Summary: Apple unveiled their new iPhone 4S on Tuesday at the Apple’s Let’s talk iPhone event at Cupertino. Here’s what you need to know about the new iPhone!
Apple’s new iPhone 4S is just awesome. And as Steve would say, it will revolutionize the mobile industry once again, but this time for the hardware improvements. This is a fantastic upgrade to the iPhone’s line-up and the device incorporates some changes in the hardware and some really useful changes to the GPU and the Processor. The device runs iOS 5 by default. If you want to view all the features of iOS5, I have made a post here.
In this article, we will take a look at the device’s internal, external structures, the software and new features that’ve been added since iPhone 4 and more about the availability and other essential information that you need to know about the device before you buy it!
Availability:
The new iPhone will be going on sale from October 14th, while the preorders will begins from 7th October. The phone will be available in two colors as usual. One in the Black and the other in White models.
Apple has announced that the phones will be available for pre-order from October 7th at the Apple’s website as well as some carriers websites. And the device will be offered from a wide range of carriers. Here’s a list of carriers who will be offering iPhone:
Countries in which the phone will be available: Apple has planned to ship the new iPhone to US, UK, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Canada, Denmark and some more countries in which the iPhone 4 is available officially.
Apple has also planned to release the phone in more countries in the coming months.
Pricing:
The iPhone 4S will be available at the same price as that of the previous device. That is, $99 on a Two year contract with AT&T or $699 without contract and unlocked to be used with any carrier across the globe. (The pricing mentioned here are under the two-year contract model)
- iPhone 4S 16GB: $199
- iPhone 4S 32GB: $299
- iPhone 4S 64GB: $399
Dimensions:
There are no changes in the phone’s dimensions. The dimensions are the same as that of the iPhone 4. But still, for your reference, here are the dimensions of the phone:
- Height: 4.5 inches (115.2 mm)
- Width: 2.31 inches (58.6 mm)
- Depth: 0.37 inch (9.3 mm)
- Weight: 4.8 ounces (137 grams)
Storage:
The iPhone 4S comes in the following variants, with Flash memory built-in:
- 16GB
- 32GB
- 64GB
Bands (CDMA & GSM) – Worldphone:
The iPhone 4S is taking the company to the next level. It is now a world phone, where you don’t need separate device to use CDMA or GSM. The new internal antenna system has been rethought and now can access both GSM and CDMA signals. The antenna gate problem is also sorted out and the phone is now very stable and the signal reception is also really good.
The Hardware:
The iPhone 4S’s hardware is now improved. It now sports a A5 processor, the processor that runs on iPad 2 with an amazing speed. The device also has a new GPU, that enhances the gaming experience. A demo of the Unreal Engine’s Infinity Blade 2 was made which showcased graphics in par with a high-end computer gaming. This has posed a major threat to people who are planning to buy a PSP.
WiFi
The new iPhone 4S sports an advanced WiFi antenna system. The phone can now download at speeds of 14.4 mbps, which marks the highest in the segment when it comes to WiFi download speeds from its competitors.
Improved Camera:
The iPhone 4S’s camera has been buffed up and the device now has a 8 megapixel camera built into it. As usual, the device is capable of shooting HD videos at 1080p. This feature improvement is a welcome upgrade from the customers. The new iPhone is definitely ahead of the competition once again.
The camera’s resolution uses the actual pixels to shoot a photo. The picture resolution is 3264 x 2448, which is really huge and the clarity is just amazing when seen on the phone as well as on the computer. The phone uses a new Hybrid IR filter which allows users to take brilliant shots even in low-light situations.
The camera app now comes with an in-built Face Detection system that would recognize the faces of people automatically. The shutter time has been improved tremendously. It just takes 1.1 seconds to shoot the first photo and 0.5 seconds to shoot the rest of the photos. This is highly incredible and beats Droid Bionic’s shutter speeds. Here are a few pics taken with the new iPhone 4S. Click to enlarge.
You can view the entire gallery here.
Battery Life:
The battery life has always been a concern for some smartphone users. But now, this seems to have been eliminated from the scene. The iPhone 4S is now powered by a powerful battery, and is capable of providing 8 hours of talk time on 3G, 14 hours of talk time on 2G, 300 hours of standby time, 6 hours of internet usage in 3G and 9 hours of internet usage in WiFi.
This is not all. The iPhone is also capable of playing upto 10 hours of video and more than 40 hours of audio. This is incredible and magical. It is such a pleasure to see that such a small device could hold this much potential in it. The battery is pretty much the same as that of the iPhone 4.
iOS 5:
The iOS 5 is definitely one of the most stable and advanced mobile operating system on the planet. With more than 200 feature improvements from its previous version of iOS, the software is cool, stable and is efficient in handling multi-tasking. A list of new features log has been posted here. You can also add up some features as and when you see them.
Siri Assistant:
iOS 5 that comes with iPhone 4S is now equipped with Siri’s voice based assistant that would help you in getting information both from your phone as well as from the internet with just your voice. The demo which was showed at the Let’s talk iPhone event was very stable and the device responds to you with such an accuracy. It can help you search, pick up calls, reply to messages, fix up an appointment and much more.
The new personal assistant has got a system-wide integration. Thus, anytime, anyway, Siri will be there to assist you for all the information you need. The new feature has been restricted only to the iPhone 4S.
Cards app:
Scott Forstall unveiled a new app called the Cards, that would enable you to send cards across the world. All you need to do is to design the card and click on send with the address in it. This will raise a request to the print section and will ship it to the respective address. The cards would cost about $2.99 to ship inside the US and $4.99 elsewhere.
Are you buying one?
This is an obvious question that anyone would ask after seeing this new gorgeous device. You will be able to upgrade your iPhone by giving out your previous iPhone 4. I think Apple has once again lured you in their hardware upgrade and ofcourse, the iOS5 is super cool and gorgeous looking when compared to other mobile OS in the planet. I’m getting one soon. How about you?
[alert_box type=”General”] The iPhone 4S’s tutorials and tricks are to follow. Please follow the iPhone 4S tag on the blog to view those. [/alert_box]