Apple has announced iPhone 4S at a press conference in the US today, with Epic’s Mike Capps confirming Infinity Blade II for release on December 1. The phone itself hits October 14.
iPhone 4S
Stage picture courtesy of Engadget.
The new phone will run on Apple’s A5 dual core processor, delivering double the CPU speed of the current iPhone 4 and “up to seven times faster graphics.”
You can watch a promo video of it here, which includes Infinity Blade II footage.
Mike Capps came out onto the stage immediately after the announcement to confirm Infinity Blade II will only run on the phone “because it’s awesome.” Shots of Infinity Blade II are below.
Battery life was addressed in the presentation: Apple said the device would deliver 40 hours of music playback and 10 hours of video. Nothing was mentioned of gaming endurance, however.
Reception quality for the new phone is to be “even better” than the standard iPhone 4. It will come with an 8 megapixel camera capable of f2.4 and an intelligent assistant called Siri was announced for it as well, which runs off voice recognition. What to know what the weather is like? Just ask Siri and it will give you a forecast using natural language.
Want to know how many Greek restaurants are in Palo Alto? Ask Siri and it will responds with “I’ve found five Greek restaurants, and I’ve sorted them by rating.” The virtual assistant will tell you when you have meetings, can respond to messages, and even tell you whether your are attractive or not (okay we made that last bit up). But it seems like everyone at the event is amazed by this feature, so it may be something you will want to play with on more than one occasion as it can also do dictation (like many a Mad Men secretary). Therefore, if you use an app where you’d type on a keyboard, you can now dictate it by voice instead.
Siri will work out of the box, but will “get better” as it learns your voice, English (US, UK, and Australia) plus French and German will be available to in the beta to start, with more languages and services coming soon.
All in all, iPhone 4S works on 3G and Wi-Fi, has an A5 processor, AirPlay Mirroring, a new antenna system, better optics, HD video, and the lovely Siri.
It comes in the following black or white models: 16GB: $199, 32GB for $299, 64GB for $399 for a two-year contract. Pre-orders start Friday, and it will arrive in the US, Canada, Australia, the UK, France, Germany, and Japan October 14. In the US Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint will be the carriers, and on October 28, 22 more countries will get the phone, with 70 more countries getting it by the end of the year on over 100 carriers.
Full specs can be found over on Gamersyde.
iPhone, iPad, iPod
Earlier in the presentation, CEO Tim Cook noted that year-over-year iPhone sales are up 125 percent compared to 74 percent last year with iPhone 4 making up half of the overall iPhone market, with the smartphone taking up five percent of the overall mobile market.
“We have passed the quarter of a billion sales mark” for iOS devices he said, which broken down means that 250 million iPhones, iPods, and iPads have been sold.
Cook switched to talking about iPad, calling it the “undisputed” number one tablet in the world, and that three quarters of all tablets sold are iPads. Full-tabbed browsing is coming to the tablet with the release of iOS 5.
Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iOS Software at Apple, then took the stage to say that iOS is now the number one mobile operating system, and stands at 43 percent compared to Android’s 33 percent as of the July.
Over 500,000 apps are in the App Store, with 140,000 available specifically for iPad.
“That gives anyone who owns an iPad a better experience,” he said. “All of this together makes the App Store the number one store for mobile apps.”
So far, customers have download 18 billion apps, which is over a billion a month with Apple paying out $3 billion to developers as a result of the sales.
Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, announced the new iPod nano which will come in seven colors and will run you $149 for 16GB and $129 for 8GB. It’s available today.
iOS 5
Forstall mentioned the top 10 features of iOS 5, after noting that Hallmark is heading to the OS. One of these is swipe down notifications, like on Android, foregoing the use of annoying pop ups.
Other new features are Reminders, iMessage, Newsstand, and updated camera app, and a new Game Center which now boasts 67 million user accounts. The service will now allow sharing, uploading of pictures, achievements points and recommendations.
Safari updates were mentioned, a PC Free feature which allows you to activate your device without plugging it in allowing for wireless iOS updates.
Forstall stopped chatting and Eddy Cue, senior vice president of Internet Software and Services at Apple, took his place on the stage to talk about iCloud – which is free, apparently, as was continuously emphasized.
iOS 5 will be available October 12, with iCloud launching the same day along with a Find My Friends feature.
Lion and Shanghai
Cook said six million copies of OS X Lion have been downloaded so far, which is 80 percent more than Snow Leopard. It was also revealed that the Mac platform has grown by 23 percent since 2010, compared with 4 percent for PC, providing Mac with an install base of 60 million users worldwide.
“There are still 77 percent of people who are buying something else,” said Cook in the keynote. “What does that mean? We have an incredibly high ceiling here. We have a long way to go.”
Moving on to music, Cook said over 300 million iPods have been sold, and comparing to Sony Walkman casette players, which took 30 years to sell 220,000 units. 16 billion songs downloaded have been downloaded on iTunes.
It was also revealed that Apple’s new Shanghai store had 100,000 visitors its opening weekend, where as when the first L.A. store opened, it took a month to accrue that many visitors. Cook said there are now 357 Apple stores in 11 countries, and many more are coming to “raise the bar at retail.”
Namco game announced for iOS 5
Apple’s press event hadn’t even started when Namco’s Rise of Glory was announced as one of the first iOS 5 games to hit alongside the new iPhone. Joystiq got hands on time with the game today, and it’s a “WWI-based dogfighter,” according to the site. Originally set for a September release, it will now hit when the new iPhone does. A video is posted below.
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