You might remember Jonathan Mann from the opening of the ‘Antennagate’ conference (and Patent songs). Well, he’s back and he has a partner…
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This guy really puts himself out there. via DF
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Update: the report appears to be incorrect. We have updated information from a reliable source.
MacRumors points us to Apple’s how to buy page, where it has been updated saying that the iPhone 4S is now only available in retail stores by reservation only. The page says an iPhone 4S can be reserved after 9:00 PM each day, and will be available for pickup the following day.
An Apple representative told MacRumors that supplies are beginning to disappear, and are pushing customers to the reserve page to ensure they get a device rather than leaving the store empty handed.
It seems highly unlikely that Apple would push away a customer who would come in to buy a device. Perhaps they’ll be selling the remaining stock to those who walk-in. Customers can also order the iPhone 4S online.
Shawn Blanc (via The Next Web) calculated this morning that Apple is selling 16 iPhone 4Ss a second, or roughly 1,000 a minute. Blanc’s figuring comes after Apple announced this morning that there were 4 million iPhone 4Ss sold its opening three-day weekend. Figures are also expected to expand as the iPhone 4S is introduced in 22 more countries on the 24th.
Reaching this milestone, Apple is on tract to pass Microsoft’s Kinect as the fastest selling consumer device of all time. Microsoft sold 8 million Kinects in the first 60 days, a number Apple could theoretically pass in the first two weeks.
The success of the iPhone 4S is most likely helped by a few factors:
We’re sure to hear more in Apple’s FYQ4 earnings call tomorrow afternoon.
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Alright, calling it outer space is a little over the top as weather balloons may typically reach altitudes of 40km (25 miles) or more, which is still in the atmosphere, but still…
So these guys paid an eye-brow raising tribute to Steve Jobs in their own unique way, by launching two iPhone 4Ss into space by attaching them to a weather balloon. Yeah, I know, it’s an old trick, but the phones are new and do 1080P video. One of the phones had an interval photo timer app running while the other captured video. They explained:
We launched 2 iPhone 4S phones with a weather balloon to go up to 100,000. We put one of the iPhone 4S’s on an interval photo timer app and the other on video mode. We used s Spot GPS tracker (though I would not recommend it because it only tracks in 15 minutes increments.
The result of their undertaking is impressive: Check out the included clip depicting Earth’s atmosphere in full HD quality. The weather balloon eventually deflated and the iPhones landed safely, courtesy of a parachute and OtterBox cases for the iPhone 4S. Yeah, I know it’s a paradox that the iPhone 4S can safely land unscratched from the outer space and yet won’t survive a waist high drop.
And if the attached GPS failed, the amateur balloonists could use Find My Friends to get their rig. See? It isn’t just for finding cheating spouses.
ZDNet just published a story claiming Apple’s percentage of revenue has “been on the decline for years”. The story claims that percentage is currently 2.2 percent of sales which seems pretty low compared to other technology players (especially when Apple is so innovative).
But this isn’t factoring in how items such as a reported $200 million investment in Siri technology, a new CEO, and investments in the company’s 175-acre Spaceship campus contribute to overall growth…
Thanks to commenter Glenn who points out this perfect quote from Steve Jobs:
“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.” — Steve Jobs, Fortune, Nov. 9, 1998
Since CNET posted the iPhone 5 story this weekend…
…the iPhone 5 is a “complete redesign. This is a very large project that Steve dedicated all of his time to. He was not that involved in the 4S because his time was limited.”
…we thought it would be a good time to tell you what our sources think happened to the iPhone 5 that some were expecting. We’ve heard from Foxconn managers as well as Apple employees and carrier partners on this and have tried to piece together the full story.
The iPhone 4S as you see it was originally planned to be released at WWDC with iOS 5, like every iPhone before it.
But something happened around February of this year that threw everything off. Apple was still integrating the Siri team and code into iOS and it was going much slower than planned. In February, Apple knew they weren’t going to be able to get an iOS 5 Beta to developers in April and they sure weren’t going to have a stable version by WWDC. They would be lucky to get a final version of Siri into customers’ hands by the holiday shopping season (Siri is currently in Beta in three languages).
