Apple announced speech recognition for the next iPhone. Big deal. Android’s had it for more than a year. Apple is just playing “catch-up” and the feature’s not really earth-shattering anyway. Right?
Wrong. Everything in that opening paragraph is wrong, except the sentence that reads “big deal.” Siri is a very big deal, the biggest of deals.
In fact, Siri is the most important thing to happen to mobile in this decade so far.
This might be a record folks since iPhone 4S ship times have hit the one to two-week waiting period in less than 24 hours after going on sale October 7th. As you can see from the picture above all models from all three carriers have sold out for pre-order launch day delivery.
If you want an iPhone 4S of any type at this point your only option, if you want one on launch day October 14th, is to stand in line at your local Apple Store or other iPhone retailer. However, if history repeats itself we all know that the best place to find stock will be at the local Apple Stores.
It looks like Apple has yet another iPhone hit on their hands and I’m anxious to see what happens next year when LTE service becomes more widely available.
In the aftermath of todays iPhone 4S ordering frenzy Apple’s order status system has gone down. If you’ve ordered an iPhone 4S today rest assured that your order has been placed if you receive the order acknowledgement email from the Apple Store online.
There isn’t any need to check your order status after receiving that email until next week. Here are a few tips on how you can track your order later.
Best Buy is offering its customers the option to pre-order the iPhone 4S with delivery on October 14th. The email that I received points out some advantages to shopping at Best Buy. The most eye-catching is the Phone Trade-in program for a $300 Best Buy gift card. That isn’t bad, but the cash I’m getting from Gazelle for mine can be spent in more places.
With any luck, you’ve managed to get through Apple’s technical difficulties and order yourself a new iPhone 4S this morning. But what to do with your old iPhone? If you’re looking to sell it, here’s a reminder of four tips that will help you sell your old iPhone like a pro.
Following the release of the seventh-generation iPod nano earlier this week, iFixit performed its customary teardown to discover that Apple isn’t just producing its own processors for the iPhone, iPod touch and the iPad — but also the iPod nano, too.
I’ve taken what amounts to naps all night long and something woke me up again — maybe it was a little voice, but who knows. So I decided to get up and I tried my order again.
Bam! It worked this time since it seems that Apple and AT&T ordered more hamsters to keep their servers powered up and processing orders. It will even be delivered on October 14th which tells me they still have a good first supply of the new iPhone 4S to ship. I’m not sure how long this will last since there are unconfirmed rumors about supply shortages, which will just drum up more sales.
The surprise was that I even got to keep my unlimited data plan, but I’m not to sure how valuable that is these days considering I still cannot tether with it unless I cheat some how. Maybe someday AT&T will adopt Sprint’s model — an unlimited data plan with an alleged 5GB cap on tethering. Anyhow I’m mumbling and still rubbing the sleep out of my eyes the most important thing is that the ordering system is back up.
So if you haven’t gotten your order placed yet it might not be to late so go go go!
A number of AT&T customers are reporting that it seems that the order processing via Apple’s online store is failing at the point where it tries to contact AT&T for information related to eligibility for iPhone 4S upgrades, orders, or other account information.
The real error message gradually changed as I attempted to work through the process of ordering an upgrade until it finally read as follows and it initially started at a two-minute timer. Now it clearly places the blame on AT&T at this point in the process.
Sprint customers can now check their upgrade eligibility if they are interested in purchasing or upgrading to an iPhone 4S. Although the front page declares that this feature is “Coming soon” it was active this afternoon when I checked.
Welcome Sprint customers! Now you have a chance to buy the phone that the rest of us are already enjoying. So what are you waiting for – go check your eligibility now!
Hopefully the Sprint deal you get will be better than the one that AT&T is giving its customers.
Those mother$@#!-ers! The hate mongering, homophobic sons of bitches at the Westboro Baptist Church are already planning on protesting Steve Jobs funeral. And without a hint of irony, they put out the call for the protest using Twitter for iPhone. Those evil, detestable idiots.
Following Apple’s unveiling of the iPhone 4S on Tuesday, Sprint has finally updated its website to notify customers that it will be carrying the iPhone. Pre-orders for the iPhone 4S begin on October 7, but pre-orders for the iPhone 4 on Sprint are now being taken.
Next time you’re in San Francisco with your iPhone taking pictures of the monuments, try Time Shutter for a blast in the past.
It offers 246 shots of the City by the Bay snapped 100 years ago. Thanks to a geo-coded map, you can find the points of interest on a walking tour and see how things have changed.
