Quite a week for Apple. New Apple CEO Tim Cook in his maiden product launch announced on October 4 that the release date for the next iPhone would be October 14.
That the new iPhone is an iPhone 4S instead of an iPhone 5 was not exactly what people expected to hear.
Yet pre-orders, which started last week, quickly broke records, according to CNET News.
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Henry Blodget wrote in Business Insider that the iPhone 4S may be aimed at three categories of potential buyers:
- Pre-iPhone 4 iPhone users (~70 million of them)
- Non-smartphone users (1+ billion, who can now get a 3GS for free, if price is an issue)
- Non-iPhone smartphone users (BlackBerry, Android, Nokia)
Considering this week's BlackBerry outages, the timing for release of the iPhone 4S may prove serendipitous for Apple.
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Turbulent times indeed.
Let’s look at what Apple is rolling out on October 12 before the iPhone 4S:
iOS 5 for existing devices such as the iPhone 4 and 3GS, iPad and iPad 2, newer versions of the iPod Touch. There’s an entire article on what will be available with iOS 5 as it purports to have 200 new features. The short list includes: notifications, iMessage, location-aware to-do list reminders, integration with Twitter, advanced photo options such as crop or rotate or red-eye removal, security and accessibility features, for the iPad a split keyboard for easier typing with your thumbs, and much more.
iCloud service where your music, apps, and photos are kept on servers at Apple instead of actually residing on your device. You access them wirelessly. For free.
If you have one of the Apple devices listed that will work with iOS 5, you might be just fine to stick with it.
What more does the iPhone 4S offer?
Two core A5 chip. Translation? You’ll get up to two times more power and up to seven times faster graphics. Really good for gamers.
Longer battery life because of the new A5 chip.
8 megapixel camera which is 60 percent more pixels than on the iPhone 4. 1080p high definition video. Translation? A really great digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) quality camera.
Meet Siri, your intelligent assistant. Siri understands and acts on your voice commands to send messages, set reminders, make schedules, place phone calls and more. Siri doesn’t just receive your voice commands, it talks back and even asks clarifying questions so it can better answer you.
If those features sound irresistible, you might want to go with the iPhone 4S.
And the price? 16 GB storage size is $199 and from there it doubles. 32 GB is $299. 64 GB goes for $399. Service contracts are required and Sprint Nextel is now a carrier as well as AT&T and Verizon Wireless.
What about the iPhone 5? What it will offer and when it will be available are speculation. Henry Blodget puts the release date at June 2012. That's when the two-year contracts expire for those first purchasers of iPhone 4.
