“Apple Inc. unveiled Tuesday the latest generation of its iPhone, featuring a faster processing chip, better camera and voice-command capability,” John Letzing reports for Dow Jones Newswires.
“The new device, dubbed the iPhone 4S, will be priced at $199 for a 16 gigabyte version, $299 for 32 gigabytes and $399 for 64 gigabytes, along with a two-year contract from either AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless or Sprint Nextel Corp.,” Letzing reports. “Apple also will sell an 8 gigabyte version of the iPhone 4 for $99 and offer an 8 gigabyte 3GS for free, also with a two-year wireless contract. Preorders being Friday, with the phone shipping Oct. 14.”
Letzing reports, “The demonstration seemed to underwhelm investors and online tech bloggers. Shares of Apple fell [$17.06, or 4.55%, to $357.54 as of 3:20PM EDT].
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: There are plenty of numbers in the universe. Infinite, actually. Don’t worry, Apple, you won’t run out. Wonder what the mood would be right now had Apple simply named “iPhone 4S” the “iPhone 5?”
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Apple to launch iCloud on October 12 – October 4, 2011
Apple brings new features, more affordable pricing to iPod touch and iPod nano – October 4, 2011
Do those words only work if they come from Steve? If so, we’re done here.
It will sink in – and the stock is coming back now – that with the iPhone 3GS = FREE and iPhone 4 at $99 Apple is taking a big shot at android and going for marketshare.
Surveys say people don’t like their android phones – they get them because they are cheap and available on lots of carriers.
The 4S looks dope – I’m def. getting one – psyched for the new camera and double the speed.
The 8 GB iPhone 4 st $99 will outsell any Android, Win phone, etc. The free 3Gs is likely to be right behind it (and it’s only on one carrier). The 4s will set sales records like no one has seen nor predicts. Siri is a game changer. Wait until the reviews start pouring in. Everyone who is not an iHater will want one. I recall how dire the predictions were for that oversized iPod touch…
Apple’s announcement of the iPhone 4s is exactly what I expected and (on a subconscious level at least) what everyone else new was coming. iPhone 4 design with iPad 2 internals.
No major shock, just as expected.
It is clear Apple will have a design change every 2 models of iPhone (3G to 3Gs, 4 to 4s, each ‘s’ version gaining a speed bump).
Look at the past to see where the future lies.
The entire Internet crashed during this announcement. Almost all the tech blogs had serious problems keeping their live blogs going (although MDN, surprisingly, didn’t seem to have issues when I checked here. Kudos!). Even Facebook experienced significant slowdowns from all the cross-chatter. Images weren’t loading!
So, the anticipation was amazingly high, but when has that been different? Expectations were amazingly high, but when has that been different? Stocks fell during and after an Apple product announcement, but when has that been different?
And they’ll soar again once the sales numbers start rolling in. As usual. As the happy owner of a 3GS, I’m only too happy once again to order an “S” model iPhone. These are the solid models that don’t suffer from any weird hardware issues, overblown or not.
This is nothing more than stock manipulation by many… Bad mouthing the phone so the stock will ride down and then buy and make a mint. Once people see the Siri demonstrated live, they will not be able to resist buying it. No other phone will have it for a long time because of the AI requirement to pull it off…
Apple knows timing. In this case a minor change is announced in mid-October, when the stock marked has had a serious dip every year since 1929. This year the Greek crisis is crashing the Euro as well, and the S&P is seeing it’s biggest drop into bear territory in years. I’m buying AAPL big!
As usual, the nerds here and on other forums can’t see the forest for the trees. MILLIONS of people will buy this. Alone those like me who are upgrading from a 3GS, or those switching from Android or Blackberry, or the MILLIONS who have never owned an iPhone before will eat this thing up. Anyone who has paid even a little attention to iPhone product rollouts knew that exactly this device was to be expected.
You guys really do believe way too many rumor sites. PLEASE get a grip.
Actually I think the real nerds get it. I’m a nerd and I can read specs and compare. It’s all the immature children who can’t understand that this phone is amazingly cool even though it’s not prettier and shinier then the old one.
What the hell did people want?? The mechanical aspects of the iPhone are already amazing so what is not to like in that regard? The new OS is incredible and Siri, if it works as shown, will be more amazing than people right now realize. The camera on the 4S competes favorably with 90% of aim and shoot cameras. And I don’t want a bigger phone, which would have pretty much been required for a bigger screen. The media hypes and when the hype is not met by reality, people get all funky. Maybe the media should go back to reporting facts and editorializing about opinion but STFU when just speculating.
The reaction of many so called Apple fans is quite interesting. It’s as if they really have no idea what’s in the darn phone or not, simply what it is called, what color it is, etc. Maybe it’s true what everyone says, people who buy Apple products aren’t terribly bright when it comes to technology.
