Apple is announcing the launch of the new Iphone today, calling it the Iphone 4s, not the Iphone 5 as was expected. Even the prestigious Guardian of the UK, is live-blogging the event, as are many other sites.
Bloggers seems to agree that the new Iphone 4s is "awesome," spectacular," "beautiful" and a host of other superlatives, however, investors seem to be disappointed as Apples stock is down 10 points, although the whole DJIA is down over 169 points, so I don't know if this is more or less than the average.
The new phone faster, has a better camera, a retina display, a new voice activated personal assistant called Siri, and supports the new search engine "Wolfram Alpha" instead of just Google. This is happening live so more details are probably already available.
The Guardian offers the following live coverage of new CEO, Tim Cook's speech with promises of minute by minute updates:
7.38pm: So that's it: lights up. Can't tell if they fell on Cook, Forstall and Schiller like zombies in the Walking Dead.
Then again, why not just call it the iPhone 5? It would be so much simpler. But hey - that's Apple.
7.34pm: Price: 16,32, 64... "it's not the best phones in our lineup"... hope rises .. "we also have the other phones, the iPhone 4 and 3GS.." GAAAH.
$199 16GB, $299 32GB, $399 64GB.
October 14 confirmed in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan.
"By the end of the year we're going to broaden to 70 countries and 100 carriers, this will be the fastest rollout we've ever had for an iPhone. And that's the iPhone 4S. Thank you."
Cook is back. "Pretty incredible isn't it?" (Crowd of journalists agape like the audience in Springtime for Hitler.) (Then again, we hear that the iPod shuffle and Classic are still available on the Apple Store, so there's good news for some.)
"When you look at these they're great and industry-leading, but what sets them apart is how they're engineered to work so well. Only Apple could make such amazing hardware, software and services and bring them together into this experience. I am so incredibly proud of this company ... for bringing this to reality. Thank you very much."
7.27pm: Scott Forstall has been showing off Siri which also links to Wolfram Alpha - one of the best non-Google search engines in my opinion.
This is the first major announcement after founder and former CEO Steven Jobs resigned last month.
I'll add a few additional articles as updates until we cover all of the new capabilities.
12:12 PM PT: The Financial Times reports, here
The phone includes a dual-core A5 processing chip first introduced in the iPad 2, which Apple said made it as much as twice as fast as the previous iPhone. The phone also switches between two antennas to optimise call quality and double the speed of downloads, said Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller, and both GSM and CDMA capability, so that it can switch among networks around the world. ...
The newest version has a camera that Mr Schiller said introduced special lenses and sensors that attract 73 per cent more light.
The latest edition of the iOS operating system software also supports iCloud, the previously announced storage system that lets owners of Apple gadgets play their music from anywhere without having to connect their devices to one another. Both will be available from October 12.