2:35 PM ET Pricing has arrived

Pre-orders for the 4S start this friday, the 7th. Available on October 14th.

$199 for 16GB iPhone 4S, $299 for 32GB iPhone 4S, $399 for 64GB iPhone 4S.

2:34 PM ET    Rumors already abound elsewhere that to get Siri to work you have to sound like a child speaks…of course, for a lot of users that should be par for the course (not any of our readers of course).  That doesn’t sound nearly as cool as the, “speak to it however you normally do” rhetoric we just heard.

2:32 PM ET  Demo video being shown.  Price coming soon I am sure.  Anyone thinking it will be the same price model as the iPhone 4?  2 year contract +$200?

2:28 PM ET Siri will also do dictation on emails and notes you write which is really nice.  However, you pretty much need a wireless or 3G connection to get the proper word matches.  It works out of the box but learns your voice and does better as you use it more often.

2:25 PM ET In a lot of ways, Siri is like a talking WoframAlpha (if you know the reference).  You ask it a question and it will try to think of ways to identify the answer.  Not just by equation bu by searching the internet and reference material.

2:23 PM ET Siri will utilize other components of the iOS 5 like reminders.  ”Siri, make me a reminder to call my wife when I get off of work.”  When you walk out of work, it tells you to call your wife.  It knows where work is.  It knows who your wife is and what number to dial.  Pretty neat if not a lot Big Brotherish.

2:21 PM ET Siri will be able to schedule appointments on your calendar.  It will be able set your alarm.  It will verify everything you ask it today regardless of the specific way in which you say it.

2:20 PM ET You can tell Siri, read my last email and it will do it for you.

2:18 PM ET Another example: “Find me a great Greek restaurant in Palo Alto.” Siri says (courtesy of Yelp) that she found 14 — sorted by rating.  Cool.

2:17 PM ET  Example:  Do I need a raincoat today?” Siri responds “It sure looks like rain today.”  Very cute.

2:16 PM ET

You will be able to ask real world questions and Siri will answer with real world answers regardless of how you ask the same question.

2:13 PM ET

Last up is the voice activated personal assistant everyone has talked about for a year – Siri (at least that was what it was called before Apple bought it).

2:10 PM ET

1080P video quality with image stabilizer included.

2:07 PM ET

All new 8 Megapixel camera with 73% more light for night pics and 25% faster flash.  They also have more clarity, improved picture quality and it will take a picture in 1.1 seconds on first shot and .5 seconds on second shot.  That does sound nice.

2:05 PM ET

The iPhone 4 was either GSM (AT&T) or CDMA(Verizon) based . The 4S is both — GSM and CDMA.  Hello…Sprint?

2:03 PM ET

Some new antenna on the phone allows for much better phone quality and supposedly, download speeds twice as fast.  My first thought – yeh…right. I don’t believe it especially since a lot of folks had problems getting even close to the download speeds they were supposed to get before.

2:01 PM ET

Regarding battery life, the 4S will offer eight hours of 3G talk time. Six hours of browsing, nine on WiFi. 10 hours of video, and 40 hours of music.  Seems very similar to the iPhone 4.

1:59 PM ET

Unsurprisingly the game looks great but lacks any real skill to win and is just another hack and slash.  It’s Fruit Ninja in prettier clothing

1:57 PM ET

Epic showing off new game – Infinity Blade 2 on iPhone 4S.  Surprisingly they said they made 20 million on iOS Infinity Blade.  Not bad at all for a game that looked good but didn’t allow much free movement (none).

1:55 PM ET

New iPhone 4S.  No suprise with the name.  looks exactly the same.  This can’t be the “new” phone, right?  New processor inside which is faster…  2 times as fast the processor in iPhone 4.  Graphics are 7 times faster.  of course it is the same size and lacks buttons for games…

1:53 PM ET

New white version coming.  Woo hoo?  8GB is now $199, 32GB for $299, 64GB for $399. Available on october 12th.

1:51 PM

New iPod nano (that cube one with a digital face).  $149 8 GB, $179 16 GB.  Now onto the iPod Touch…

1:48 PM ET

Time to talk about iPod’s.  I’m going to go to sleep for a bit.  Not interested at all…

1:46 PM ET

Still old stuff.  Where is the new stuff?  Did WWDC never even happen?

