I followed the live tweets of the Apple announcement of the new iPhone.
Here's the comparison of all three versions they sell/give away now. The new one has a faster processor to make some of the more demanding software work. They never give specs on the radios in these things but I expect they've tweaked them a bit. I hope so. Not sure it matters on the low-tech tower in Beachton. I think it's only EDGE, not equipped to take advantage of the new high speed packet data stuff.
I'm confused why the new phone battery has 2 hours more talk time but 100 hours less standby time than the old ones. That makes no sense. I really couldn't care less about the talk time. Actually 8 days is plenty of standby time. There's no such thing as a standby day anyway. I run my battery below 1/2 capacity every day by using it for data. If I can't plug my phone in once a day then something extremely exciting is happening and I probably need to talk on the phone instead of just having it idle. Even when I lose power, which happens a lot in the country, I can charge the phone off one of my uninterruptible power supplies and stay continuously connected.
I was planning to go get a new battery in my phone before I moved away from the Apple store. There's not a Apple Genius Bar within 200 miles of Beachton. I guess I might as well just get a new phone instead and sell my iPhone 4. The 4s has better video camera resolution than my Casio EX-FH20. Now I just have to get something to hold the phone on the tripod.
I'm completely unexcited by the iOS5 announcements. Siri the Assistant you can talk to? This is not something a hermit needs. An app that prints and mails a physical greeting card? That's grotesque. Greeting cards are like Jehovah's Witnesses. You have to be polite when they show up at your house, but really I just wish they would cease to exist. I don't like that callous feeling I get when I immediately throw them away.
*Update:
MacRumors summary: Oh yeah, I forgot "Find My Friends." Hermit. No friends. Useless. Although I could apply for a grant to duct tape iPhones to the tortoises in my woods and collect some cool data on them for science.
Update: I'm not eligible to upgrade until November 25. I think I'll wait. If I get a 4s now it would be $500 instead of $200. I tried the preorder from the Apple Store app on my iPhone 4 to find this out. It was very easy. "Switch out this phone?" Verify the last 4 digits of your social security number and billing zip code. Pick your messaging plan (these changed. Unlimited $20 and pay per message at the ridiculous rate of $0.20 per text and $0.30 for media messages). And then it showed me $499.00. Check out? Um, no.
I went to twitter and found a macrumors link to a story about preorders and it had a link to check your upgrade eligibility. That link told me Nov 25 is my upgrade eligibility date. I renewed my contract on the first day of iPhone 4 sales so I guess a lot of people have that same renewal date.