At the same time, Apple’s iPhone 5 (teardrop) plans were moving along on or ahead of schedule and the first prototypes were testing well. CNET says that Steve Jobs was overseeing this project which sounds about right.
With mid-October being the earliest possible date of a Siri-fied iOS being ready – with “Apple-levels” of polish –Apple had to look at its options. Would they release the iPhone 4S at WWDC with a modified version of iOS 4? Without Siri and the other iOS 5 improvements, the update might have seemed a little bland to the average customer.
Instead Apple chose a different route.
Apple announced sales of four million iPhone 4S units in the three days after its launch on October 14. In addition, the company said, more than 25 million customers have already upgraded to the new iOS 5 software in the first five days of its release and more than 20 million customers have signed up for iCloud: Apple’s marketing honcho Phil Schiller was quoted in a statement:
iPhone 4S is off to a great start with more than four million sold in its first weekend—the most ever for a phone and more than double the iPhone 4 launch during its first three days. iPhone 4S is a hit with customers around the world, and together with iOS 5 and iCloud, is the best iPhone ever.
In 2010, Apple announced 1.7 million sales of iPhone 4 during the launch weekend. The company reported 600,000 pre-orders for iPhone 4 in the first 24 hours, which included orders placed with overseas carriers.
Following the iPhone 4S release last week, carrier AT&T announced pre-orders of 200,000 units in the first twelve hours, calling it “the most successful iPhone launch we’ve ever had”. Apple then confirmed one million iPhone 4S pre-orders in 24 hours, surpassing the previous single day pre-order record of 600,000 held by iPhone 4. Sprint announced its best sales day ever…at noon Central Time.
It should be noted that the iPhone 4S is the first iPhone to launch simultaneously on three carriers in the United States, available for the first time on the Sprint network – which together with Verizon, certainly helped sales numbers. Apple also added Australia and Canada to the five launch countries it had for the iPhone 4: US, Japan, UK, Germany and France.
Pre-orders went fast and the handset actually pretty quickly sold out across all carriers following the launch.
Full release below the break:
Sprint took a big risk on the iPhone, paying a rumored $20B up front to get the iPhone over the next four years (that is some pipeline!).
Mr. Hesse told the board the carrier would have to agree to purchase at least 30.5 million iPhones over the next four years—a commitment of $20 billion at current rates—whether or not it could find people to buy them, according to people familiar with the matter. In order to keep the price people pay for the phone low and competitive with rivals, Sprint would be subsidizing the cost of each phone to the tune of about $500, which would take a long time to recoup even at the high monthly fees iPhone users pay.
Directors debated what they had just heard. Some worried the payoff would be too long in coming. One member questioned whether the multiyear deal might outlast the iPhone’s popularity. To sell that many iPhones, Sprint would have to double its rolls of contract customers, convert all of them to the Apple device or a combination of the two.
It appears that the risk is already starting to pay off.
Today, spokeswoman Michelle Mermelstein told us:
Fared Adib, Sprint Product Chief, issued the following statement: “Sprint today reported its best ever day of sales in retail, web and telesales for a device family in Sprint history with the launch of iPhone 4S and iPhone 4. We reached this milestone at approximately noon CT/1pm ET. The response to this device by current and new customers has surpassed our expectations and validates our customers’ desire for a truly unlimited data pricing plan.”
Unlimited is a good thing.
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Slashgear ran the browser on the dual-core 800MHz A5 iPhone 4S against the latest and greatest Galaxy S II with dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm processor (skip ahead 4:30). From the video it looks like the iPhone 4S was faster (as expected). However, in their words…
…from initial results the iPhone 4S performs quite well, I’m sure everyone expected that as the original held its own pretty well too. One of the fastest processors around currently, the 1.5 GHz Qualcomm in the Galaxy S II performs very well but is just barely by a hair beat by the new A5 dual-core iPhone 4S in most tests. We could argue about this all day, or try other sites but when it really comes down to it iOS is highly efficient — not to mention many many websites are designed with iOS in mind.
Damn that is a huge screen.
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The iPhone 4S is a great device for some, but what if you’re thinking of upgrading from an iPhone 4? That’s a tougher call. The phone is faster, to be sure, and has an amazing camera. And of course, you can’t get Siri unless you have a 4S… but I just don’t know if any of those reasons are compelling enough to convince previous buyers to upgrade. The concept is a particularly hard sell for Verizon customers. The gap between this year’s model and last year’s model isn’t as wide as Apple would probably like.
