Apple had their big announcement today introducing us to iPhone 4S and Siri, your new personal assistant. Let’s take a look at the announcement and the iPhone 4S for real estate.
The iPhone 4S
The new phone will look very familiar to people because it is coming in the same shell as the iPhone 4. The insides however are a very different story. The iPhone 4S will pack the A5 dual core processor (same as iPad 2), 1GB of RAM (double iPhone 4 and iPad 2) and according to Apple will perform about 7x faster than the iPhone 4.
The battery life has seen an increase as it is now boasting 8 hours of 3G talk time with 6 hours of 3G data usage.
A new 8MP camera which promises to capture much better photos at bright and at low light.
iPhone 4S is promising 14.4 Mbps down which falls into “4G” speeds. This is going to depend on your carrier and location however so I wouldn’t get too excited just yet about Internet speeds.
Siri
Siri is what was being rumored as Assistant. Basically you are now able to have a conversation with your phone and have it do things like find you a restaurant, tell you the weather, book you an appointment, read texts to you and send texts and emails among many other promised features. We will have to wait and see how good Siri is but early impressions seem pretty positive so I am excited to read more reviews as they become available.
Pricing
There seems to be an issue with the live updates showing the price…
16GB $199, 32GB $299, 64GB $399
iPhone 4 8GB $99
iPhone 3GS Free
Availability
Available October 14, Pre Order October 7
For Real Estate
iPhone 4S will be great for real estate for a few reasons. The better battery for talk alone always makes Realtors smile. With the better camera and the ability to edit photos right from the app your listing pictures should improve substantially. Combine that with 1080p video and iMovie and you will be able to make some amazing presentations.
Naturally, having your phone act as a personal assistant isn’t a must have feature but it certainly seems like it would be hard to live without once used to it. As a real estate agent you spend a lot of your day driving from appointment to appointment. Imagine now being able to have your phone keep your appointments organized for you simply by speaking to it, have it remind you to do things when you arrive or leave specific locations and have it read texts and emails to you. Siri may ultimately change the way iPhone users use their devices.
Where is iPhone 5?
Many people were waiting for iPhone 5 and are disappointed at the release of iPhone 4S. Believe it or not the rumors of iPhone 5 coming out “early 2012” have already started. The reality is that every year people speculate that a better phone is coming out from Apple in the next few months but so far Apple has stuck to their release schedule. I personally don’t think that you should get caught up on the naming of the phone and just accept that this is the iPhone for the next year. Sometime in 2012 I’m sure we’ll be introduced to a redesigned “iPhone 6” as it will be the 6th generation iPhone.
How Did We Do With Rumors
It sort of took the fun away, but if you have been following me on Facebook, other than the 1080p video there weren’t any surprises with this phone. The pricing rumors were off $100 which isn’t the end of the world but otherwise we were pretty much able to nail down the A5, 8MP camera, 4S, same case and Siri (although we didn’t know it was going to be called Siri).
Thank you for those of you who followed along our semi live blog from today. You can find a recap of it as well as a rumor round up below. So what do you think? Do you like the new iPhone? Are you disappointed with it? Be sure to leave your comments below.
Click here for our liveblog and Rumor Roundup.
Today is finally the day we get to find out what rumors are true and which ones are way off. At 10am PST/1pm EST Apple will be holding their press conference to unveil their new iPhone as well as iOS 5 and a few other goodies. We have already started to outline the importance of real estate technology and have made note of how in most cases your smartphone is able to perform many tasks to make your life easier. What better way to explore this option than to learn about the latest from one of the industry leaders as they announce it!
Rumor Roundup
If you have been following me on Facebook you will have noticed over the past couple of months that there has been no shortage of rumors when it comes to the new iPhone. Below is a list of the more popular ones and our take on if we will see them announced today or not.
A New iPhone
This one is pretty much a 100% guarantee as the entire point of the event is to announce the new iPhone. Apple will definitely be showing us a new phone today.
iPhone 4S vs iPhone 5
There has been lots of debate over the new phone, how it will look and what it will be called. Many people feel that a completely redesigned “iPhone 5” while others feel that it will be similar in design to the current iPhone 4 and be called iPhone 4S. It’s hard to say for sure which way Apple is going to go. Many cases have been appearing world wide that don’t fit on the iPhone 4 but all “inside sources” from manufacturing facilities have indicated that the phone will look and feel similar to the iPhone 4. This is probably one of the best kept secrets going into the event.
Assistant
This is a guarantee. Assistant is Apple’s next big thing and supposedly “changes the way humans interact with electronic devices”. Essentially the idea is that the iPhone will function from your voice commands so you could just talk to your phone instead of pressing the screen. This feature is rumored to also be taken to the next level where the phone will not only be able to follow basic commands but will be able to act as your personal assistant.
For example, you need milk but tend to forget to pick it up. You would tell your phone to remind you to get milk when you get to the grocery store. Then when you arrive at your grocery store, the phone’s locator would detect that you were there and prompt you to get milk.
Another example that has been talked about it scheduling an appointment. You would say something like “meeting with John tomorrow at 10am”, to which the phone will ask “how would you like to notify John?” to which you could then say “email”. The result would be that John would receive an email and your calendar would update with the appointment.
Some of the other rumored abilities of Assistant are to help you find a location just by asking it, converting things like ounces to pounds and a whole lot more.
This is the feature to get excited about because if it works as rumored then we could be looking at a new way of using our devices.
Larger Screen
As with the design of the phone not many people are sure if we will see the same screen as the iPhone 4 or a slightly wider screen. While the safe bet would be that the screen will be the same as iPhone 4, the last minute buzz has been a wider screen may be announced to surprise us.
Sprint Exclusive iPhone 5
This rumor came out earlier this week when word surfaced that Sprint supposedly put up $20 Billion to guarantee sales to Apple over the next 4 years in exchange for an exclusive iPhone 5 design running on Sprint’s 4G WiMax technology. The word was that an AT&T and Verizon iPhone 5 would follow in the first quarter of 2012 running their 4G LTE. This is probably the worst rumor I’ve heard and I would give this one a 0% chance. Nothing about it makes sense and nothing about it follows the way Apple does business.
4G vs 3G
With many competitors going to 4G phones it would seem a no-brainer for Apple’s next phone to also be 4G. The issue is that both Verizon and AT&T are developing a 4G LTE network which are currently only available in select locations around the country. Apple tends to like to make sure their users have the same experience so the lack of nationwide support may hold them back. In Addition, LTE receivers are a drain on batteries and Apple has mentioned in the past that the receivers would have to be smaller and better on power prior to their adopting it. What’s more likely is that this phone will be 3G and also support HSPA+ 4G (faster than 3G but not as fast as LTE potential speeds) since that receiver won’t cause any issues. Currently AT&T has a somewhat developed HSPA+ network.
Pricing
Typically iPhone comes as a 16GB for $199 and a 32GB version for $299. The rumor is that the new pricing will be as follows:
iPhone 64GB – $299
iPhone 32GB – $199
iPhone 16GB – $99
iPhone 4 8GB – $49
iPhone 3GS – $0
all of these prices would be based on a new contract.
That’s pretty much a wrap up of the rumors. There are plenty more out there but those are the big ones and we will know soon enough what is true and what was just hype/wishful thinking. Be sure to follow along with us today as we will be doing our best to have real time updates of the new products and features. We will also be adding a commentary breaking down how the new technology will benefit realtors. Unfortunately Apple will not be running a live stream of the event so it may take us a few minutes to gather up and summarize the information.
Michael Darmanin
Chief Operating Officer
Sellstate
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