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Apple announces iPhone 4S

4 October 2011 by
Apple today announced iPhone 4S with A5 processor, 8 megapixel camera, 1080p HD video capture and iOS 5 operating system

Apple iPhone 4S announced 

The new Apple CEO Tim Cook was the host of today's Apple event. It is hard to have the same charisma as the former Apple CEO Steve Jobs so he skipped the blabla and went directly to the core of the event. Namely praise Apple products and tell everyone how fast the Apple market share has grown compared to competitors.

The Apple App Store is printing money for Apple. They have paid out 3 billion US to developers. Apple itself is keeping 30% of the cost of each and every app which means they have had a revenue of 1,28 billion the last quarter. Over 18 billion apps have been downloaded so far and over 1 billion apps are being downloaded each month.

iOS 5, Apples new operating system will be available on October 12th. It was announced and released to developers earlier this year. The iOS 5 introduces iCloud Storage, a 5GB free cloud storage for Mail, Documents and Backup. Purchased music, apps, books and Photo stream do not count against the storage limit.

Finally, the new iPhone 4S was introduced. It has a A5 dual core processor which are up to 2x faster. iPhone 4S also have dual core graphics which are promised to be 7 times faster. The battery time has increased from 7 to 8 hours on 3G talk time. 2G talk time, 3G browsing, video and music playback has got the same battery time as the iPhone 4. Time on Wi-Fi browsing has decreased from 10 to 9 hours. Apple has made the iPhone 4 a world phone which means that it has support for both GSM and CDMA networks. The older iPhone 4 came in either GSM or CDMA versions.

Apple iPhone with A5 dual core processor

As all the other high-end smartphones, the iPhone 4S now has got a decent 8 megapixel camera. And like many dual core models, the iPhone 4S can capture 1080p HD video.

Apple bought the company Siri back in April which was know for the creation of an app good at voice recognition. The app could understand commands such as "send a taxi to my house" using GPS and speech-recognition technology. The features developed by Siri is now integrated into the iPhone 4S. It works with English, French and German languages and will work with built-in apps such as maps, calendar, maps and contacts. Siri will only run on iPhone 4S.

On October 14th, iPhone 4S will be available in U.S, Canada, Australia, U.K, France, Germany and Japan. 21 European countries plus Mexico will get the new phone on October 28th. Surprisingly, Apple has announced a smartphone in two colours. iPhone 4S will be available in white or black.

iPhone 4S will be sold in 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB versions. The price for these are 199$, 299 and 300$ respectively with a two year contract. The older iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS will still be available for sale. 99$ for iPhone 4 8GB and the 3GS will be free on contract.

To sum up the announcement and look at what new the iPhone 4S brought us:

  • Combined GSM and CDMA networks (GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900, UMTS 850/900/1900/2100, HSPA 14.4/5.8, CDMA EV-DO Rev.A 800/1900)
  • 8 megapixel camera
  • 1080p video capture
  • A5 dual core processor
  • Bluetooth 4.0
  • iOS 5
  • iCloud
  • Siri

The iPhone 4S size is identical to iPhone 4 but it has gained 3 gram weight. Something not being highlighted today was the introduction of Bluetooth 4.0. iPhone 4S is the first smartphone we know of having version 4.0 of the low energy Bluetooth stack. 




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masseur12 years, 5 months ago
The queue starts here!
I'll be getting another white, of course, and 64gb.
The upgrades here, combined with the iCloud, Siri, music match etc are going to make the iphone 4S even hard to put down for me
adsada12 years, 5 months ago
How this will be popular is still beyond me, Apple fans have waited 16 months and for what? Really anything revolutionary at all? No just keeping up with other manufacturers.
Apple are disgusting, nothing more, nothing less.
korbindallis12 years, 5 months ago
crap nothing new in this announcement

Samsung Galaxy Note
or
Nexus Prime
FTW
daviep12 years, 5 months ago
might not see the usual big queues outside apple stores on release day
Bonovox12 years, 5 months ago
The 1080p,8 meg camera & dual core is nice. But. After 16 months why did they not re-design & have a larger screen?? And why did they not move that gap with the antenna issue was??
etaab12 years, 5 months ago
I dont think it does keep up with other manufacturers. And, i doubt anyone will even know the 4S has been released if they miss the news today. If they walk past an Apple store, i dont think they'd even notice the S on the end of the 4.
masseur12 years, 5 months ago
as I said elsewhere, this is clearly a refresh while they focus on the software and icloud aspects.

@etaab, perhaps they should have called it the 4gs? as the 3gs certainly got very noticed and it wasn't a particularly major upgrade from the 3g

and tell me any manufacturer who consitantly provides the number of software and/or hardware feature upgrades that Apple has in the iPhone in the last 4 years?
Bonovox12 years, 5 months ago
Not anyway. I guess it's the same as releasing the Arc S really.
julias12 years, 5 months ago
They should rename it after today as the iphone 4F (Fail).
Bonovox12 years, 5 months ago
Be careful masseur will be unhappy with your comments like he was with mine
rikken12 years, 5 months ago
or iPhone S. . . . . .ucks
julias12 years, 5 months ago

On 2011-10-04 23:36:34, Bonovox wrote:
Be careful masseur will be unhappy with your comments like he was with mine

Don't worry masseur can take a joke and is no Apple fanboy. (I think?)
xperia_man12 years, 5 months ago
What a Load of crap apple needs to realise you can only try this once as they did with the 3G to 3GS stands for iPhone4Shit
I was hoping this would beat the HTC Titan the only thing better is the 32GB and 64GB storage
APPLE this is your Failure point .
mriley12 years, 5 months ago
I think everyone was expecting a shift like we saw between the 3GS to the 4G. Although, since when was that how Apple ran the company? They're all about small fairly minor upgrades between models but market those changes as revolutionary. That's how they make their money, it's pretty rare that you get such a great revolutionary improvement between products.
What I wanna know is why didn't Tim Cook present the iPhone 4S instead of some random person that nobody's seen before?
The only exciting thing about the launch was Siri, imo.
[ This Message was edited by: mriley on 2011-10-04 22:52 ]
Bonovox12 years, 5 months ago
Steve Jobs is ill still isn't he??
julias12 years, 5 months ago

On 2011-10-04 23:52:49, Bonovox wrote:
Steve Jobs is ill still isn't he??