For this review, I returned to the iPhone after a fairly long period of using and testing other devices. Spending a week with Apple’s newest phone, I’m reminded again of just what makes the company’s products so special. It’s not specs, services, or apps. This phone is not perfect. Certainly it can be improved. But there is something here, beyond the screen and CPU, beyond iCloud, something under the surface. Some intangible spark.
Is this the best phone ever made? That’s debatable. But I can tell you this: the iPhone 4S is pretty damn cool.
Leading up to last week’s event, like everyone else, I kept reading the rumors about a new iPhone with a larger screen and completely different form factor. Quite frankly, I was hoping they were wrong. (For the record, I stated that I heard the screen size rumor was wrong weeks ago.) The iPhone 4′s design is the pinnacle of smartphone design in my opinion. I simply could not imagine how they could alter it to make it better. Even making it thinner would mean that it wouldn’t fit as nicely in your hands for taking pictures. Android fanboys are going to love that statement.
I’m happy that Apple decided not to change the form factor even though they had to know there would be some backlash from a certain segment of the population (read: idiots). Instead, Apple focused on the other thing they do best: refining already great products to make them better. The iPhone 4 was a great product. The best smartphone ever made. Now it cedes that title to the iPhone 4S.
Android phones seem to come out every Tuesday at 3:45 p.m. Apple updates iOS and the iPhone only once a year. So Apple had a lot of catching up to do, even some leapfrogging. There are some rough spots here and there; for example, every now and then the 4S’s camera app gets stuck on its startup screen. And while the battery still gets you through one full day, standby time is shorter than before (200 hours versus 300). But over all, Apple has done an excellent job.
The question isn’t what’s in a name — it’s what’s in a phone. And the answer is: “A lot of amazing technology. And some of it feels like magic.”
The iPhone 4 was my favorite product that Apple has ever made. The iPhone 4S has all the best features of the iPhone 4 — same look, same feel, same Retina Display — and adds several significant improvements. The one and only disappointment I have with the iPhone 4S is that the shutdown spinner animation is still low-res. That’s pretty low on the list of nits to pick.
More after the break:
Ah, to be European with an overzealous package fulfillment service (DHL). Deliveries have already started including one of many Macerkopf readers:
Update: In an email, iPhone Italia said they ‘disassembled’ the iPhone 4S but from the site, it appears only to be spare parts.
iPhoneitalia has taken it upon themselves to compare iPhone 4S parts with the iPhone 4.
In the old camera was attached to the solenoid lenses and the whole group moved to focus the image, in this new camera is outside the solenoid, and moves only slowly, so we think this is also an effect on the improved shooting speed. The CCD is unchanged in size.
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Here’s the initial observations (machine translated):
The ‘Touch LCD and have remained virtually unchanged, the only differences are:1) screw placement, which is changed according to the new shell with antenna diversity;
2) the patina around the proximity sensor is now placed in a slightly different way, to solve definitely the problem with the sensor that some users complain. Also now more visible is the area of the light sensor, presumably to make it more sensitive.As for the back of iPhone 4S:
1) The hook at the top near the camera was the first time plastic metal;2) The glass in front of the camera’s flash is smooth, while the first had ridges that were used to spread the light, but that created problems of reflections;
3) the back is more shielded than before.
Slightly bigger battery (5.25 -> 5.3 Whr or 1420 mAh or 1430 mAh) detailled below:
The first SunSpider and BrowserMark benchmarks 9to5Mac told you about yesterday confirmed the iPhone 4S as being “twice as fast”, per Apple’s tagline. Today, AnandTech published a more thorough analysis based on Javascript, CPU and GPU benchmarks of Apple’s latest handset. Thanks to the dual-core A5 chip first outed with iPad 2 this Spring, Javascript performance on iPhone 4S “finally catches up to Tegra 2 based Honeycomb devices, while general CPU performance is significantly higher than the iPhone 4” – about 68 percent, to be precise.