1:44 PM ET

Example.  People are driving to your house.  they get lost 9even though they have a GPS) and you can easily see where they are.  However, if you think about it – how many people would get lost, not know how to use a GOPS and know how to turn on the tracking part of their iPhone?

1:42 PM ET

Something new.  A new feature lets you “find your friends” which is neat.  Not really sure how it works.  Does the person have to allow you to find them?

1:40 PM ET

More rehashing of old news.  I wonder why they told us about this thing in the first place.  Onwards please!

1:39 PM ET

The site keeps going down.  Sorry about that.  They are getting near the end of rehashing iOS 5 so you didn’t miss much.

1:30 PM ET

iOS 5 – top 10.  Hey we did this months ago!  Personally I used it and it was buggy as heck.  I’m sure it will be a bit less buggy at release.  Speaking of release…

1:28 PM

$2.99 for a card…hmm.  $4.99 for international.  That doesn’t seem like a much better deal than what I can do by actually signing a card and sending it.

1:27 PM ET

Gearing up for the holidays I guess as Apple just announced a greeting card app.  They print real life cards and send them to people.  You get a push notification when it is sent.  Kind of neat.  USPS has to be pleased something is going through the mail…

1:25 PM ET

Apple has paid out 3 billion dollars to developers.  If they take a 30% cut of the dev’s profits that means that Apple has a good billion or so themselves.  The developers should create a big cheesy check and give it to Apple.  OK, I’m being facetious.

1:23 PM ET

They have now passed 250 million iOS devices.  Anyone care to find out how many Android devices are on the market?  Nevertheless, absolutely amazing for one company to sell so many devices.  Next up, iOS 5 talk I guess.

1:22 PM

75% of all tablets sold are iPads.  This will likely dip in the coming year as there are newer players coming to the market soon.  big ones like Amazon.  We shall see.

1:21 PM ET

Tim loves iPads.  In schools, hospitals, flight decks, everywhere.

1:19 PM ET

Back up.  iPhones are 5% of the world’s phone.  In a survey it was found that 70% of people were very satisfied by their iPhone’s.  Runner up, HTC with 49% very satisfied.

1:18 PM ET

Well people are certainly interested.  Ars Technica site is down along with Engadget and Gizmodo.  Craziness.

1:16 PM ET

iPhone 4S cover is blown by Japan Apple website (one product I predicted down, one to go).  Already listed date of October 14th.  Tim Cook said he is talking about iPhones “next”.

1:15 PM ET

Holy crap.  I was wrong.  Apple sold sold 45 million iPod’s during a one year period from July 10 to June 11.  45 million!  It must be a bunch of old people buying them or something???

1:14 PM ET

iPod has 78% of market share in MP# market…

1:12 PM ET

Said, Windows 7 took 20 weeks to reach 10% of its market.  Mac’s newest OS took 2 weeks.  Of course Mac’s 10% is 6 million while Windows is likely near a billion or so (he didn’t say that part).

1:10 PM ET

He is now talking products and hardware along with their software sales.  Seriously, who buys an iPod anymore?  It almost seems like one will be announced here as well but who knows.

1:08 PM ET

On Apple website – Sprint logo showing.  Something to those rumors afterall…

1:07 PM ET

Tim is talking retail stores …yada yada yada.  this stuff is more for the Apple faithful and stock holders than me.  357 stores in 11 countries.  Lots more coming.

1:00 PM ET

Just starting.  New Apple CEO, Tim Cook with his first announcement.  Tal;king Apple history.  Looks kind of like Jobs up there without the turtleneck.

I believe today’s announcement by Apple will likely reveal not one, but two devices.  The widely rumored iPhone 5 is sure to be on display.  That device will likely have an improved camera, processor, and possibly a larger screen size (although not much bigger).  It will also look quite a bit different than the iPhone 4; a device that while impressive had its share of problems based on the design alone.  Apple is likely going to want to move away from that design and show us something different.  In fact, I could see the default color being white instead of the ubiquitous black Apple has produced over the last few versions.  The white would signify an entirely new approach to design or something to that effect.

