The iPhone 4S is alive! But what’s different? What’s noteworthy? Allow T3 to strip the iPhone 4S specs back into easily an digestible form. We know it’s not the iPhone 5, but it may as well be…Well there you go, then. In a small auditorium in California, Apple has shown us its latest handset, the Apple iPhone 4S. It may not be the iPhone 5, but if you want to know what the iPhone 4S features are, read on…

1/ Apple iPhone 4S body and case
Don’t be disappointed, but it’s the same as the iPhone 4. While many rumors may have suggested a brand new body, the iPhone 4S remains the same. That’s no bad thing though; the insides are beefier, so it’s now even more impressively slim.

2/ Apple iPhone 4S display
Likewise, the pin-sharp Retina Display remains. The iPhone 4S screen hasn’t jumped up to 4 or 4.4-inches, but still retains its clarity and performance, which is market-leading if not at the very least market-matching.

3/ Apple iPhone 4S Airplay Mirroring
Like with the iPad 2, Apple TV will let you stream what’s happening on your iPhone 4S screen to your TV, letting you watch movies, browse the web or play games on the big screen.

4/ Apple iPhone 4S processor
Yep, it’s in – the A5 processor that’s currently in the iPad 2 has somehow been squeezed into the iPhone 4S. The chip is a 1Ghz dual-core monster, which will bring 7x faster graphics from a 2x CPU. In short: it’ll be very nippy and proffer console-worrying graphics. The storage has been bumped up to a maximum of 64GB.

5/ Apple iPhone 4S camera
The Sensor’s gone up to a monster 8-Megapixels. It’s backside sensor will let 73% more light per pixel in. It’s got a Five element lens, plus a Hybrid IR Filter. That means nicer shots, essentially. The video camera has been ramped up to allow full 1080p HD recording.

6/ Apple iPhone 4S battery
The battery’s had a welcome boost. While the iPhone 4 made a big jump from the previous iPhone 3G and 3GS, this is a step up yet again. The iPhone 4S battery should see you through 8 hours talk time on 3G, 10 hours of video and 9 hours’ Wi-Fi. Impressively, it’ll give you 40 hours of music playback.

7/ Apple iPhone 4S antenna
The antenna has changed to allow the iPhone to become a ‘World Phone’. This essentially means it’ll allow our US brethren to use the phone on either the AT&T or Verizon networks. Apple claims that downloads are 2x faster thanks to its intelligent antenna that switches between signals. Erm… So it’s a 4G handset then, Apple?

8/ Apple iPhone 4S operating system
As we already knew, the iPhone 4S will ship with Apple’s iOS 5 out of the box. The new OS boasts a massive range of top features, including a new slide-down iPhone notifications bar, deep Twitter integration, additional camera features, FaceTime over 3G, WiFi sync and a completely PC-free operation. iOS 5 will also be available on the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPod Touch (4th generation) and both iPads from October 12th, as a software update.

9/ Apple iPhone 4S Siri voice assistant
Apple’s acquisition of the Siri voice-controlled assistant earlier this year has resulted in an OS-wide tool to help you organise your life. Anything from ‘wake me up at 6am tomorrow’ to ‘get me a route to Manchester’ or ‘find me an Indian restaurant in London’ can be asked for, with Siri going about your commands in a HAL-like fashion. It’s still in BETA in English French and German.
10/ Apple iPhone 4S release date and price
The iPhone 4S release date is set for October 14th, as expected, in the US, the UK and Apple’s usual early launch countries. It’ll land elsewhere on October 28th. The iPhone 4S price is US only at the time of writing: 16GB is $199, 32GB is $299, 64GB is $399 with a 2 year contract.

[Source: T3 ]

At the eagerly awaited iPhone launch event Apple has confirmed the recently unveiled iOS 5 mobile operating system will be rolled out to iPhone users next week kicking off on October 12thApple has put an end to continued speculation confirming that the recently unveiled iOS 5 mobile operating system will be rolled out to iPhone users from October 12th.

Hitting iPhone handsets, iPad tablets and the more recent iPod Touch devices next week iOS 5 will land ahead of the company’s next-generation smartphone.

iOS 5 Features

A dramatic overhaul of the iOS system iOS 5 will bring a number of key features to Apple’s mobile device users with twitter integration to land alongside improvements the service’s mail functionality and bringing new tools, such as rule of third grid lines, to devices’ cameras.

