The crowd (and the web sphere they were live blogging to) was hanging on until the very last word as Tim Cook, Apple's new CEO (or Steve2 as I now like to call him) signed off and thanked the folks for attending Apple's keynote event this morning.
Normally, Steve1 finished off these events with his funnest tagline, "... one more thing", but there was none of that today.
Apple sat us through how wonderful the now world is thanks to their iNventions:
iPhone 4
5% of world’s mobile phones
96% of users fucking love their iPhones
93% of fortune 500 companies are using iPhone in some way
iPad
95% of users fucking love their iPads
92% of fortune 500 companies are using iPad in some way
iPod
10 years of music
iOS 5
Does wondrous things
Back chats you
Then they wheeled out the iPhone 4S—the refresh of the iPhone 4. Just as 2009’s iPhone 3GS did, the 4S has the same form-factor as its own predecessor (i.e.: it looks the same) and all its key features have been refreshed. Whilst it genuinely has some very nice features, we were all thinking that 4S was page 2 news.
The joke’s on you us!
There’s no iPhone 5! The Apple rumour mill was going hard out this year, egged on by the fact that Apple was running into overtime for any announcement of a new phone. I tried my very best not to buy into the hype and I only ran a couple stories here on TheVine that mentioned iPhone 5. But I must say, I’m quite disappointed.
It seems that investors weren’t impressed either—Apple shares fell almost 5% this morning. If the Apple rumour mill is actually seeded by/encouraged by Apple, then they may have overshot the mark this time.
Conspiracy theory
Manufacturers of the iPhone 5’s larger Retina display weren’t able to meet a feasible strike rate so Apple made a last minute decision to put iPhone 5 on ice for next year and positioned the iPhone 4S + Siri combo as their killer offering.
Well, I’d love to believe that. I can picture Steve1 on a teleconference with some Japanese boardroom… Steve1 breaks minutes of silence with, “… yeah, that’s not working for me.” The fact is, 4S is a natural progression and that's that.
Will MonsieurMaori still get an iPhone 4S?
Yes. I’m still a fanboi you see. [APPLE I STILL LOVE YOU] Yes, I’m going to queue up to get it on day one, even if I’m the only one in the queue. Actually, you’ll see a lot of iPhone 3GS users in that queue—people who, like me, were locked into 24-month contracts from 2009 and couldn’t/wouldn’t move to iPhone 4. I’m buying outright from now on—my 3GS is barely ticking and it has killed me to be surrounded by iPhone 4 users everywhere.
One more thing…
You may have come here expecting to see lovely facts and figures, indeed—more juice, on the new iPhone 4S and other Apple products and services on offer, but in the spirit of today’s lacklustre news, I’m going to disappoint you—Google it.
(OK, I may write about it later)