sharp.
The iPhone 4S's display, however, is already smaller than that of many competitors. The Samsung Galaxy S II has a 4.3-inch display (although its resolution -- 960 x 540, lags behind the iPhone 4's).
Payments are another area where Apple could be well-positioned to put its stamp on the broad industry standards other smartphone vendors are already experimenting with. So-called Near Field communication (NFC) chips are already featured in phones from Samsung and others.
Those chips allow smartphones to securely identify themselves to other gadgets, a trick that's already being used to speed electronic payments. Apple, however, could take this further, thanks to the enormous stash of credit cards it has accumulated with its iTunes service.
