Apple Releases New iPhone 4S And iPods…. World Says “Where’s The iPhone 5?” [UPDATED]
Today was the first Apple media event that didn’t have Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple, but that to my surprise was not the main storyline. The main storyline was a new iPhone. No, it was the iPhone 5 that was rumored for weeks. Instead, the fanbois got the iPhone 4S. It looks the same as the iPhone 4, but everything inside is new. It has Apple’s A5 dual core processor that is in the iPad . That makes the phone 7x faster than the iPhone 4. It has an 8 megapixel camera that also records 1080p video. In an attempt to avoid another episode of “antennagate” it has a completely redesigned the antenna system which makes the iPhone 5 the first phone to intelligently switch between antennas for sending and receiving. The phone has a new feature called Siri which is an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by using speech. Another new feature is that the iPhone 4S has both GSM and CDMA technologies, and also supports HSDPA download speeds of up to 14.4 Mbps. That’s great news because Sprint in the USA will get the iPhone. Maybe that will stop their bleeding.
But I digress.
iOS 5 will make an appearance on this phone (with upgrades for existing iDevices coming soon). Not to mention Bluetooth 4.0. Sweet.
The phone will be available in both black and white and comes in three difference capacities: 16 GB for $199 US, 32 GB for $299 US, and 64 GB for $399 US. All the prices I quoted are for the usual 3 year contract with the carrier of your choice. Pre-orders beginning this Friday, October 7 and they should be in stores on Friday, October 14th in the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom.
iPods were featured as well. The new iPod Touch was announced in 8 GB, 32 GB and 64GB sizes with iOS 5 included. They have a white unit shipping alongside a black unit. Expect to pay $199 US and up for one starting on October 12th. Joining the iPod Touch is the new iPod Nano. The user interface has been updated to improve navigation and it now 16 clock faces to facilitate its use as a watch. Nike+ is now usable out of the box without additional hardware (such as a sensor in a Nike branded shoe which my wife who is a running enthusiast hated because it limited her choice of shoes to Nike shoes). Expect to pay $129 US for the 8GB model and $149 US for the 16GB model. They’re in stores now.
So what do you think of all of this? Do you miss the fact that there was no iPhone 5 announced? Leave a comment below.
UPDATE: A video of the media event is now online.
October 5, 2011 at 8:18 am
People just assumed it was iPhone 5, but all of the recent rumours, and history has shown that rumours in the last week or two are the most accurate, said no 5. They did the same thing with 3GS. It is a bigger deal this time because the mainstream media went with 5 rather than 4s, like they should have, and now look like idiots.