Apple CEO Tim Cook officially unveiled the company’s new iPhone 4S yesterday from Cupertino. The smartphone is expected to ship by October 14.
The new version features a dual core processor with up to 7x faster graphics performance, an 8 megapixel digital camera that can capture 1080P video, a GSM/CDMA radio with enhancements to speed data downloading and more.
The biggest news is possibly Siri, Apple’s voice-command assistant that can handle surprisingly complex commands and dictation (the name comes from a “virtual personal assistant” company that Apple purchased last year).
While some have expressed disappointment that Apple didn’t release the iPhone 5 this week, early reaction to the iPhone 4S features seem positive. The device’s new A5 processor, for example, is the chip used in the iPad 2, and packs an Apple-designed digital signal processor that helps with things like face detection. The phone also now supports the faster HSPA+ network.
The 8MP camera features backside illumination, allowing it to gather 73 percent more light and have 1/3 faster photo-snapping speed. It can also record higher-resolution 1080p high-definition video.
The iPhone 4S supports mirroring to a TV over AirPlay, Apple TV or a wired connection, while also packing iOS 5.
“The 4S will come in both black and white, starting at $199 for 16GB and $299 for the 32GB, but the big news is a new 64GB model coming in at a whopping $399,” reports Engadget.
Additionally, Sprint will now be offering the 8GB iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. Sprint customers can place pre-orders for the device starting this Friday, October 7th.
Dragon Go! — a new voice-powered search app from Nuance Communications — is looking to join Google and Bing as a top search engine for mobile devices. (Nuance also offers the popular Dragon Dictation transcription program and a more generic voice search app called Dragon Search.)
Although not the first voice-activated search service available, Dragon Go is unique in that it identifies which ideal application to use for each query. For example, if “Play R.E.M.” is searched, Dragon Go will open Pandora — but if movie tickets are searched for, Fandango will open.
Nuance developed an open architecture geared toward including all types of vertical queries. It presently supports more than 180 services such as Yelp, Wikipedia, Pandora, IMDb, Fandango, OpenTable and Google.
The free app is currently available via Apple’s App Store and works on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.