Finally, Apple has announced the all new iPhone 4S model at an event held at its headquarters in Cupertino, USA. The new iPhone 4S looks almost like iPhone 4 but has faster processor, better camera and all new voice control feature called Siri. Apple plans to make the new iPhone 4S available in 70 countries by the end of December and unfortunately India did not make it to the list. So we presume that iPhone 4S will come in early January next year.

Apple will make the iPhone 4S available for pre-orders on October 7 and the smartphone will be available in stores of several countries from October 14 this year. Apple will offer iPhone 4S in Black and White colours where 16 GB version costs $199, 32 GB version costs $299 and 64 GB version for $399 &#151 all with three year contracts. In the USA, three cellular providers &#151 AT&T, Verizon and Sprint will be offering the iPhone 4S. Apple will offer iPhone 4S in Black as well as White colour.

The all new iPhone 4S has the same physical features as found in the iPhone 4. iPhone 4S comes with same 3.7 inch Retina Display that supports 960×640 screen Resolution support. The Retina display offers 800:1 contrast ratio and comes with oleophobic coating on front as well as back to prevent finger smudges.

However, the major improvements are found in the hardware used inside the chassis. The iPhone 4S will come with a dual-core Apple A5 Processor that will be coupled with dual-core PowerVR SGX540MP2 graphics chip. That means this iPhone 4S has two times more computer power and seven times faster than the iPhone 4.

Next major feature is the 8 Megapixel camera at the back that comes with a custom lens that offers f/2.4 aperture. Apple has added an improved backside illumination sensor along with improved auto white balance, advanced colour accuracy, face detection and reduced motion blur. The 8 megapixel image sensor is capable of recording 1080p HD video and can also be edited on the phone itself.

The front facing camera remains the same with VGA quality and capable of FaceTime video chat. The iPhone 4S supports AirPlay Mirroring to Apple TV at 720p HD video resolution while it can support full 1080p HD via Apple Digital AV adapter and Apple VGA adapters.

Oddly, Apple did not talk about the Bluetooth 4.0 presence in the iPhone 4S that brings high speed data transfer and low energy operations.

The new iPhone 4S will come pre-loaded with the iOS 5 and bunch of fresh native applications like Newsstand, Reminders and Cards. The Cards App is usable to create e-Greetings and sent out to loved ones. Apart from that, a new app Family and Friends will allow the users to locate the near and dear ones. Meanwhile, the Newsstand app will help collate, purchase and manage the newspaper as well as magazine subscriptions.

One novel feature of the iPhone 4S is the voice control and dictation feature dubbed as Siri, the intelligent assistant. Previously, the Siri app was available in the App Store but now the Siri website redirects to Siri page for iPhone 4S. Meant for the iPhone 4S only, the Siri assistant feature is currently in Beta and supports speech to text dictation with support for English, French and German at its launch.

The iPhone 4S will be a world phone thanks to the Dual-Mode chip that supports both GSM and CDMA networks. For the GSM networks, it supports up to 14.4 Mbps data speeds on 3G networks.

Apple will start rolling out the iOS 5 updates with the new iMessage, instant Messaging service across the iOS platform on the October 12. On the same day, the iCloud service that comes with 5 GB free virtual storage for storing contacts, documents, calendars, and Photos for iOS devices as well as Macs.

Several Apple loyalists and fans were bit disappointed with no word about the heavily rumoured iPhone 5 model.

Apple has announced the a new iPhone. Named as iPhone 4S, it comes with dual-core processor, 8 Megapixel camera and the voice control feature ‘Siri’.

The phone was subjected to speculations for a long time. Despite the long list of features and improvements over the iPhone 4, the new Apple device however has failed to enthuse the analysts.

Many waited holding their breath for a last minute surprise revelation from the Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook. However, unlike former Apple CEP Steve Jobs, he has nothing.
What surprised everyone is how the “confirmed reports” from noted technology focussed blogs and websites fell flat on their face. Here is the list of five features which earlier were rumored about the iPhone 5.

Bigger Display

Practically every Android based handset manufacturer has launched a device with a 4 inch or higher screen size. In order to compete with current front runner Samsung Galaxy S II, Apple was expected to launch new iPhone with 4 inch display. To walk with the industry trends is what everyone expected Apple to do but the company prefers to stick with its own rules.

With new iPhone 4S, Apple continues to offer its “revolutionary” Retina Display that has higher Pixel density of 326 pixels per inch and 960×640 pixel resolution. Text as well as icons appears crisper and sharper on this Retina display. Apple continues to play safe on its Retina display built using the IPS Panel technology.

No plausible reason was cited on why Apple continued to offer a 3.5 inch Retina display in iPhone 4S. However, last year Apple suffered from shortage of Retina Displays in its supply chain and the company did not wish to see that again. Similarly was the case with iPad tablet where many were sure that Apple will introduce a 7 inch iPad with Retina Display. But that did not happen.

Slimmer and Metallic Design

A popular technology blog had a tongue in a cheek moment when iPhone 4S was shown with typically the same physical architecture as that of iPhone 4. For a layman, there would be no visible difference between the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S if both devices are put next to each other after loading iOS 5.

Web was buzzing with mock-up images of the iPhone 5’s uniquely slim and metallic design. The iPhone 5 was expected to have a slimmer profile like that of the fourth generation iPod and have tear-drop like body design. All of that was just faff-talk in the air. Indeed, a redesign was always welcome but Apple clearly doesn’t want their iPhone to look like their own portable music player &#151 iPod Touch.

Slimmer profile would also imply different internal architecture with new Antenna system. But ceteris paribus, the iPhone 4S has just gained 3 grams of weight amounting to 140 grams compared to the iPhone 4’s weight of 137 grams.