More importantly, Geekbench results (seen below) tell us that iPad 2 is clocked around “25 percent higher than the iPhone 4S”. Overall, the Apple-designed dual-core A5 chip inside iPhone 4S is estimated to run at 800MHz versus iPad 2’s 1GHz A5 processor. This isn’t entirely unexpected due to the battery concerns and the handset’s much smaller 5.25 Whr battery. Furthermore, Apple says iPhone 4S has “up to seven times faster graphics” versus the advertised “nine times faster graphics” on the iPad 2 – another proof that the two device’s graphics processing units are not clocked equally.
As we predicted, Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR SGX543 graphics units ticking inside the iPhone 4S is also significantly speedier compared to the ARM-based Mali-400 GPU found in the Samsung-designed 1.2GHz Exynos 4210 processor (they recently announced the improved 4212 chip) used in the Galaxy S II smartphone. By all accounts, the iPhone 4S has the fastest graphics in a smartphone yet. Anand Lal Shimpi and Brian Klug explain:
Chart courtesy of AnandTech
Last week, we detailed the internal docs Apple uses to tell its employees how to sell the iPhone 4S, the new iPods and the new Cards app. Today a tipster added to the trove two more internal docs. iCloud and iOS 5 First looks. These are the cheat sheets that Apple employees use to sell customers these products. Both below:
Perhaps looking to differentiate its service from the other two US carriers, AT&T is working with Apple to get a “4G” icon on the iPhone 4S when it hits its HSPA+ network according to The Verge.
The move would seem to try to further differentiate AT&T’s network which is already significantly faster than Sprint or Verizon’s (and theoretically double the iPhone 4 speed).
If you are in the US, which network will you be getting an iPhone 4S on?
We are hearing numerous reports that AT&T unlimited data users aren’t able to upgrade their unlimited plans when they order the iPhone 4S. They are automatically changed to a different data tier (in the above case, the $30 data).
Update: It appears the upgrade is just a bit more complicated. You have to remove the “unlimited data for iphone” plan and then they’ll let you add an “unlimited data for iphone 4S” plan. Yes, unnecessarily complicated and is causing some users to lose their unlimited status.
Update 2: AT&T has chimed in: All current AT&T smartphone customers with an unlimited plan can upgrade and keep their unlimited plan. We’re working on making the online page more clear, but if a customer keeps clicking continue, they will see their unlimited plan.
Apple announced a brand new iPhone, some new iPods, and more yesterday. We had a pretty good bead on what was going to happen overall a week before the event. Read our predictions post for a refresher.
But now that the event is over, here’s our rumors post mortem.
What came true:
October 4th Event: The first sighting of ‘October 4th’ occurred when a tipster showed us AT&T’s internal systems’ change for iPhone tiers in June. The date of the change: October 4th. We postulated: AT&T raises iPhone device tier on October 4th, perhaps signaling launch date?
At that point we were far from certain. AllThingsD deserves credit for getting not only the date right but the venue – Apple’s own auditorium.
October 7th pre-orders, 14th sales: We had heard a soft launch for October 7th, just like TiPb, so we worked our way back there assuming a late September announcement.
The name ‘iPhone 4S’: We pegged iPhone 4S as the name as early as April when we broke the news that Apple has seeded a next-generation iPhone to high-level gaming outfits. We also confirmed the name last week with an iTunes finding. If that wasn’t enough, two different website ‘leaks’ happened as Apple took down the website ahead of the event. Contrary to many people’s hopes and dreams, we knew going into the event today that it would only be the iPhone 4S.
The iPhone 4 design: Our April report about a new iPhone being seeded to gaming developers pointed to this new iPhone retaining the iPhone 4 design. A report from BGR detailing a next-generation T-Mobile iPhone in testing also pegged this iPhone 4 design. Additionally, TiPb, Reuters and Bloomberg all later called for the iPhone 4S featuring a design identical to the iPhone 4. We also demonstrated the first evidence for this with iTunes findings.
8 Megapixel Camera: We were actually on hand when Sony CEO Howard Stinger slipped out that they were building a high quality, backlit camera for Apple (later verified by the WSJ). Later on, DIGITIMES said Omnivision and Sony both would be making the sensors. A month ago, an Apple employee snapped a picture with his iPhone 4S. Woops.
A5 Processor: We, like everyone else, knew there would be an A5 processor.
