Apple Unveils iPhone 4S, Available Starting October 14th

Just moments ago at Apple’s iPhone media event, Apple has unveiled the new iPhone, called the iPhone 4S. The new device will have the same design as the iPhone 4, feature the expected A5 processor, as well as an 8MP camera that can shoot video in 1080p.

The 4S, pictured above, will include a new feature called Siri, which acts as a personal assistant for the iPhone. It can set alarms for you, look up or add contacts to your address book, help you find restaurants, and find information for you using a number of internet resources. We’ll have more on Siri later.

Also coming to the iPhone 4S are Longer batter life (8 hrs talk time on 3G, 9 hours browsing on Wi-Fi, 10 hours video, 40 hours music), and a dual-band antenna that can connect to both GSM and CDMA providers

The A5 chip includes dual-core graphics abilities, and will give the iPhone 4S up to seven times better graphics performance. Infinity Blade 2 was demoed on stage to show off the new gaming abilities of the iPhone 4S (images from the Ars Technica live blog).

The camera on the 4S will be able to print full 8×10 photos (3264×2448), as well as shooting 1080p video, and is a higher quality camera, featuring a 5-element lens and a Hybrid IR filter (the iPhone 4 camera had a 4-element lens).

The iPhone 4S will be available for pre-order on October 7th, and will launch on October 14th (as we predicted earlier) in the US, Canada, Australia, UK, France and Germany. The 4S will support Verizon, AT&T and Sprint as US carriers. It will be available in a 16GB version for $199, 32GB for $299, and 64GB for $399, and will reach 22 additional countries on October 28th, and 100 additional countries by the end of the year.

Update: I’ve just been alerted to a blip from today’s iPhone (picture shown above courtesy of Engadget) event stating that the iPhone 4S will support wireless Airplay mirroring, just like the iPad 2.

J. Glenn Künzler

Glenn is Managing Editor at MacTrast, and has been using a Mac since he bought his first MacBook Pro in 2006. He lives in a small town in Utah, enjoys bacon more than you can possibly imagine, and is severely addicted to pie.