All right everyone, the long awaited event is finally here! In just about 20 minutes, Apple will begin its press event that many tech analysts are predicting will be the launch of the iPhone 5. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some pictures of the new iPhone 5 as well. It will also be interesting to see if yesterday’s rumors about a exclusive deal with Sprint for the iPhone 5 (at least until winter 2012) is confirmed.
**Cover It Live appears to be down, so I’m going to update manually. Post your thoughts in the comments!
**1:04pm EST – Sprint logo appears on Apple’s website. It looks like yesterday’s rumors about the carrier going all-in on carrying the iPhone 5 are true. It will be interesting to see if the exclusive deal (that is, only Sprint having the iPhone 5 until sometime in late-winter 2012) is true as well.
**1:09pm EST – Stuff about Macs first. Over 6 million copies of Lion downloaded (shameless plug for our review of OS X Lion, written by Digital Media Editor Matt Convente!)
**1:12pm EST – Macs consist of 1 out of 4 computers sold in stores. Still gaining marketshare in this sector (even with the push toward tablets and portable computing devices).
**1:15pm EST – over 300 million iPods sold, over 16 billion downloads from the iTunes Store.
**1:16pm EST – the moment we’ve been waiting for – now moving to the iPhone!
**1:19pm EST – 70% of iPhone owners are “very satisfied”. Even so, the iPhone is only 5% of global phone market, still room for growth.
**1:20pm EST – and… moving on the the iPad; “More on the iPhone later”. Damn, this Tim Cook guy knows how to keep up the suspense and keep an audience!
**1:22pm EST – wow, neat fact. All 50 states have some sort of program aimed at iPad deployment. Not sure what that means entirely (maybe pilot programs for schools and learning apps? What do you guys think?)
**1:26pm EST – new app on iOS 5 called “Cards”. Can create cards from iPad or iPod Touch, Apple will print and mail out. The digital world meets the snail-mail world! Kind of bizarre; sounds like a Google Labs-developed type of feature (on that note, RIP Google Labs… hehe). iOS 5 will be available on October 12 for free.
**1:31pm EST – now talking about iMessage, a free messaging service between iOS devices. Sort of a combo between instant messaging and texting, can be done over a wireless network or carrier data network. This was rumored the last few days, now confirmed.
**1:42pm EST – still waiting on any iPhone announcement… Stay tuned.
**1:50pm EST – Apple will still continue to make iPods. This goes against a rumor spreading around the last few weeks that iPod production would start to decrease drastically, as more and more people use their smartphones as an MP3 player as well.
**1:55pm EST – FINALLY, new iPhone confirmed! Outside will look the same, inside will be much more powerful. New A5 chip, dual core processor.
**1:59pm EST – Old on the outside, new on the inside! Old on the outside, new on the inside! I-Phone-4-S (To the beat of “Ice Cream Paint Job).
**2:00pm EST – Still more about the iPhone 4S. Any surprises coming about an iPhone 5? We shall wait and see…
**2:04pm EST – iPhone 4S will have dual antennas, and will be able to automatically switch between them to improve call quality. This will also increase download speeds by 2X.
**2:07pm EST – upgraded camera on iPhone 4S will be 8 megapixel. This had to be done as several Android-powered devices already have this.
**2:24pm EST – We’ve got voice recognition with Siri on the new iPhone 4S. SMS, search (restaurants, shopping, etc.)
**2:37pm EST – There will be three versions of the iPhone 4S available. 16GB for $199, 32GB for $299, and 64GB for $399. OK folks, this is pretty much it. Thanks for sticking with us the past 90+ minutes. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the iPhone 4S and all the other product updates Apple revealed today, so let us know in the comments!