The 64GB iPhone 4S: After a few years without a 64GB iPhone, we were finally able to confirm that Apple would unleash a 64GB varient of the iPhone 4S a few weeks ago. We guessed the prices based on foreign translated currencies, but were off.
Cards: We, like everyone else, passed over Cards app.
Find my Friends: MacRumors found Find my Friends code back in January. Since then, we spotted and detailed the Latitude-ish program. The Next Web took a pretty vague guess yesterday morning that a ‘GPS related product’ would be revealed which is sort of correct.
Siri Assistant: We called the headline feature for the keynote as the Siri Assistant a few times over the last few weeks. Our details about the user interface, exact feature set, and usage examples were spot on. We also reported in July that the feature would soon be launching with a crowd-sourced / beta standing for constant improvement.
Nuance Dictation: After reporting on incoming Nuance Dictation for the new iPhone on several occasions, we presented the first leaked screenshots of the new and handy software feature. Chronic Wire posted the first proof that Nuance is behind the technology.
World phone: We reported in February that Apple has begun placing world phone (CDMA + GSM) chips in their new iPhones. We also discovered references in iTunes which pointed to the 4S being a dual-mode device, and we heard this from sources as well along the road. TechCrunch heard this as well by way of application developer logs.
White iPod touch and new iPod nano: We posted the first photos of white iPod touch parts all the way back in July. MacRumors was able to confirm that a white iPod touch is coming in October and we discovered the three new white models in Apple’s inventory system.
The 8MP camera with better optics: We broke the news that the new iPhone will feature a brand new sensor from Sony, per their CEO’s public comments, and recently confirmed with sources that this new lens would clock in at 8 megapixels. TiPb first reported that the new iPhone will feature an improved optics system, and so did The Next Web. Bloomberg also pinpointed an eight megapixel sensor. We also reported that Apple was working on advanced face detection for iOS 5.
The cheaper iPhone: We confirmed that Apple was set to release an 8GB version of the iPhone 4 (N90A) today following Reuters report about such a device being in production. Gizmodo managed to get a few spy shots of said device from Foxconn’s Brazil-based manufacturing plant.
The $199 iPod touch: We reported that Apple was set to drop the price of the iPod touch to $199 – for the 8GB model – to better compete in a new market with the Kindle Fire.
Sprint support: We reported all the way back in June (and hardly anyone believed us) that a Sprint version of the iPhone 4 for Sprint was in advanced testing stages. This turned out to be correct as the 8GB iPhone 4 is launching soon on Sprint. In addition, we were also told back then that Sprint’s first iPhone would not be 4G, and it is not. The WSJ and Bloomberg both followed up months later claiming that Sprint and Apple signed a deal.
What didn’t come true:
Today’s iPhone 4S launch, while bringing a consolidated single phone to three US carriers, also presents some complexities. Some observations:
Another poll for US iPhone users…
MacRumors points us to AT&T’s new ‘Upgrader App’, that lets users pre-order the iPhone 4S directly from their iOS device (due out on the App Store later today). It lets you pre-order right from your handset starting Friday, October 7. Besides actually performing the evil deed of purchasing the darn thing, the app lets users know their upgrade eligibility and how much the iPhone 4S will cost them.
We’ll update when it goes live.
Image via GDGT
Find below coverage that we’ll be pulling in live from around the web. You can find a roundup of our predictions here as well as a few last minute whispers here. The Liveblog post is sticky at the top and newer posts are below.
Event is over, Archive is below
While we have independently been expecting the new iPhone to feature little exterior differences from the iPhone 4, there still has been some debate over the new iPhone’s design. Today, rumors of a re-design can essentially be put to rest. Inside the latest iTunes beta is a specific mention of the “iPhone 4S.” Along with the new iPhone name of “iPhone 4S” comes an image, and it is of a CDMA iPhone 4.
Unless Apple still has the CDMA iPhone 4 as a placeholder image until the new iPhone is announced, we’re fairly confident that the iPhone 4S will pack the CDMA iPhone design. iTunes only holds two iPhone 4S references: black and white versus the four iPhone 4 references of black/GSM, black/CDMA, white/GSM, and white/CDMA. This may also confirm the rumors of the new iPhone being a dual-mode/CDMA + GSM handset.
iPhone 4S confirmed as N94 (iPhone 4,1) that showed up in Apple’s inventory system:
The new iPhone will likely feature the dual-core A5 processor from the iPad 2, and eight megapixel camera, 1GB of RAM, Nuance-based speech-to-text Dictation, and the breakthrough Assistant feature based on Apple’s purchase of Siri. Everything you need to know can be read here.
