Apple Inc. on Tuesday unveiled a new version of its smartphone, the iPhone 4S. iPhone 4S will run on the same chip as iPad, that is A5. iPhone 4S is said to have a battery life of 8 hours 3G talk time and can run 10 hours of video.
Earlier, Scott Forstall, Senior Vice President of iOS Software at Apple Inc., took stage at Apple's iPhone event on Tuesday to talk about iOS 5. iOS 5 which has 200 new features will be available as a free update on October 12. According to Reuters, Scott Forstall talked about the integration of Twitter into many of Apple's built-in apps. He also introduced 'iMessage', a service for iOS users.
It's being widely speculated that the new iPhone will have a larger screen, more powerful hardware and seamless integration with the cloud - besides one or more surprise features. Apple might also launch a cheaper (yet more powerful) version of the existing iPhone 4, which will take up the fight with the numerous 'cheap' Android smartphones.
Last week, Apple Inc. e-mailed invitations to a media event at its headquarters in Cupertino. The invite says 'let's talk iPhone,' implying the secretive company intends to show off the latest version of the device.
The new iPhone is expected to have a number of changes, the biggest of which will likely be under the hood: the inclusion of Apple's latest iOS mobile software, iOS 5, which has been slated for release this fall.
iOS 5 will include things such as wireless device setup and content syncing, and beefed-up camera, email and Web-browsing apps. A new service called iMessage will allow iOS 5 users to send text messages to each other over Wi-Fi or wireless carriers' data networks, while a folder called Newsstand will corral newspaper and magazine app subscriptions in one place to make it easier to find them. When it comes out, the software will also be available for Apple's iPad, iPhone 4 and 3GS and the two most recent generations of the iPod Touch.
The insides of the 4S are almost worthy of the hype, worthy of the made-up ideal iPhone 5 that was rumored but never mentioned officially by Apple.
The 4S has a dual-core A5 processor, similar to the chip found in the iPad 2. Apple said the A5 will boost graphics performance by about seven times and that overall performance should be twice as fast as before. The 4S will also feature an 8-megapixel camera capable of shooting 1080p video and a new antenna system that promises to offer 4G-like download speeds while maintaining a 3G-like battery life of about 8 hours of talk time.
Other features of the iPhone however were left unchanged, such as the front-facing VGA-quality (i.e. low-quality) camera. The prices, too were left alone (thankfully) at $199 for a 16-gigabyte 4S, $299 for a 32-gigabyte unit and $399 for a 64-gigabyte handset.
The biggest unchanged aspect of the iPhone 4S, however, was its exterior, which is identical to the iPhone 4 that was released about 16 months ago.
Of the new features on the 4S, the most important might end up being Siri, a new voice command personal assistant app that Apple says will be unlike anything else seen on a smartphone thus far.
"It's your intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking," said Scott Forstall, Apple's senior vice president in charge of all iOS software.
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