With smaller and less power consuming chipsets coming out next year in second half, we can probably expect the next iPhone to have a different or at least slimmer profile.

Buttonless Front Panel

Many Google Android Honeycomb based tablets have been sporting buttonless front panel interface already. Also, the Android Ice Cream Sandwich is expected to bring a new league of smartphones that won’t even have capacitive buttons since the OS interface will accommodate navigational icons at the bottom.

On the basis of this trend, Apple’s new device was also expected to have front panel without buttons. However, the new iPhone 4S comes with a single button at the front which was though well accepted by the analysts.

The home button allows closing any running application or switch between applications via multi-tasking. It won’t be surprising if Apple tries something new with the next iPhone which is quite plausible. However, only the sneak peek to the iOS 6 early next year can hint whether the next iPhone will have a home button or not.

NFC & LTE expectations

Several reports last year predicted that the iPhone 4S would have the Near Field Communication (NFC) capabilities. Essentially to enable mobile payments, the NFC has several capabilities waiting to be explored. Nokia recently launched three NFC loaded devices in India and those devices will mostly be used for contents transfer in short range.

Apple is one of the leading smartphone seller and several financial institutions were expected to be seen on stage with new iPhone launch. Unfortunately there is no NFC chip inside the new iPhone 4S. May be there is but Apple does not want to talk about it as yet. What’s important right now is building the ecosystem to make best of the NFC related functions.

Along with the world mode chip presence, Apple was expected to support 4G LTE in US atleast with so many Android smartphones coming with the same. However, the major reason for not offering 4G LTE chip on the device would be carry on with the same weight and other dimensions of the iPhone. Also the roll out of 4G LTE is still in process and is not available in US entirely as yet.

To sum it up, NFC and LTE both require some backend ecosystem to exist before Apple actually adds them to their device so that users can make use of both out-of-the-box.

Cheaper iPhone

All potential iPhone buyers have been stalling their purchase since last three years in anticipation of a cheaper iPhone model. Four year history speaks for itself that Apple is not interested in smaller or cheaper iPhone models. Instead the company cuts the prices of predecessors and offers it at more affordable prices. Off lately, Apple was expected to announce iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 models but out of them only iPhone 4S was announced.

The Apple iPhone 4S is ground up improvement over the iPhone 4 in terms of core performance and imaging while rest things remain the same. Of course there is addition of the new Siri, the intelligent Assistant that will certainly lure several users to run behind the iPhone 4S. Apple clearly states that the Siri voice control feature is in beta stage as of now. Price of the iPhone 4S remains the same as the launch price of the iPhone 4.

Conclusion

It is safe to carry few out of the above five points to be included in the next iPhone smartphone or may be the one after that.

Samsung will launch its Galaxy Note in India in the first week of November, a spokesperson of the company told The Mobile Indian. Notably, Samsung UK has just issued a press note stating that the Samsung Galaxy Note will be available in the UK market for purchase post November 17 this year.

Samsung had unveiled the Galaxy Note during the IFA 2011 event in Berlin, Germany. Since then the device has created a lot of buzz especially for its huge 5.3 inch display that offers functionality of both smartphone and tablet.

The Galaxy Note is the first device to sport a 5.3 inch HD Super Amoled display. The display sports a native resolution of 800 x 1280 pixels and supports multi-touch and also comes with the advanced stylus the S Pen. The Galaxy Note runs the Android 2.3 Gingerbread along with Samsung TouchWiz user interface.

For powering this massive device Samsung has chosen a dual-core 1.4 GHz Exynos microprocessor with Mali-400MP graphics chip. The Galaxy Note also features a 1 GB RAM along with 16 GB memory onboard as storage memory. Its 8 Megapixel camera comes with LED flash capable of recording 1080p Full HD videos at 30 fps. There is a front facing 2 megapixel camera as well that can provide self-portrait shots and video calling.

The price of the device, however, still remains a mystery but it is expected to be priced above Rs 30,000.

Apple has finally come out with its latest device – the iPhone 4S. The device, in contrary to the earlier reports, does not have an astonishingly thin body not the revolutionary NFC chip. Of course, the users get better camera, a new processor and better than ever download speeds. The new features are definitely good, but nothing compared to what the users are expecting in the device.
When the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 are compared head to head, the iPhone 4S goes ahead with its Siri voice-activated personal assistant, A5 processor, CMDA+GSM chip, 1080p video capability, faster download speeds, improved graphics, improved camera and an intelligent switching antenna. The iPhone 4S also has a new operating system – iOS 5, as well, but that will be available for older iPhones as well.

In terms of design, iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S look identical as both have Glass Sandwich design. The letter S in the name iPhone 4S probably stands for improved ‘speed’. The storage has also gone too high, up to 64 GB. The iPhone 4 storage went up to 32 GB only. The image quality is expected to be better even in low light conditions, the video Resolution would also be better.

The iPhone 4S comes with an 8 Megapixel camera compared to the 5 megapixel of iPhone 4. In terms of pixels, the front facing camera goes from 720 pixels to 1080 pixels though it still remains a 0.3 MP one. The iPhone 4S also has hybrid GSM/ CDMA cellular connectivity whereas the iPhone 4 had quad-band GSM/ CDMA cellular connectivity.

Simply stated, the iPhone 4S owners will find it easier to roam between countries which are predominantly GSM network country and those places where CDMA networks are prevalent. The faster A5 dual core processor will make it powerful device, with a claimed battery life of 8 hours. Last, but not the least is the Siri personal assistant which may prove to be quite an attraction for the users. The screen size in both the phones is 3.5 inches with 640×960 retina display.

About the RAM, a website has claimed it would be 1 GB for iPhone 4S but we didn’t find supporting evidence on the Apple website. The iPhone 4 has a RAM of 512 MB only.