This is from a new source. The results aren’t surprising so we’re posting here. We’re thinking these are going to be available sooner rather than later after the announcement.
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Following the news that Apple’s new iPhone N94 device has appeared in the Apple internal inventory system, we are now hearing that this new iPhone will come in three storage capacities. Given that we’ve also heard from manufacturing sources that Apple has at least been prototyping 64GB versions of the new iPhone, we would say it’s fairly likely that Apple’s new iPhone will come in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacities; just like the iPad.
In all fairness, it is also plausible that the new iPhone will come in 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB capacities, but the appearance of a tweaked iPhone 4 (N90A) seems to refute that. Provided that the 8GB iPhone 4 rumor is correct, it would make little sense for Apple to produce both an 8GB iPhone 4 and an 8GB iPhone 4S. For those who have been wondering – and who isn’t? – each of these capacities will come in both black and white. Thanks, Mr. X!
Yesterday we reported that tweaked iPhone 4 models and white iPod touch models have appeared in Apple’s internal inventory systems ahead of the October 4th Apple event. Today, though, comes the big news: the next-generation iPhone has made its way into Apple’s inventory system. This new iPhone is the N94 device that we found in the iOS SDK many months ago. This device is confirmed to pack Apple’s dual-core A5 processor, and is likely the device we described with an 8MP camera, 1GB of RAM, Nuance Dictation speech-to-text, and the groundbreaking Assistant feature.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the new iPhone appearing in the inventory system is that the model number is similar to the one from a purported ‘iPhone 4S’ packaging label we spotted yesterday on a Chinese forum. We quickly dismissed the label as fake due to its unknown origin, but it is now possibly real. The model number from the label is MD239 (a 16GB unit), while the model number for the “better” (likely 32GB unit) is MD234. According to Mr. X, this sequence is sensible, but could just be a coincidence. If legitimate, the next-generation iPhone will be marketed as the iPhone 4S, but we definitely would not call that anywhere near confirmed. Another tidbit: IMEI and MEID being together on the label would seem to confirm this new iPhone to be GSM+CDMA (thanks @rokorre!).
Following up on our report yesterday that two new tweaked iPhone 4 models have appeared in the system, we are now hearing that the two models represent black and white units. The N90A is likely an 8GB iPhone 4 that comes in black and white.
iPods too!
We are also hearing that all three iPod touch capacities will be seeing price drops in certain international countries. The price drops for the 32GB and 64GB models will be minimal – perhaps due to currency fluctuations – but the 8GB pricing will change substantially. Translated, the 8GB iPod touch may even reach the $199 price point or below again in the United States, but that is unconfirmed. With the release of the $199 8GB Kindle Fire yesterday, a move like this from Apple makes sense.
Thanks, Mr. X!
The idea of a next-generation iPhone shaped like a teardrop dates back to a report published by This is my next in late-April, describing a 3.7-inch iPhone with edge-to-edge glass and striking new design shape akin to the late-2010 MacBook Air, meaning thicker to thinner from top to bottom. Piggy-backing on the story, agile Asian vendors followed up with teardrop-shaped cases. Or so we thought.
While we will ‘talk iPhone’ next Tuesday, M.I.C. Gadget reveals that an iPhone 5 prototype had recently gone missing from the Shenzhen district. “This should explain why we are seeing a whole lot of iPhone 5 cases in China today”, the publication concludes.
Much like the widely publicized iPhone 4 prototype that had gone missing at a German beer bar in California, the missing handset was camouflaged in an iPhone 4-like case (strange because the teardrop phone is wider and taller). Inside: A test model with a finalized iPhone 5 chassis sporting the teardrop design. The publication then builds on this tip by speculating that the device houses “slightly modified iPhone 4 electronics” plus the A4 chip “and even the same amount of memory”.
If this is true, then the tear drop iPhone may be the low end device, and the one inside the iPhone 4 case might be the high end.
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