Are you one of the Apple fans disappointed the iPhone 4S didn’t live up to the months of hype over the “iPhone 5”? Don’t worry, the hype train is still chuggin’ along, this time it’s load is full of rumors about — guess what? — yes, the “iPhone 5.”
Meet Julie Summers. She’s a “street worker” (prostitute) who is dragging her industry into the 21st century. Julie is the first — certainly that I know of — who doesn’t just accept cash, but will also take card using the Square service on her iPhone.
Wall Street analysts, after watching disappointed investors sell-off some Apple shares, Wednesday attempted to remind consumers that the iPhone 4S maker is still a rock star, pulling in profits like nobody else on the planet.
If you’re eager to get hold of an iPhone 4S, but you only splashed out on an iPhone 4 12 months ago, then you’ll be pleased to hear that Apple will buy back your unwanted device for up to $200 via its Reuse and Recycle program.
As far too many people have pointed out already, Apple’s event this morning was a bit of a disappointment — as a spectacle. 16 months is a long time to wait for an incremental hardware improvement, which the iPhone 4S unquestionably is. But there was one announcement amid all the recap of iOS 5 and iCloud features that should have been tremendously exciting to anyone who cares about the future of interactions: Siri, the voice-activated assistant exclusive to the iPhone 4S.
As always happens when Apple rolls out a major technology (in this case, e-concierge services), critics are happy to point out that Cupertino is late to the party (can you believe that it took them 5+ years to respond to the Treo?!). Specifically, they’re calling Siri a catch-up effort to match Google Voice Actions technology that’s been available on Android for well over a year. Having used Voice Actions for awhile now, I can confirm that this is half-true. On a feature-by-feature basis, Siri looks me-too. But from an experience standpoint, it’s totally different. As usual, Google’s implementation is process-oriented. Apple’s, unsurprisingly, is human and friendly. And this is why Siri has the potential to be revolutionary.
The iPhone 4S has been official for less than a day, and Samsung is already plotting to block the device’s launch in some parts of Europe. The Korean electronics giant has announced that it is filing a preliminary request to have an injunction slapped on Apple’s fifth-generation iPhone in both France and Italy.
Itching to get your hands on Apple’s latest iPhone? According to Apple representatives, you’ll be able to pre-order the iPhone 4S from 12:01 AM Pacific on Friday, October 14.
Shortly after Apple’s ‘Let’s talk iPhone’ event yesterday, the company finally seeded the Gold Master release of its highly-anticipated iOS 5 software. Until now, you had to have your device’s UDID registered to get your hands on the software early, but that’s not the case with the GM release — anyone can download and install it onto their device.
Don’t have the time to watch the full Apple Keynote? Here’s the whole thing, compressed down into just 90 seconds. Catch the video after the break.
This is it, folks, we’re here: the future. Remember Dave talking to HAL back in Kubrick’s lethargic masterpiece? It’s real.
Apple has posted an online tool that you can use to check your iPhone eligibility for an upgrade. Basically it tells you if you are allowed to buy an iPhone 4S at full retail price or at a subsidized price.
Get ready for a shock that will piss you off folks. A number of readers are reporting that so far no eligibility dates are being updated to make it easy to get that annual iPhone upgrade that we’ve all been used to in the past.
There may be mixed reactions to Apple’s unveiling the iPhone 4S, featuring a ‘world phone’, improved antennas, better camera and the Siri voice-activated personal assistant. While the announcement was impressive, what wasn’t said could leave some Apple fans disappointed, according to analysts.
Confused by the whirlwind of Apple news from today’s Let’s Talk iPhone event? Don’t worry. We got a quick break down of all the new stuff Apple released today, including details on the iPhone 4S, Siri, iPod Nano and the highly anticipated Cards app.
iPhone 4S – Looks just like the iPhone 4 but the guts have been revamped for speed. The new A5 chip (Same chip in the iPad 2), has a dual-core CPU making it 2x as fast at CPU tasks. Graphic performance on the iPhone 4S will be Up to 7x faster in the previous iPhone. 8 hours of 3G talk time, 14 hours of 2G talk time, 6 hours on 3G browsing. Also of note, the wireless system in the phone has been updated to include two separate antenna. iPhone 4S can intelligently switch between antennas to transmit and receive. This will lead to improved call quality and 2X faster download speeds (Apple was calling it 4G speeds, but we’ll save you the debate on what is and isn’t true 4G).