Yes but still chairman of Apple pulling the strings.
Bonovox12 years, 5 months ago
Oh so he never fully stepped down then??
julias12 years, 5 months ago

On 2011-10-04 23:58:18, Bonovox wrote:
Oh so he never fully stepped down then??

Oh no that was only cosmetic as he wanted to concentrate on his health but he still very much in the driving seat at Apple.
goldenface12 years, 5 months ago
I find that with Voice activated stuff, it only works well if the environment you use them in is quite quiet - which is not all the time, but if they can get past this then it will be impressive.
julias12 years, 5 months ago

On 2011-10-05 00:12:12, goldenface wrote:
I find that with Voice activated stuff, it only works well if the environment you use them in is quite quiet - which is not all the time, but if they can get past this then it will be impressive.


Exactly voice commands are again nothing new and is very old news now which Apple claim to be something they somehow invented well most of us know here that its been done and is nothing but a gimmick and rarely works properly Windows Phone has this feature now and it only works in certain places and conditions and i doubt apples version will be any different.
[ This Message was edited by: julias on 2011-10-04 23:24 ]
masseur12 years, 5 months ago
I don't use voice control on my Garmin GPS in the car as I agree that is next to useless, but I've never had trouble using the existing voice command on iphone 4 to dial numbers in busy areas likes London Bridge station.
I'll reserve judgement on this Siri until I have tried it. Unfortunately it wasn't a part of the iOS 5 beta...
chunkybeats12 years, 5 months ago
This will be interesting as people who love Apple will feel cheated as they really go for looks and not for functionality and really that cool factor has worn off now, especially when they try show off their new devices it will basically be iphone 4 so a flop! Sony Ericsson you rule and now you can come back and get some of that market share Apple stole from you!
goldenface12 years, 5 months ago

On 2011-10-05 00:34:09, chunkybeats wrote:
This will be interesting as people who love Apple will feel cheated as they really go for looks and not for functionality and really that cool factor has worn off now, especially when they try show off their new devices it will basically be iphone 4 so a flop! Sony Ericsson you rule and now you can come back and get some of that market share Apple stole from you!

That's what I was just about to post - for the image conscious, the iP4s looks like the upgrade.
Ironically, the Samsung GSII probably looks like what people were expecting the next iPhone to look like - slimmer, faster, brighter.
masseur12 years, 5 months ago
so actually, its sounding to me that most people are dissapointed that the media based hype has not met media based expectations in the direction of hardware while, at the same time, there seems to be little chatter in the blogs etc about iCloud and other latest offerings
Thats probably as most except beta testers have yet to experience it but I'm confident that when it is available next week, even those that have used mobile me and .mac (which I never did but read much about), will be more than impressed, not to mention the cheap offerings of music match to improve most of our music library quality etc.
...and why would Apple make something that looks like the SGS2? surely thats just asking for trouble (not that I would have minded!)
Haribolman12 years, 5 months ago
Apart from the phone continuing to look about ten years out of date with it's flat, featureless body, small screen, massive borders and way-out-of-fashion rounded corners, what does it offer? Move along, nothing to see here. All Apple has done is made it even easier for companies like to continue releasing phones that are fashion statements as well as feature rich.
Anyway, now that we know the phone is identical in looks to the previous model, what does that say about all the liers who claimed to know how it would look? Nice way to ruin your credibility guys! Tail between legs!
masseur12 years, 5 months ago
I appreciate that everyone has their own idea of beauty but as most of your post is about looks, do I understand that your judgement is wholly based on appearance and not capabilities?
are most companies not reducing their form factors to minimise buttons and maximise use of soft keys etc? this improves reliability and also flexibility
indeed it seems that most devices/tablets etc are becoming flat and apparantly featureless... thats the advantage of touch screen technology isn't it?
goldenface12 years, 5 months ago
Exactly!
I've no doubt it will sell by the bucket load still and with the lead they are in at the moment I guess they can rest on their laurels for a while but with the success they have had over the past few years it would be impossible for them to live up to the hype created by the media - curved screen, teardrop shape, an iPhone mini etc.
Who knows, they might have been affected by component shortages, delayed the ip5 and resorted to the next best offering.
Supa_Fly12 years, 5 months ago
I really think that Apple has reached the pinnacle of their mobile device dream. Many had thought the iPad was the evolution of the Newton ... it wasn't. It was a necessary step to the Knowledge Navigator ... just like Siri used in the iPhone 4S.
For those that don't know ... think about the direction of the laptops using SSD with the MBA (2011 Love mine), the iPhone 4S+Siri, and the iPad 2 ....
Think of how developers can create the next generation of applications using Siri as an API (no this won't happen this next 12mths but soon after we will see incredible changes).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mLqJNDWx-8
argiriano12 years, 5 months ago
So how many iSuicides in US last night...?

PS: As I sad for me personally user experience is far more important than cutting edge hardwere and I`m sure iPhone 4 S will deliver in that respect and will sell pretty well. Also I`m sure it`s camera will be class leading once again, but it`s still not enough for me to buy one... as I just prefer something sweet like ICS than sour apples.

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