The enhancements are not mediocre, they are quite extensive. In particular the camera further solidifies the fact that the iPhone provides by far a better photography experience than the clumsy attempts on Android phones. Bluetooth 4 is there. The A5 processor making the phone run 7x faster than previously, the new antenna that automatically switches between transmit and receive… and on and on. I’m very impressed with the upgrade.
Every time someone says to me “it’s not an iPhone 5” I ask, what exactly is an iPhone 5. Inevitably, “I dunno” is the answer. Well what is wrong with this phone? No intelligent answers.
This is so weird.
I am really disappointed of all who are disappointed!
I call LAME LAME LAME.
Not Apple, all of you who wanna complain on a day and at times like this, and Wall Street people.
LAME.
LAAAAAAAAAME.
(repeat ad infinitum )
OK I said it.
So what specs were people actually expecting that were not included here? Apart from 4in screen with different form factor I am not sure what else was realistically proposed that’s missing.
Anybody who expected anything more than a “4s” is delusional! Look at the history; 3G to 3Gs, 4 to 4s. iCal this, next iPhone will be iPhone 6, as in 6th generation.
This announcement was not worthy of an announcement. Why the invitations? Why the blocking off of store fronts for ‘updates’ for this? Yeah, very disappointing. Apple, for internal, incremental upgrades like this, just post it on your website.
I too am surprised by the irrational desire for something “new” for the sake of new by so many people. The current design is pretty damn great, why change it just to change it? When they have the ability to make it half as thin they’ll do it. We’re not there yet. To hell with the simple-minded “we want new pretty shapes” crowd.
Great…..I hope it underwhelms everyone! That way I won’t have to wait 2 hours in a line up or be locked out of their website when the pre-orders start.
The stupid levels of unachievable hype is due to the rabid blogosphere. Link bait. That’s all that matters. No real journalism, just BS nonsense that is design to feed the beast. Apple released an excellent follow-up product with amazing features – and NOT a mere speed bump. In any normal world without the incessant hype and conjecture – all would have been warmly received. At this point, I have to wonder if Apple’s detractors and competitors weren’t complicit in all of the hype and speculation. Certainly, Apple had nothing to do with it – but if you read the posts here you would think Apple just kicked their dog. Hmmmphf. If anything, all this just turns me off from these so-called Mac news sites.
And the stock rallied into the close (along with the market) to finish the day at $372.50.
“underwhelming?” malarkey. the A5 chip is nothing to sneer at. it’s highly optimized for good battery life but is powerful enough to do voice recognition right there on the phone, which is very processor intensive. and the effect it’ll have on gaming on the device will be huge.
but whatever. these trolls have nothing better to do than write up linkbait, and twitchy investors are twitchy.
BTW, I wonder if MDN or anyone else will do a compilation of correct/incorrect rumors, particularly those who cited “an impeccable source” or something similar?
I’ve had about all I can stand from these so-called highly accurate, never-wrong, guy-in-the-know anonymous sources who never get anything right (and who are never outed).
Getting to the point where I don’t even want to read the rumors anymore. Maybe that’s a good thing . . . . .
If I remember correctly a lot of the headlines stated that the 3Gs announcement was underwhelming. Consumers found out what an awesome phone it was, and it’s still being sold today. If you pay any attention to Apple, you know what they omit from their products is well thought out. If you sum up all the new features they put into 4S + iOS5, Apple once again sets the standard for the competition. Wait for the dust to settle and let the 4S get into people’s hands. The 4S will very likely be the best selling iPhone to date.
the issue i have is we waited 16 months for nothing more then a speed bump and a universal cdma/gsm phone and a few other features.
When we should have gotten an iphone 5 with these features plus a bigger screen and thinner body and more.
Im tired of always using a small screen when everyone else windows and droid have 4, 4.3 and 4.5 and larger screens.
I want a large screen man. the 3.5 was great when it came out years ago but come on its time to offer a bigger screen. Especially after making everyone wait more then a year.
The iphone 4S may have some nice features but it failed in many areas.
That’s called penis envy.
I’m disappointed. I have the 3 GS and was hoping this would be a new phone. I like the feel of the 3GS. Every time I go to the Apple store and pick up the 4 its a no sale for me. It just doesn’t feel right. I’m not the only one I know that won’t buy the 4
@joe
I had the 3Gs and loved it for the same reason, but the 4 packs so much more performance. If you are on your phone a lot for work- efficiency is everything and the 4 screams compared to the 3Gs… and the 4S is up to 2x faster chip and 7x graphics… oh yeah, the upgrade is worth it.
Underwhelms is an understatement!
The jump from the 3G to 3GS was less significant than jump from the 4 to the 4S and yet I don’t recall anyone freaking out over that. Where’s the law that says Apple has to completely revamp their hardware every 12 months? That’s just a techblog/rumor mill expectation that’s gotten out of hand. I’d still prefer to use the original iPhone running iOS 2 over some Android piece of garbage any day.