Live Blog: Apple Product Launch – iPhone 4S

7:38pm  Cook wraps things up and that’s all, folks – Back to spreading more iPhone 5 rumours. Thanks for reading and goodnight.

7:37pm Shipping US on October 14 – ties in with what Japan Web site “pre-announced”

7:35pm $199 for a two year contract (16GB) – $299 (32GB) – $399 (64GB). All US pricings and we know nothing about plans for the UK – even if the 4S will appear here (but no bets that it won’t)

7:32pm 4S is all new on the inside – but looks very iPhone on the outside. Expect lower pricing.

7:30pm  Video about development of iPhone 4S

7:28pm  Schiller returns to say Siri will be available in English, French and German – more to follow

7:23pm  Getting bored now. Checking Wikipedia for Neil Armstrong entry. How many days till Christmas? (How many days till iPhone 5 launch? might be better)

7:22pm Forstall demonstrates setting up a lunch invite received, Siri checks his calendar sends a reply to the original sender (Schiller) with a suggested date. All hands-free by talking to the phone.

7:19pm  Apple’s partnered with Yelp for restaurant reviews. Also integrated maps: “Give me directions to Hoover Tower.” Siri gives instructions. As expected, it also reads text messages

7:17pm Do I need a raincoat? is answered by “It sure looks like rain today”.

What time is it in Paris? Siri shows a clock. Wake me up at 6AM – Siri sets an alarm

7:16pm  Siri, Assistant’s forerunner is an intelligent app that can find and book restaurants, accommodation, or even a taxi (depending on the area you are in). As you use it, it learns your preferences – such as who you talk to most and which restaurants you frequent. Apple was so impressed it bought Siri just two months after its launch for more than $200 million.

Now, instead of searching for the taxi company’s number, Assistant will find it for you. It will open apps for you and tell it what you want it to do. Being based on Nuance’s DragonSpeak voice recognition technology, it will also attempt to transcribe your texts and perform Web searches

7:14pm  Now on to Siri: the intelligent assistant which we expect to be renamed as … er… Assistant

7:12pm AirPlay mirroring comes to iPhone. Music streaming technology from iCloud

7:11pm HD video with image stabilisation and noise reduction. More examples

7:10pm  Example pictures to show how sharp they are

7:08pm  Face detection built-in and better auto white balance. 1sec to take first pic and 0.5 sec for next

7:06pm  New camera system. 8Mpixel sensor to give 3264×2448 images. Better low light performance and five-element lens

7:04pm Signal is intelligently switched between two antennas to transmit and receive to give improved call quality and faster data just like 4G speeds, claims Schiller.

7.01pm iPhone 4s will run on A5 chip, as in the iPad.  7x faster graphics. Infinity Blade and Infinity Blade 2 demo looks impressive. Schiller returns to mention battery life of 8 hours of 3G talk time, 10 hours of video.

6:57pm Follow up to iphone 4 is … the iPhone 4S (groan)

6:56pm Teasing, teasing

6:55pm At last iPhone news – stand by

6:53pm  White version of the new iPod Touch. New Touch will cost $399 for 64GB, $299 for 32GB and $199 for 8GB

6:51pm  New iPod Nanos with “fitness related” updates (woohoo). Revamped user interface. Priced at $149 for 16GB and $129 for 8GB

6:50pm Fifty minutes in and still waiting for the meat

6:49pm  Phil Schiller will now talk about iPods

6:46pm  A new app called Find My Friends locates family and friends by their iPhone location system. Sounds a bit too Big Brother – I’d like to see what the privacy lawmakers and guardians make of this

6:39pm Eddy Cue is now running through iCloud. Any iTunes media can be downloaded to any sanctioned device anywhere

6:37pm  The camera app is being updated to make it easier to use. Just tap twice on the iPhone button and it takes a picture (could be embarrassing)

6:26 PM  We are now looking at the greetings card app. Apple does MoonPig (out of business?)

6:23 PM  more than 500,000 apps are available in the App Store, 140,000 of those are for the iPad. Forstall reckons that makes the App Store the top place to buy your apps

6:21 PM  now Cook is telling us something we didn’t know. IPad is the undisputed number one tablet in the world. He is now introducing Scott Forstall onto the stage.

6:20 PM  now we are looking at the iPad’s achievements. Airline flight books being replaced by iPads and over 80% of the hospital’s in the US are at least piloting iPads

6:18 p.m.  iPhone is 5 percent of the mobile phone market. Why are we looking at mobile phones and not just smartphones – could we be here waiting for a cheaper iPhone announcement?

6:15 p.m.  the iPhone 4 accounts for half the iPhone market

6:13 PM  over 300 million iPods have been sold. Almost half of those are going to first-time buyers

6:10 PM  now Cook is giving us an overview of Apple’s products. Six million copies of Lion have been sold so far. Cook is bragging that while Windows 7 took 20 weeks to reach 10 percent of its customers but Lion did that in two weeks

6:08 PM  now we’re watching a video of the Chinese Apple Stores

6:06 PM  Evidently, the Hong Kong store sold more Macs on the opening day than have been sold in any of the other Apple Stores worldwide

6:05 PM  winding everybody up now with minor news about Apple stores opening in Hong Kong and Shanghai

6:03 PM  Tim Cook is warming up the crowd in his first presentation as Apple CEO

6 PM   Any minute now. Though judging by past presentations we could be waiting another 10 minutes or so

5:57 PM  we are listening to music while we’re waiting for the lights to dim and the presentation to start. Hopefully the choice of music title will not be fulfilled as it is the Who singing “I Can’t Explain”

5:56 PM Judging by the amount of hardware being handled by the world’s press, the value of this building must’ve gone up 1 million or so dollars

Everybody is getting seated at the moment and there’s a buzz going around in anticipation of this afternoon’s event

Apple’s Home Theatre is very small. so there is a massive overflow of the reporters and fan boys who have been waiting for over an hour to get in.

I just love Californian paranoia

There is a rumour circulating that we may not see the iPhone 5. Because the Japanese website owned by Apple is showing an October 14 launch date for the iPhone 4S.

At the moment we are waiting for the show to begin. Will Steve Jobs put in a surprise appearance? Will we actually see an iPhone 5? Will Assistant (Siri) be as good as the bloggers claim it will be? Will there be mass firings of personal assistants because iPhone Assistant will do all you could wish the human aide to do?