LIVE: Apple releases new iPhones; No iPhone 5

Apple has disappointed investors and some of its fans by releasing an upgraded iPhone 4, the 4S, but not the dramatic upgrade, the iPhone 5 that many had expected.

Apple invited journalists to its California headquarters to talk about iPhone, and here at FirstPost Tech, we followed the announcement of a new iPhone or iPhones. We covered all of the rumours yesterday, and keep that post handy. We kept our the list of whispers close by to see which were true and which were off the mark. The rumour about the iPhone 5 was the biggest miss.

12:19 The markets are digesting the information, and after some initial disappointment, Apple stock is rebounding a bit off of session lows.

12:10 That’s it. No iPhone 5. The stock is taking a hit, down about 3% as I write this.

12:07 Apple says that it will be with 1oo carriers in 80 countries. Pre-orders start on 7 October, and it will ship on 14 October. The previous iPhone 4 is now selling for only $99.

12:04 After playing a bunch of commercials, they are now talking about pricing. There will be a 64GB version, which was another rumour ahead of the announcement.

12:00 The phone will also have dictation, but it works in US, UK and Australian dialects of English, French and German.

11:57 He shows off a list of all of the things that Siri can do, and then he has quite a laugh line. He asks the assistant: “Who are you?” To which, Siri responds, “I am a humble personal assistant.”

11:53 Look out Google. Siri is now accessing Wikipedia and the computational analysis engine Wolfram Alpha to answer questions such as define: mitosis.

11:52 He is now showing how Siri can answer messages or remind him to call his wife before he leaves work. I’d love to see how this works with other accents, but it definitely speaks Californian well.

11:47 Scott Forstall is going to demo the new assistant in the iPhone. A lot of people today have been comparing this to the voice command service that is already part of a lot of Google and therefore Android services, but this assistance is intended to be something new. Forstall asks his iPhone whether he will need  a raincoat today. The phone says: “It sure looks like rain today.” He says that he needs to get up at 6am tomorrow, and the phone sets and alarm for him.

11:45 Ok, now, we’re moving on to something really new. This isn’t just an upgrade or something that we’ve heard about before. Last year, Apple bought an artificial intelligence assistant start-up called Siri .

11:41 iPhone 4S will also shoot 1080p, full HD video, with image stabilisation. The higher the definition, the harder it is to make those handheld shots look stable, and you won’t notice a bit of blur due to the stabilisation with all of those pixels.

11:38 You can tell that Apple is working hard to respond to the competition. It’s now comparing the camera on the iPhone 4S to competitors. Phil Schiller really took a shot at Motorola and the quickness of its camera. Referring to one of Moto’s Android handsets, he said: “I don’t know what Droid Bionic users need to do between pictures, maybe go get coffee.”

11:34 Ok, this is a disappointment. Not only will the iPhone 4S not have LTE, which is understandable, but it won’t have HSPA+ either. It will only sport HSDPA, which has a theoretical ceiling of 14.4Mbps, rather than the 21Mbps speed that was rumoured.

However, as predicted, the iPhone 4 will have a dual-radio chip that allows it to switch between GSM and CDMA networks. It will also have an 8MP camera, as predicted.

11:32 Yes, Schiller is highlighting again that the A5 has both two cores for processing and graphics. He’s also talking about improved battery life and better reception. The reception was a real issue with the original iPhone 4. It was claimed that holding it a certain way caused a short in the antenna.

11:31 At least seeing as the iPhone 4S looks the same, I won’t have to change the picture for the live blog.

11:27 The iPhone 4S looks exactly the same. It’s the same design, but the hardware is different. It sports a new dual-core A5 chip, first seen in the iPad. One thing that’s interesting. The announcement says that not only is the A5 a dual-core chip, but the iPhone 4S sports dual-core graphics. To show this off, they are highlighting the improved game action on the iPhone 4S.

11:25 Finally!! He’s talking about the iPhone, but it’s the iPhone 4S.

11:22 Phil Schiller,  senior vice president of worldwide product marketing at Apple, is now talking about the iPod. There was a lot of chatter about whether Apple would be de-emphasising the iPod, but it still seems quite strong. The real rumours were about whether the iPod classic would be killed. We’ll see.

He starts by talking about the iPod Nano. One nice part of the announcement. Someone had made a watch holder for the Nano. Rather than get upset, Apple has introduced a number of new clock faces to allow people to better use the accessory. He’s now moving on to the iPod Touch.

11:15 Aha, finally something that we didn’t know about: Find my friends. It’s a little feature that will allow you to find nearby friends or family. You can even share your location only temporarily. Cue gave the example of being able to locate their friends as they travel to your home and re-route them if they get off track. Parents can set privacy controls so that only they can find your children but keep creepy stalkers at bay.

iCloud will be available 12 October.

11:13 iCloud is free to iOS5 and OS X 10.7 Lion owners. They’ll get 5GB of storage for free. While I’m watching this, CNBC is reporting that Blackberry maker RIM is taking a beating on the stock market as it “explores strategic alternatives”. Gulp.

11:11 Music, images and apps, all synced to the iCloud. Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, is now talking about iCloud.  The documents in the cloud is a nice touch, but then this is possible through Google Docs or Dropbox. Apple’s iOS features are probably making a lot of app and service developers worry about their business.

