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Folks, No iPhone 5, Only iPhone 4S and 3GS is FREE



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Oct 05 2011
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Apple Inc.’s stock tumbled by more than 5%, before staging a late recovery – that’s how disappointed investors were when it was revealed that there won’t be any iPhone 5 at all, at least not this year. It had been 16 months since the previous iPhone hit the market hence the extremely high expectation for another mind-blowing gadget. It was Tim Cook’s first major public appearance since he succeeded Apple’s legendary and co-founder Steve Jobs but it seems the failure to meet the expectation triggers rounds of talks that Apple Inc. would never be the same again, without Steve Jobs.

Apple iPhone 4S Prices

The consolation prizeiPhone 4S (yawn), a facelift of the popular iPhone 4, instead of a new model iPhone 5. The iPhone 4S will come in black and white – $199 for a 16 gigabyte-version, $299 for 32 GB and $399 for 64 GB – all with a 2-year service contract requirement. Previous version, iPhone 4, will now cost $99 for 8 GB while the 2009 model, iPhone 3GS, will be given away for free with 8 GB – 2-year service contract applied. Some of the bells and whistles introduced:

Apple iPhone 4S

  1. Dual-core A5 Chip – deliver up to 2 times more power and 7 times faster graphics. Apple also claims the new iPhone 4S has outstanding battery life because the A5 chip is (supposedly) so power-efficient.
  2. Siri – an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done – just ask it. So you can ask your new personal assistant to make phone calls, send messages, schedule meetings, set reminders, ask about the weather, etc. Don’t you wanna ask if Malaysian Prime Minister’s wife actually owns a RM24 million diamond ring? Nevertheless, this feature exclusively to iPhone 4S could be the killer reason why people should get the phone.
  3. A new 8-megapixel camera – since most of its competitors are using 8-megapixel camera, it’s only natural that iPhone 4S introduce the same resolution camera.
  4. iCloud – the much awaited store-your-stuffs in the cloud (internet) is the most-talk about methodology in storing and accessing data nowadays. So now you can stores your (pirated) music, (naked) photos, apps, mail, contacts, calendars, documents, etc. It’s a good way to backup your data though, although nothing is being mentioned about copyright (remember Facebook said it owns everything, or something along that line, about your info stored in your Facebook account?). Anyway, I won’t store my passwords in the cloud.
  5. iOS 5 – includes more than 200 new features for your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch:

Apple iOS 5 New Features

  • Notification Center – all new alerts are placed in one place, accessible when you swipe down from the top of any screen (hey, isn’t this how Android works now)
  • iMessage – all iOS 5 users (welcome iPad and iPod users) can now send unlimited text messages via Wi-Fi or 3G with each other.
  • Newsstand – a customer newsstand (notice the 2 “s”) that organizes your newspaper or magazine subscriptions, kinda like having the paper delivered to your front door.
  • Reminders – a better way (why they didn’t do it in iOS 4.x?) to let you organize your life in to-do lists, complete with due dates and locations. So as you pull near the supermarket, an alert will tell you to buy milk, condom or other stuffs.
  • Twitter integration – with deep integration, you need to sign in once in iOS 5’s Setting and you’re ready to tweet from any of the applications
  • Camera – a new feature that allows you to take photo in much simpler steps. You can open camera app from lock screen (a new icon is introduced) and press volume-up button to take pictures (*cool*).
  • Photos – more enhancements such as crop, rotate, enhance and remove red-eye. You can also organize your photos in albums. OK, stop crying if you’ve already bought those applications with such features from AppStore.
  • PC free – another step to access your data anywhere anytime eliminating the dependence on computer. You can store your photos, emails etc using iCloud so you can backup and restore from the sky (iCloud).
  • E-Mail – new features such as format text using bold, italic, or underlined fonts, create indents in the text of your message and whatnot (shouldn’t these be incorporated in iOS 4.x?). With iCloud, you can also get free email (big deal) account.

Tim Cook Announce iPhone 4S 

Now, cry or whine as you like but the era of Steve Jobs is gone, for good. The famous “one more thing” mantra is not here anymore. Tim Cook does not have the charisma, showmanship and his stage presence will not blow the mind of the audience, simply because he’s not Steve Jobs. But maybe it’s a good thing after all – to reset the perception and lower the expectation of the crowds. Given options, I bet Apple fans would like their iPhone to be able to make coffee and breakfast for them every morning.

Maybe Tim Cook is a better strategist compared to Steve Jobs. Cook said iPhone 4, introduced in June 2010, sold like hot cakes but the iPhone still has just 5% of the global handset market. Compares to Google Inc.’s Android market share of 43%, iPhone only captures 18% so logically it is still an early battle. So why introduce new iPhone 5 when the market is still hot? So the wisdom was to introduce some bells and whistles into the iPhone 4 and call it 4S, just like how 3GS was introduced moons ago. This is so-called strategy to maximise your profit or suck up all the juices from your product, before introducing a new model.

Tim Cook announce iPhone 4S

However the tricky question is the customers’ dilemma – shoud they get their iPhone 4S now after waiting for so long, with iPhone 5’s release in 2012? Worst still, if Apple decides to ultimately introduce iPhone 5 sometime in June or Jule 2012, it would be dumb to buy iPhone 4S now, knowing it would be out-of-date in less than a year. Existing owners of iPhone 4, meanwhile, have tons of reasons to smile though. Besides the temptation to upgrade from iPhone 4 to iPhone 5, existing iPhone 4 can blow their trumpets about their “investment protection” since their phone’s value does not drop like a rock.

Still, you can expect some rumours about the iPhone 5’s unavailability. Already, people are saying there’s no new iPhone 5 because the company is still struggling with the new phone or there’re huge problems with the manufacturing of it. Or the innovation ends with iPhone 4 and the departure of Steve Jobs. Or the iPhone 5 will not appear until end of 2012, if you’re lucky. Heck, there would be swamps of naughty talks and speculation about the lack of iPhone 5 during this event.

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Steve job has passed away. RIP

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