Apple iPhone Release: No iPhone 5, No Steve Jobs at Anticipated Unveiling
What a letdown.
Not only was Steve Jobs not on hand for the changing of the guard as Tim Cook moved into the role of Apple's chief executive officer, there was also no iPhone 5.
Instead, Cook presented the iPhone 4S as the tech giant's newest gadget -- a speedy upgrade over the iPhone 4, at Cupertino, Calif, in front of a small room, called the town hall.
Way to get your introduction as the new face of Apple off to an anticlimactic start, Mr. Cook.
But there is still the matter of the new phone. The iPhone 4S is, indeed, an upgrade, and probably deserves a great deal of enthusiasm from tech enthusiasts. It will hit stores on October 14.
What sets [these products] apart and what puts Apple way out front is how they're engineered to work together so well, said Cook, who said he is very excited about his new role.
There is a big power boost, as the iPhone will have the A5 chip, which is also used in iPad 2, and which should be great for gamers. One charge to the iPhone 4S is expected to power 10 hours of video.
The iPhone 4S will be able to handle nine hours of Wi-Fi browsing, and eight hours of 3G talk time.
The camera is better, too, as taking photos will operate considerably faster with an 8 megapixel sensor.
Whether you like the iPhone 4S from an aesthetic perspective is up to personal opinion, but there isn't much of a change to iPhone 4. There is glass on the back, and a black stainless steel band around.
The phone costs from $200 for a model with 16 GB of storage space, to $400 for the 64 GB model.
Perhaps the most prominent addition is Siri, a voice-recognition feature that allows users to control their phones by talking to them.
While many were expecting iPhone 5 to have Assistant, which was rumored to be a very advanced feature using voice-recognition, users received Siri, instead.
Siri converts the spoken word into text so that users can talk into their phones to send text messages, a feature that many Web sites speculated would be applied to iPhone 5.
One of the few rumors that turned out to be true was the introduction of Sprint as the new carrier. This is now the third carrier that has been attached to the iPhone franchise.
Though Apple made no promises of an iPhone 5, the speculation was flying all over the Internet. It would be tedious to speculate what fueled the rumors, or where they originated, but there is no denying that there are many disappointed iPhone fans who were expecting a much grander presentation than what Cook gave on Tuesday morning.
Also, there is a sense of disappointment that Apple, though still innovative, failed to create a smart phone breakthrough in Cook's start to his high-profile position.
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