Apple iPhone 4S Smashes Pre-order Record

There seems to be no shortage of enthusiasm for Apple’s newest smartphone, despite the disappointment at the no-show of the iPhone 5.

Apple has revealed that pre-orders of its iPhone 4S have topped 1 million in a single day, surpassing the previous single-day pre-order record of 600,000 held by iPhone 4.

The iPhone 4S is the company’s latest smartphone and comes with new features including Apple’s dual-core A5 chip, an all new camera with advanced optics, full 1080p HD resolution video recording and Siri, an intelligent assistant application that helps users get things done by asking it questions.

Blown Away

“We are blown away with the incredible customer response to iPhone 4S,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing. “The first-day pre-orders for iPhone 4S have been the most for any new product that Apple has ever launched, and we are thrilled that customers love iPhone 4S as much as we do.”

The iPhone 4S will be available at all 245 Apple retail stores in the United States starting 14 October. Every customer who buys an iPhone 4S at an Apple retail store will also be offered free Personal Setup service, helping them customise their iPhone 4S by setting up email, showing them new apps from the App Store and more.

The smartphone also includes iOS 5, Apple’s latest edition of its mobile operating system with over 200 new features, and iCloud, a set of free cloud services that work with a user’s iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Mac or PC to automatically and wirelessly store content in iCloud and push it to all user devices.

Black And White

The iPhone 4S comes in either black or white and will be available – with a two-year rate plan – in the United States for a suggested retail price of $199 (£127) for the 16GB model, $299 (£191) for the 32GB model and $399 (£255) for the new 64GB model. The handset will be available from the Apple Online Store and Apple’s retail stores and through AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless and select Best Buy, Target and Walmart stores, as well as select Apple Authorised Resellers. The last version of the device, the iPhone 4, is available for just $99 (£63), and the iPhone 3GS is available for free with a two-year contract, the company noted.

Although Apple’s press event to launch the next iPhone disappointed some Apple fans who were expecting the release of the mythical “iPhone 5,” most analysts were sufficiently satisfied with the latest iteration of the popular smartphone.

“While the form factor does not have a bigger screen or thinner body, the processor improvements, HSPA+ [Evolved High-Speed Packet Access] speeds [particularly beneficial for AT&T and European subscribers] should drive a large number of upgrades, especially as outside the US LTE [Long-Term Evolution] deployments are not being rushed,” said Jefferies & Co. analyst Peter Misek.