11:08 Now, we’re moving onto a recap of iCloud. Again, we’ve seen a lot about this service so this will mostly recap things that we’ve seen before. Engadget is saying: “Having more WWDC flashbacks. Is this Moscone? What day is it?”

At this point, a lot of this seems like Apple catching up with other features cherry-picked from other platforms.

11:06 A lot of this has been known before. iOS 5 was previewed at the WWDC conference earlier this year.

11:04 The camera app has been updated to make it easier to take a picture. Double-clicking the home button will take you to the camera app. They are updating the game centre as well. Safari, Apple’s browser, also is getting an update with full tabbed browsing. Safari also has a reading list app, and now you can sync your reading lists across iOS devices so if you have an iPad and iPhone, you can sync those reading lists between the devices. Now, iOS devices will also be freed a bit more from the computer. Updates to the device will be available over the air.

11:01 Apple is also launching NewsStand. There are a lot of parts of this launch that really is only of interest to the US. Earlier he mentioned an app from US greeting card maker Hallmark, and now he’s talking about the New York Times and Vanity Fair in the NewsStand. Of course, the software is the easy part. As anyone who works with content will tell you, the difficulty is licencing deals.

11:00 iMessaging is also coming to iOS5. Basically, if you’re a BBM - Blackberry Messenger - user, this is much of the same service. OK, Apple is catching up with other platforms.

10:58 OK, Forstall is now getting into the new features in iOS5. Notifications are now coming to iOS devices. It’s a feature that has already been in Android, although he didn’t say that. You’ll be able to easily see notifications for messages, new calendar events and emails.

10:54 The iPad accounts for 74% of the tablet market in the US, according to IDC statistics from the second quarter of 2011, according to Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iOS Software.

10:50 What a tease. He says that he’ll talk about the iPhone more soon, but now he’s moving on to talk about the iPad. He says that it’s turning up everywhere from classrooms to airline cockpits. This is really the opening curtain of the Tim Cook CEO era. It’s a statement of where the company is and how strong it is. “This is my first product launch as CEO. I’m sure you didn’t know that,” he said.

10:47 He’s building up to the big reveal now. He’s talking about the iPhone. Referring to the competition. He is talking about customer satisfaction. Apple tops the charts, and he is showing a graph highlighting his company with 70% customer satisfaction. Nokia is at the other end of the chart with only 21% satisfaction.

10:45 Now, he’s moved on to music. Apple has sold more than 300m iPods. “It took Sony 30 years to sell 220,000 Walkman cassette players.” It’s interesting he should mention this because a some people had predicted that Apple would stop selling the iPod, but it looks like Cook just reiterated the company’s commitment to the device that really launched its gadget dominance.

10:41 He’s now talking about Lion, Mac OS 10.7, the latest version of its operating system, and the first available via download from its desktop App Store. In a poke at Apple arch-enemy Microsoft, he says that Mac sales have grown 23% in the last year while PC sales have only grown 4%. He says that Apple now also has a 23% market share. I wonder if that is in the US or globally? I doubt he means globally. Unfortunately, I can’t ask him to clarify in mid pitch.

10:38 Cook is talking their new Hong Kong store. A lot of Apple’s growth has been driven by strong sales in China. In April, Apple announced that their iPhone sales increased by 250% in China . Woah, and he mentioned that 100,000 came to the recent opening of a store there.

10:036 Cook says: “I love Apple. And I consider it the privilege of a lifetime to have worked here almost 14 years to work in this new role.”

10:33 Tim Cook, the new Apple CEO, has taken the stage. He’s given a run-down of the famous Apple products that have been announced on the stage such as the iPod. “It went on to revolutionize the way we listen to music.” He then mentions the MacBook Air, the laptop that made thin the “in” thing. (Just ask Intel which launched the new ultrabook form.)

10:30 The Apple Store went offline about a half hour ago. It’s the classic move before Apple releases new products. There was even some chatter that Apple might be releasing new iMacs too. The anticipation is definitely high.

10:24 We’re just minutes away from the start of the event. Apple isn’t streaming the event live so you’ll want to keep this tab and other live blogs open to keep up with the announcement.

The iPhone is facing a lot of competition in India from a raft of Android handsets, and if there is one thing that you’ve let us know since our launch, there are still a lot of Nokia and Blackberry fans out there. The  iPhone isn’t as dominant in India  either in sales or in mindshare as it is in the US, Europe and China.

Of course, we focused on the rumours surrounding the iPhone yesterday. The announcement will also talk about the  latest version of iOS , the operating system that runs the iPhone, the iPod Touch and the iPad. We will also hear more about iCloud, Apples new cloud-based sync and media services.

The big rumour that broke just ahead of the announcement was not about the phone about carriers in the US. Sprint, the number three wireless carrier in the US, is rumoured to have signed an exclusive deal for the iPhone 5 in the US. They have committed to buy at least 30.5m iPhones in the next four years, paying Apple $20m. The rumour  sent the stock tumbling as much as 17% . It was seen as a bet the company deal, saddling the company with debt as it also works to upgrade its network.

Rumours also increased that Apple was looking to release not only a 4s model but also a  cut-price iPhone 4 that will target lower priced rivals . It all starts soon.