A selection of iOS 5 features include:

iMessage:
A new messaging service that lets you easily send text messages, photos and videos between all iOS devices. Built right into the Messages app, iMessage allows you to send text messages, photos, videos or contact information to a person or a group on other iOS 5 devices over Wi-Fi or 3G. iMessage also features delivery and read receipts, typing indication and secure end-to-end encryption.
MORE Apple iMessage versus BlackBerry Messenger

Notification Centre:
A way to easily view and manage notifications in one place without interruption. Notifications appear briefly at the top of the screen without interrupting what you’re doing. With one swipe you can see all your notifications, and a simple tap will take you right to its app for more detail. Notifications also appear on the lock screen, with the ability to be taken to the notifying app with just one swipe.

Camera
Improving things on the snapping front, iOS 5 notably adds the ability to use grid lines for rule of thirds composition,  use a two-finger pinch gesture to zoom in and out,  single-tap focus. Users will also be able to download photos to other iOS devices using Photo Stream via iCloud. Crucially you’ll also be able to get to the camera from the lock screen.

Reminders
The to-do list feature with support for Outlook and iCloud, iOS 5 will now help to organize your life making sure you are fully stocked up in the freezer with location based integration letting you know about your shopping list when you pull into the supermarket. When you make a change to your to-do list your iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone will be updated automatically.

Mail
A whole host of features will improve dealing with your email correspondence which include dragging email addresses between fields, flagging important messages, notifications when you’ve forgotten to add a subject line in an email, Hotmail integration and rich text editing support.

[Source : T3]

Apple has just made its second-generation iPad official! It features a 1GHz dual-core A5 chip and, finally, cameras, both on the front and rear. The new CPU is said to be up to twice as fast, with graphics performance up to nine times better than on the original iPad, while power requirements have been kept the same. Battery life is, consequently, unaltered, with Apple promising 10 hours. Pricing, too, has been left unchanged, starting at $499 for a 16GB WiFi-only iPad 2 and stretching up to $829 for a WiFi + 3G SKU with 64GB of storage. The new tablet will come with an HDMI output capable of 1080p — which will set you back $39 for the requisite dongle, called an Apple Digital AV Adapter — but there will sadly be no rumblings of Thunderbolt connectivity here. What you will get is an enlarged speaker grille on the back, as expected, and the same 1024 x 768 resolution and IPS LCD screen technology as on the original iPad.

[via engadget.com]

Bad news, jailbreakers: as promised, Apple’s just released iOS 4.0.2 for the iPhone and 3.2.2 for the iPad, both of which close the PDF exploit used by JailbreakMe. That appears to be the only change — it’s definitely good news for anyone concerned about iOS security, although we’re guessing the Dev Team is hard at work finding a new way to crack iOS open once again. We’ll let you know if we find anything else — won’t you do the same?

[via engadget]

In a lot of ways, Apple’s iPhone 4 announcement was short on surprises. We’ve been playing with the new iPhone OS 4 (now dubbed iOS 4) for a while, and photos of the hardware had been widely disseminated, a rarity for an unreleased Apple product. Still, Apple managed to fill in the gaps and build up the hype, and there’s plenty to know about this handset that extends beyond what you can glean from bricked hardware of dubious provenance. Follow along with us as we break it all down, including detailed impressions from our hands-on time with the device.

[via engadget]

Apple’s just sent an invite “for a sneak peek of the next generation of iPhone OS software” on April 8 at 10AM Pacific. That’s in three days! We’ll be there. Start your predictions now.

We heard some pretty ridiculous estimates over the weekend, but these figures are straight out of Cupertino’s mouth: over 300,000 iPads were sold on April 3rd. Specifically, that many were moved in the US as of midnight (PT, we’re assuming) on Saturday, though this does include deliveries of pre-ordered units to customers, deliveries to channel partners (such as Best Buy) and sales at Apple Retail Stores. We should point out, though, that just because Best Buy purchased a bundle of ‘em doesn’t mean that end users have (yet), but still, this is a pretty impressive feat for something that not everyone was convinced that they “needed” in January. If you’ll recall, Apple only sold 270,000 iPhones during its first 30 hours on the market, yet it moved over a million iPhone 3GS units during that handset’s opening weekend. In related news, iPad users also downloaded over a million apps and over 250,000 ebooks from the iBookstore during launch day, with Steve Jobs himself noting that “iPad users, on average, downloaded more than three apps and close to one book within hours of unpacking their new iPad.” Now, let’s see if these guys can keep pace through the first full week.

[via engadget]

You heard right, folks — according to the Wall Street Journal, Apple is currently “developing a new iPhone to debut this summer,” and as if that weren’t enough, it’s also “working on another model for US mobile phone operator Verizon Wireless.” As of this moment, details about the break are nowhere to be found, but it’s not like either tidbit is shocking.

This summer will mark the one-year anniversary of the iPhone 3GS, and if the Cupertino-based company keeps with its historical refresh pattern, we’re just a few months out from seeing the latest and greatest iPhone. There’s also been no shortage of iPhone-to-Verizon rumors over the years, with the latest of ‘em happening during the run-up to the iPad’s launch.

Update: We’re now learning that the “next iPhone is being manufactured by Taiwanese contract manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry,” which just so happens to be the same outfit responsible for crafting all prior iPhones. That’s according to “people briefed on the matter” and sourced by the WSJ. It’s also stated that the world’s first CDMA iPhone will be manufactured by Pegatron Technology, which we caught just last week dabbling in some of NVIDIA’s Tegra 2-based wares. If all goes well, Pegatron could begin mass production of the CDMA iPhone (exact model not disclosed) this September, so it’s hard to say if Sprint or Verizon would have access before the all-too-lucrative holiday season. As for quotes on the matter? Most everyone involved wouldn’t say a word, but an AT&T spokesman did utter the following: “There has been lots of incorrect speculation on CDMA iPhones for a long time. We haven’t seen one yet and only Apple knows when that might occur.”

On a week that couldn’t possibly get any bigger for Apple, that’s exactly what just happened. Everyone suspected that a fourth-generation iPhone was in the works, but having an outlet like the WSJ confirm it just makes the summer that much harder to wait for. There’s also the possibility that 2010 will be the final year that AT&T retains its death-grip on the iPhone, but by the sound of this report, it still seems as if the nation’s largest GSM carrier may nab exclusive rights on the latest iPhone. We also can’t help but wonder about the future of a true 4G iPhone — will Sprint manage to grab a WiMAX-enabled version? Will Verizon get its grubby paws on an LTE model? We figured only Jobs would know, but now… there might just be someone else out there willing to spill the beans.

Update 2: Soon after the news broke, we were informed that the next-generation iPhone would be announced on June 22nd (a Tuesday, naturally) and would be dubbed the iPhone HD (a name that has been tossed around before). That certainly makes sense given that Apple almost certainly has to up the pixel count in order to rival the EVO 4G, HD2 and all of those other high-res handsets, but we’re still reserving judgment until we see that fateful media invite hit our inbox.

Update 3: John Gruber’s just weighed in with some more tidbits, in his characteristically polite way. Gruber says the next model will have an A4-class SoC, a 960 x 640 display, a front-facing camera, and that iPhone OS 4.0 will enable third-party multitasking. A pretty safe set of predictions, in all, but Gruber’s done pretty well in the past, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

[via engadget]

MacOS 10.6.3 is out. Y’all.   Weighing in at a hefty 438MB on my MacBook Pro, the update promises to squash bugs (below) and hopefully introduce some more snappiness™.  How’d the update go for you?

For information about the security content of this update, please visit this article.

General operating system fixes and improvements provided for:

• performance of Logic Pro 9 and Main Stage 2 when running in 64-bit mode.
• printing reliability.
• sleep and wake reliability when using Bonjour wake on demand.
• a color issue in iMovie with HD content.
• glowing, stuck, or dark pixels when viewing video from the iMac (Late 2009) built-in iSight camera.
• an issue in which the Finder reports a -36 error when copying directories to a drive formatted as FAT32.
• reliability of photo screen savers.
• compatibility issues with OpenGL-based applications.
• an issue in which shadows in PDF of Aperture book are black instead of gray.
• an issue in which the microphone level in iChat may not increase the volume after reducing it to prevent a feedback event.
• the reliability of certain third-party USB devices.
• the Accounts preference pane can now limit login to members of groups hosted by a non-Apple directory service, such as Active Directory.
• DNS server ordering as specified in Network Preferences and DNS reliability. For details about how Mac OS X v10.6 handles unresponsive DNS servers, see this article.
• the reliability and compatibility of QuickTime X.
• Data Collection: Mac OS X v10.6.3 can collect diagnostic and usage information from your Mac and send it to Apple for analysis automatically. The information is only collected with your explicit consent, and is submitted anonymously to Apple. For more details, see this article.

AirPort and wireless networking fixes for:

• general reliability for wireless connections.
• improvements to 802.1X reliability, including closed network connections , and WPA2.
• sleep/wake reliability for current iMac models when connected to 2.4GHz wireless networks.

Date and Time fixes provided for:

• Daylight Saving Time rules to reflect recent changes in areas including Argentina, Fiji, Pakistan, and Antarctica.

Directory Services fixes provided for:

• an issue that could cause the system to become unstable or unresponsive when bound to an LDAP server using SSL.
• an issue in which the 802.1X Loginwindow Profile is in place, but the wireless network is not available, directory authentication over Ethernet will now succeed.

File Services fixes provided for:

• an issue that could prevent saving files from Microsoft Office 2008 to an SMB server volume.
• issues copying, renaming or deleting files on an SMB server volume.
• clear-text authentication enabling to an SMB file server.

iCal fixes provided for:

• changing the invitation list for a single instance of a recurring event will no longer “un-book” the location of the meeting.
• an issue in which new invitations on a Microsoft Exchange server might not appear in the Notification pane.
• properly showing recurring Microsoft Exchange events which have a set end date. For details, see this article. 

Mail fixes and improvements provided for:

• an issue that causes background message colors to display incorrectly in Mail.
• signing and encrypting messages, such as when using an Entrust PKI (Public Key Infrastructure).
• synchronization of the “Sent” mailbox on a Microsoft Exchange server.
• an issue that could cause Mail to delete mailboxes on a Microsoft Exchange server that is hosted behind an Internet load balancer.

Mobile Accounts fixes and improvements provided for:

• home directory synchronization when the home directory is stored on an SMB file server.
• properly warning mobile users in an Active Directory domain about upcoming password expiration.
• creating a Mobile Account that uses smart card authentication, without using a command-line tool.
• reliability in background synchronization.

MobileMe fixes and improvements provided for:

• an issue in which movies could not be viewed in Safari when visiting www.me.com/gallery.
• reliability of iDisk Sync.
• reliability of syncing calendars.

Parental Control fixes and improvements provided for:

• restoring Safari bookmarks functionality to parental controls users.
• better handling of Safari bookmark management when using Parental Controls.
• more reliable application launch restrictions when using Parental Control.

Rosetta fixes provided for:

• an issue that prevented files with the # or & characters in their names from opening in Rosetta applications.

System Imaging fixes and improvements provided for:

• the asr command, which now accepts the “–allow fragmented catalog” option, for restoring images that have a fragmented catalog file. For details, type man asr in Terminal.
• the installer command, which can now be used to upgrade a Mac OS X v10.5 system with a QuickTime 7 Pro key installed to Mac OS X v10.6.

Time Machine fixes and improvements provided for:

• reliability from Time Machine-to-Time Capsule backups, including multiple computers.
• an issue with Time Machine in which system backups could be restored onto unsupported Mac configurations.
• an issue in which a Time Machine backup might not work using an AirPort connection.

Xsan fixes and improvements provided for:

• the reliability of Fibre channel connections to an Xserve RAID.
• an issue that could cause the size of certain Fibre channel LUNs to be mis-reported.

[via 9t05mac]

According to Katy Huberty at Morgan Stanley (who has an admittedly spotty record), Apple is almost doubling its production of iPads to 8-10 million for calendar year 2010.  That up from an initial estimated run of 5+ million.  Other findings:

• Suppliers now expect to ship 2.5 million in the first three months alone (March to May), considerably ahead of Huberty’s estimate of 750,000 by the end of June.
• Shipments are not sales, however, and Huberty is sticking with her sales estimate of 6+ million iPads in 2010. The Street’s consensus, she says, is closer to 3-4 million.
• Each incremental one million iPads shipped, by her calculation, equates to earnings increases of roughly $0.25 EPS.

[via 9to5mac]