iPhone 4S cues up iOS 5, holds back iPod touch 5, iPod classic death

The good news regarding Apple’s decision to go with an iPhone 4S this month instead of finding a way to get an iPhone 5 to market in 2011 is that it hasn’t held up the launch of iOS 5. The operating system which should have come with the fifth generation iPhone has instead become a part of the iPhone 4S generation, including all of its features previewed in June along with the new Siri voice assistant feature. The bad news, at least for those who still care about the iPod, is that the entire iPod lineup appears to have been punted back by a year as a result. If there was to be an iPod touch 5 it likely would have mirrored the new hardware styling of the iPhone 5. Instead Apple has left the existing iPod touch 4 in place, spec for spec and feature for feature, with the singular exception of launching a white model. That move has in turn left the iPod touch stranded at a sixty-four gigabyte ceiling capacity (interestingly, now finally on par with the iPhone 4S and its new 64 GB ceiling), meaning that the iPod classic gets to live on another year. And there’s other fallout to the Apple lineup as well…


If it’s to be assumed that Apple product launches have been on the backburner of late as the company has had to deal with the transition to Tim Cook as CEO even as Steve Jobs was living out what Apple appears to now have known were his final days, then the company can be forgiven for serving up the iPhone 4S and very little else this month. But it’s worth pointing out that most Septembers have come with a full revamp of the iPod lineup, and this is the first year in half a decade that hasn’t happened. The iPod touch remains the same product. The iPod classic didn’t go away as a result, with its hundred and something gigabyte hard drive capacity the only reason it’s still on the market. The iPod nano, which was completely revamped last year, didn’t even get Apple’s usual off-year treatment in which the nano has traditionally seen cosmetic hardware changes in the years in which it wasn’t fully revamped. The iPod shuffle now enters its second identical year. Apple TV saw no hardware updates of any kind, a year after having seen its biggest (or smallest, based on physical shrinkage) revision to date. The iPad 3 or iPad 2S, which some expected would be spring in time for Christmas so the iPad could be positioned as a “new” generation heading into the holidays, never got a mention. Now it’s up to the iPhone 4S and iOS 5 to carry Apple’s momentum through at least the next season. And that’s actually a lot…


Siri voice recognition alone will sell a good number of iPhone 4S units, even to those who are upgrading from an identical-looking iPhone 4. Additionally, other iOS 5 features which have been extended to older iPhone models like the 4 and 3GS will run more slowly or a limited fashion on the comparatively outdated hardware, leading some to upgrade to a 4S who were quite adamant that they never would. Early iPhone 4S preorder sales figures point to a multitude of people not needing any convincing before buying. Overall, the iOS 5 feature set arguably brings more new major features and makes more fundamental changes to the iPhone experience than iOS 2 through iOS 4 combined. That makes the iPhone 4S, in a software sense, the biggest upgrade in iPhone history. And that’s a wave Apple will now attempt to ride through at least the end of the holidays, before regrouping in early 2012 with whatever comes next. Here’s more on the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5.

Who will be the next Steve Jobs?

SAN FRANCISCO - Since the day in 1977 that he introduced the Apple II, the world looked to Steve Jobs for leadership on computing, technology and design.

On Thursday, admirers and competitors alike awoke to a sobering new reality - a world where the oft-asked question "What would Steve do?" was giving gave way to the wistful "What would Steve have done?"

Jobs' death last week at age 56 leaves a void unlikely to be filled by one person, historians and analysts said. The Apple co-founder's ability to envision new markets and seemingly will them into existence was without peer.

"I don't think in the history of the computing business, possibly in American business, there has been someone who was a tastemaker, an evangelist, and a technologist, all at the same level," said Chris Garcia, curator at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

It is not for lack of trying. Any number of forward-thinking technologists are waiting in the wings:

Jeff Bezos continues to expand Amazon.com in sales and ambition, recently unveiling a tablet computer widely expected to become the iPad's first credible challenger for market share.

Mark Zuckerberg is quickly transforming Face-book into the Internet's central hub for connecting people and sharing content, and has recently shown off both improved presentation skills and a stronger focus on product design.

Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin remain consummate Silicon Valley technologists, continually refining the world's best search engine while pursuing left-field innovations in lunar exploration and self-driving automobiles.

Jack Dorsey took on the Jobsian challenge of running two companies at once: Where Jobs had Apple and Pixar, Dorsey has top roles at Twitter and mobile-payments startup Square, both of which have grown rapidly while keeping a sharp focus on product design.

Then there are the deputies Jobs left behind at Apple, from CEO Tim Cook to design chief Jony Ive. With a Jobs-approved product road map that stretches through 2015, analysts say, Apple's days as a taste-maker need not necessarily be behind it. In Jobs' last years at the company, he reportedly instituted an executive training program known as Apple University, designed to instill his values and product sense into every corner of the company. With Jobs now gone, his successors' moves will be watched with even greater scrutiny.

Princess Diana?

Yet even among those running the largest tech companies in the world, no other CEO has managed to capture the public imagination like Jobs did. The global reaction to his death, as measured by the memorials found at Apple Stores around the world on Thursday, has drawn comparisons to the outpouring of grief that followed the death of Princess Diana.

To view him as a mere technology figure likely undervalues his contributions to the world, saidSteve Blank, an entrepreneur and Silicon Valley historian.

"Jobs transcended Silicon Valley in the last five years," said Blank, a lecturer at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley. "He became the standard by which every CEO in the 21st century will be measured. Forget who's better in Silicon Valley - who was a better corporate CEO at any other company on the planet?"

Blank pointed to Apple's stock price, which increased by more than 400 percent in the past five years, and Jobs' model of continuous revolution inside the company, where new products like the iPhone and iPad were launched even though they ate into sales of iPods and laptop computers.

"There are billions of people who don't even know where Silicon Valley is who know Steve Jobs' name," Blank said. "Ninety percent of the people who are feeling bad right now can't even find Cupertino on a map. Yet his company's market cap is the biggest in the world. What other conversation do we need to have?"

Silicon Valley

And yet while Jobs' loss will be felt around the world, on Thursday it was being felt most acutely at home.

"For Silicon Valley, he has, in many ways, been the star around which we all orbit," Jonathan Schwartz, former CEO of Sun Microsystems, wrote in a tribute to Jobs posted on his blog. "His absence is disorienting. I can't think of a better way of describing it."

iPhone 4S pre-orders sell out

Pre-orders for the iPhone 4S sold out in the first day of availability, according to shipping estimates on Apple's Web site.

The iPhone 4S went on pre-order in the predawn hours on Friday. Carrier AT&T called it its most successful iPhone launch ever, with more than 200,000 orders in the first 12 hours.

Users looking to pre-order the iPhone 4S now are seeing shipping estimates of one to two weeks.

• STORY: Apple announces iPhone 4S

• COLUMN: iPhone 4S: Cool camera, voice control

Customers can still get an iPhone 4S this coming Friday, though, if they wait in line at an Apple Store or at other retail partners.

Those who were able to pre-order the phone Friday will get it delivered to them this coming Friday.

The ordering process was marred with some of the hiccups that have become typical for an iPhone launch. Customers struggled to connect to Apple.com, especially when the site tried to connect to the carriers' servers to access the buyer's account.

Apple used a new triage system that offered a confirmation to customers that an iPhone had been reserved for them but said that they'd have to come back to finish their order when the account could be accessed.

Verizon customers reported an easier time ordering through the carrier's Web site on Friday morning.

The iPhone 4S features a better camera, faster processor and Siri, a new digital personal assistant. It is available to customers on AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.

Apple's next mobile operating system, iOS 5, will be released Wednesday as a free download.