- Apple's iPhone 4S goes on sale Friday at 8 a.m. in each time zone
- Pre-orders have broken an Apple record, with 1 million in first 24 hours
- Phone features faster processor, better camera, "personal assistant" Siri
- Friday is first iPhone release since death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs
(CNN) -- With the memory of Steve Jobs looming large, the iPhone 4S goes on sale Friday -- the first model of the groundbreaking phone to hit the market without the iconic co-founder at Apple's helm.
The 4S, unveiled last week just a day before Jobs' death, isn't the mythical iPhone 5 that many Apple fans had expected. But while the refresh of the current iPhone 4, with its lack of striking hardware updates, landed with something of a thud, online pre-orders have been strong.
Apple sold 1 million of the phones in the first 24 hours via its website and carriers AT&T, Verizon and -- for the first time -- Sprint. By comparison, Apple reported 600,000 iPhone 4 pre-orders last year in 24 hours, but that included orders placed with overseas carriers.
The iPhone 4S goes on sale Friday at all 245 Apple stores in the U.S., in addition to the following countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the UK. The new iPhone will be available in 22 additional countries by the end of October, Apple says.
Introducing Apple's iPhone 4S
Apple unveils iPhone 4S
Seriously?! The iPhone 4SApple stores and other retailers will open Friday at 8 a.m., and shoppers have started lining up outside many of them. Online orders can be made at Apple's online store, as well as on AT&T, Verizon and Sprint's websites.
If you're hoping to pre-order now and pick up the phone Friday, you're out of luck. Pre-orders at AT&T, Sprint and Verizon are sold out, and phones ordered through Apple's website may not be delivered for several weeks.
All of those brick-and-mortar retail stores also will carry the phone, along with select Apple-approved retailers: Radio Shack, Best Buy, Target and Sam's Club. (Word of warning: Check availability before lining up at one of those third-party sellers. Inventory is limited, and some will be filling pre-orders before selling whatever stock may remain.)
Customers who buy the phone at an Apple retail store will be offered free in-store setup service, personalized instruction on how to set up e-mail and download apps.
So why buy a iPhone 4S?
One of the major selling points for the new phone is Siri, a voice-activated "personal assistant." The built-in artificial-intelligence app can answer questions, read or set calendar items, read texts and e-mails aloud and perform other tasks. She uses Wikipedia, search engine Wolfram Alpha and other sources to find answers to user questions. And, she apparently has a sense of humor.
The rest of the major updates are on the inside, which may not have made much of a splash but, according to Apple, will enhance the user's experience.
It contains an A5 processor (the same one in the iPad 2), which Apple says will render data twice as fast as the iPhone 4 and graphics up to seven times faster.
It will feature an 8-megapixel camera, up from the 5-mp camera in the current model, HD video and a stabilization feature the company says will make videos less shaky.
The phone sells for $ 199 for 16GB of storage, $ 299 for 32GB and $ 399 for 64GB, marking the first time an iPhone has had that much memory.
It also seems impossible to separate interest in the iPhone 4S with news of Jobs' death last week.
Among the legions of Apple's diehard fans, some have taken saying the "4S" in the phone's name represents the words "For Steve." Although it's virtually impossible that the company would have done that on purpose (the phone's development happened largely when Jobs was still CEO) it speaks both to the long reach of Jobs' legacy and the cult-like devotion that some Apple loyalists feel toward the company and its products.
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