Apple launches iPhone 4S at ‘let’s talk iPhone’ event

Posted: 05 Oct 2011 05:09 AM PDT

At it’s ‘Let’s talk iPhone’ event Apple has announced the launch of the iPhone 4S which will be available from October 14th. The new iPhone will come equipped with a dual-core A5 processor, dual CDMA / GSM and will include Siri voice control. Prices after the break.

Tim Cook started off the show with some interesting statistics:

There have been six million Lion downloads to since it’s launch
“the MacBook Pro and iMac are the number one best selling notebook and desktop in the United States”
16 billion songs have been downloaded from iTunes
300 million iPods have been sold
250 million iOS devices have been sold

Scott Forstall then gave us the news that iOS 5 will be launched on October 12th.

iPhone 4S

Then came the big news of the day when Tim took the wraps of a sparkling new iPhone 4S.

The 4S has the same form factor as the 4, just as all the speculation expected, so no larger screen. All the changes are under the skin:

Storage space is up from 8GB to 16, 32 and 64 MB
The processor is upgraded from A4 to A5
The main Camera is upgraded from 5 megapixel AF with flash to 8 megapixel AF with flash and f/2.4 aperture
The secondary camera has its frame rate upped to 30fps
Video recording resolution up from 720 to 1080
Cellular connectivity goes from ‘Quadband GSM, pentaband HSPA’ to ‘Hybrid GSM / CDMA “World Phone”, Bluetooth 4.0′

All other specs remain essentially the same except for some minor improvements in battery performance during various activities but I never take these claims seriously from any manufacturer.

Engadget has compared the 4S with suitable competition: the Samsung Galaxy S II, the Motorola Droid Bionic and the HTC Titan. In this company the Apple iPhone S4 appears to fall short in some respects:

The slowest processor (in purely MHz terms)
The least RAM
The smallest display
Lowest spec secondary camera
Embedded battery

But stands out in others:

The highest storage capacity
Highest screen resolution

This comparison concentrates on hardware. But what about the software upgrades?

The 4S is the first iPhone to come with Siri, Apple’s new assistant that provides a voice interface for just about everything you can do on an iPhone. Reports from the event claim that the performance of Siri under test was every bit as good as Tim Cook’s demo.

Apple now has a range of three iPhones prices as follows: