Yesterday at 21 o’clock Moscow time, Apple introduced its new iPhone, which, however, to the disappointment of many, turned out to be not an iPhone 5, but an iPhone 4S. It is difficult to call it revolutionary, but, nevertheless, according to Apple, it has about 200 differences from the previous model.
Externally, the 4S model is very similar to the iPhone 4, but the “filling” has become much more powerful. The new iPhone is powered by a dual-core A5 mobile chip, which is already used in the iPad 2. The performance of the device’s graphics system has increased 7 times compared to the iPhone 4.
The resolution of the built-in camera has increased to 8 megapixels; at the same time, photos can be edited immediately on the device. Now you can shoot Full HD video with a resolution of 1080 pixels and process it immediately, too.AirPlay technology will allow you to display an image from the iPhone 4S on the TV.
iOS 5, which will be available on October 12, will also have updates. iMessage, integrated Twitter, notifications, reminders, Newsstand – in addition to books, there will now be newspapers and magazines. In Safari, for example, real tabs have appeared, the email client has changed, and most importantly, devices on the fifth iOS no longer need a computer to activate.
The “cloud” service for storing iCloud data also received a share of attention during the conference. iTunes, photos, contacts, calendars, mail, and the “Find iPhone” service are moved to the cloud. All this is synchronized and updated every day. The official announcement, apparently, will take place on October 12, the subscription fee for use is also announced – $ 24.99 per year, but the service will be free for iOS 5 and Mac OS X Lion users.
Battery life has significantly increased: you can now talk in 3G mode for 8 hours, in 2G – 14; you can use 3G Internet for 6 hours, with Wi-Fi – 9. The battery charge allows you to watch videos for 10 hours or listen to music for 40 hours. But the “highlight” of the smartphone was a voice assistance system called Siri.
It supports several languages (English, French, German) and understands the simplest voice queries. Siri will become a personal secretary: she will be able to answer the owner’s questions in a pleasant female voice and perform simple commands. For example, you can ask her if it’s worth taking an umbrella today or giving her a task to send a text message, set an alarm clock, find information on the Internet. By the way, it is because of Siri that the announcement of the new smartphone was called “Let’s talk”. She doesn’t speak Russian yet.
The iPhone 4S will be able to work in both GSM and CDMA networks. The smartphone supports HSPA+ technology and can transmit data at speeds up to 14.4 megabits per second.
The new device will be available on October 14: first in the USA and seven other countries, including Canada, the UK and France. On October 28, 22 more countries will appear on the list, and by the end of the year – plus 70 more. Like the iPhone 4, the iPhone 4S will be available in black and white. The device will be delivered in three versions – with 16, 32 and 64 gigabytes of internal memory.
The main competitors of the new product are likely to be Samsung’s Galaxy S II smartphones, which can already be purchased in Russia, and the yet-to-be-announced Nexus Prime, which will appear under the Google brand on October 11. Both of them are equipped with large touch screens (the Galaxy S II has a display diagonal of 4.27 inches, the Nexus Prime is rumored to have 4.5 or even 4.65 inches) and dual-core processors, which allows smartphones to demonstrate very high performance. However, even the Galaxy S II has twice the graphics performance of the iPhone 4S.
In addition to the new device, some figures were presented at the presentation. Tim Cook, the current CEO, said that Apple now has 357 stores in 11 countries, and there will be “much more.” Scott Forstall, Apple’s senior vice president of software, announced that iOS is in the first place in popularity among mobile platforms. According to Apple estimates (with reference to comScore), its share is 43%, the share of Android is 33%, BlackBerry is 17%, and everyone else has 7%. At the same time, Apple’s share in the market of all mobile devices (including non-smartphones) is about 5%.
There are more than 500,000 apps downloaded in the App Store, 140,000 of which are for iPad. For the entire existence of the App Store (about three years), users have downloaded 18 billion applications, and developers have received $3 billion from Apple.
Will obvious and secret Apple fans buy a modified version of the iPhone 4 instead of the long-awaited iPhone 5? There is a heated discussion on the Internet: opinions are different, but many are clearly interested. By the way, according to the results of a study conducted the day before, about 41% of mobile phone users in North America were ready to purchase an iPhone 5 this fall, thereby ensuring an increase in Apple sales from 27% to 41%. But the number of people who had planned to buy an iPhone 4S in advance was almost half as much.