So, to many people’s amazement, Apple announced the Apple iPhone 4S – yep, no 5 or mention of 5 in this event!
Essentially, at 4S (available on an Oct 14 launch data apparently) you’ll get a much faster iPhone with better power management and battery life. The device comes with a better camera at 8 megapixels, the OS supports photo editing, and you’ll be able to create and send a postcard (yes paper) using the Card app – oh, at a cost of $2.99 in the US, $4.99 all other places. The iPhone 4S will come with an assistant known as Siri which essentially provides you with even more voice command functionality, and speech recognition enabled services. Also, you’ll be able to locate your family and friends using a new friend finder location-aware service – sounds a lot like Latitude to me! Judging by the response from the Twitter faithful, the event news was OK and many folks were disappointed that there’s no word of iPhone 5. You have to wonder, if they simply called this device the 5 rather than the 4S would sales be off the charts?
Like many others, I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t watch the livestream for myself, however, the Twitter updates and other live blogs were pretty darned entertaining. Overall, besides the fact that there’s no iPhone 5 coming in the near future, Apple did unveil a new device that should sport a pretty nicely enhanced OS and does solve many of the issues that users have griped about… you’ll see a much faster iPhone 4S, better battery life, a better camera, and more cloud – oh, a decent price point should be awaiting you and apparently some carriers should be offering great deals (like free + contract) on the 3GS and iPhone 4.
Some interesting facts and figures I picked up on:
- 3 out of 4 tablets sold in US are iPads92% of Fortune 500 companies have ‘em
- passed the quarter of a billion iOS devices sold
- customer satisfaction ratings show a 95% score in a recent survey
- iOS has 43% of the mobile market
- 500,000 apps in appstore
- 18 billion apps downloaded in 3 years
- 1 billion apps downloaded per month
- $3 billion paid to devs by Apple
- Apple Cards… we’re going back to paper
- One tap access to camera
- iOS accounts for 61% of mobile browser usage
- Photo editing right in iOS
- The Friends app (or whatever Apple is calling it) could be uglier than calendar on the iPad.
- Apple has his passed 2 billion sales in the iPhone / iPod touch App Store
- Apple iOS 5 hitting on October 12th
- We still love music and we’re still making iPods
- 16 billion iTunes songs downloaded
- Apple drops price of touchscreen iPod Nano starting today: $129 for 8 GB, $149 for 16 GB.
- Apple 4S – S for speed perhaps!
- Apple Reveals iPhone 4S and October 14th Launch Date on its Website – 3GS and 4 will be made free (with contract) from some carriers
For a great recap of the event see this liveblog coverage from gdgt
The Cards app announced onstage as seen on Mashable liveblog coverage