I know what you mean. This hiccup with Image Capture seems to have been something that has shown up in the latest version of Mac OS X, Lion (10.7), and I think you're right that it's seeing a "previous version" of the iPhone's photo library. Probably a glitch to do with versioning and I imagine there'll be an update from Apple for the OS that'll fix the problem.

In the meantime, though, it's tricky to figure out how to get those photos off the iPhone 4s if Image Capture isn't working and you don't want to use iPhoto or Aperture. Heck, you can't see them in iTunes nor does your phone show up as a remote hard drive.

Fortunately, there's always another solution path, and in this case it's the humble little Preview utility. Let's have a look!

First off, it can be tricky to find "Preview" on your computer, so here's a nifty trick: Go into Spotlight and type in the name of the app:

It's the top hit. Great. Just click on it and the application launches.

It can be disconcerting, though, because Preview doesn't have a window that opens, so you need to look at the menu bar to see that it started. Then under "File" choose "Import from Camera"...

Now Preview will show you the images on your phone sorted by oldest-to-newest. Notice here that I have thumbnails being displayed:

On the lower left you can see two buttons, one with four horizontal lines and the other with four boxes. Click on them and you'll see there are two ways to view your images.

To make it easy, I'll switch, then highlight all the photos I want to copy onto my computer:

Unlike Image Capture, you set the receiving folder after you click the "Import" button (a surprising lack of UI consistency for Apple programs), so select the images you want, then click "Import" on the lower right.

Now it'll prompt you for the destination folder:

I generally import photos onto my desktop and then work with them before I save them in a specific directory. Chosen the folder you want? Click "Choose Destination" and boom! The images are all quickly imported, and displayed in Preview:

Don't care about Preview? Just close the window, no worries, the images are already copied onto your computer.

To check, here's what I see in my "Desktop" folder:

All those "IMG_" photo files are off my camera. Quickly and easily done!