Another device could possibly be named as well, a version of the iPhone 4 that is just for Sprint.  The iPhone 4S(?) will have all of the same functionality as the other iPhone 4′s.  I will say that if I am right and this product is announced, then someone at Sprint needs to be fired if they paid a ton of money for a Sprint specific iPhone 4.  While the phone will undoubtedly sell, it is unlikely that it will have any more traction for Sprint than their Android phones.  It certainly wouldn’t make people flock to their service.

Moving back to the new phone, the iPhone 5 will likely not be ’4G’ based.  There simply isn’t a large enough ‘4G’ network to offer it for a phone that would thirst for bandwidth.  It will likely have the same sized hard drive (or possibly even a smaller one than the iPhone 4).  After all, space is going to the cloud.  Of course, all of that cloud downloading works to the benefit of AT&T and Verizon and all of the other networks that charge to download data off of their network.

Finally, the phone will be released for a bunch of networks, at least it should be.  Apple made a great play by being exclusive to AT&T the first few years they created the device.  They made another good move to add Verizon support.  At this point, in order to compete with the entire Android marketplace (because with Apple is truly is their device vs. the world) they will need to really open up their phone to all of the major networks.  Maybe we will see that today.  I’m not sure though.  Apple has a way to always surprise me and I don’t say that as a fanboy in that, ‘ah shucks, they are so great‘ way.  The surprises aren’t always good ones.  Hopefully today, they will be.

Price: $2.99

Publisher: Polarbit

Reckless Getaway by Polarbit sets a new bar for excellence in 2D/3D driving on the App Store.  The game revolves around you dodging cops and obstacles yet the real fun comes by destroying your surroundings.  As the getaway car for a bank robbery (shown in an opening cut scene), the game puts you in several different vehicles in a quest to get away.  All the while a great soundtrack puts you in the mood to drive.

The controls are very well done and you will be able to pick them up quickly.  Weaving in and out of traffic earns you points (as does hitting cars and knocking them off the road).  Throughout the levels you will have several different vehicles at your disposal and each handles based on the size of the car.  The controls are incredibly responsive which allows you to make last second decisions like whether to jump a pit using the ramp or bypass it using the nearby dirt road.

The graphics are great and look very smooth on my iPhone 4.  Despite the utter destruction of the environments as you drive past at maniacal speed, you won’t notice any slowdown and the details all look fantastic.  The sound is also well done.  The music in the background gives you a fantastic back beat to the getaway and the crashes and explosions throughout are all well done as well. The production value on this game is incredibly high and a pat on the back should be given to the sound and graphic guys at Polarbit.

The real meat of the game is making a getaway and earning points.  You start with the possibility of earning 4 coins.  Each time you wreck you lose a coin with no way of gaining it back during that level.  These coins are important because getting enough allows you to unlock the next 4 levels of the game.  This is worth noting because as the game becomes more difficult in later levels, these coins are increasingly hard to get.  You’ll find yourself going back to an old level and replaying it a ton of times just to gain the 4th coin you missed the first time around.  That being said, it does provide a fun system of unlocking and rewards a player fairly consistently with new levels.

You’ll also find powerups as you’re driving through each level, each one providing some additional benefit to your car.  These help you rack up the points quickly which in turn help you earn towards those four coins mentioned above.  In all, the game is a blast to play yet won’t take much more than a few hours to finish.  Regardless, for just 3 bucks Reckless Getaway it is well worth it and I highly recommend buying it.

Overall Value for it’s $2.99 price point

Overall: Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Graphics: Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Sound: Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Controls: Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Price: $1.99

Publisher: Widget Revolt

Ice Tales HD is a retro action puzzler game where you play as Pendleton, a penguin that has been wrongfully placed in the middle of nowhere. You job is to keep Pendleton alive and get him home by collecting various objects but more importantly, by avoiding certain objects.

Each level consists of a map of ice blocks that create a mini maze. The ways the maps are built make controlling the penguin a bit difficult. You control Pendleton by swiping across the screen.  The faster you can flick the faster he moves. You can also make him jump by tapping the screen; this will come in handy when trying to get around obstacles.  Overall the controls take a bit of getting used to and could have been a little less twitchy.

Each level has one goal, to collect as many starfish as possible. Along with starfish each level has a fish bucket (we all know penguins love to eat fish) that will give you tons of points once you get to it, but get to it quickly because seagulls will show up and cause problems. So far things sound pretty easy going in the life of Pendleton, right? Well not so fast. Pendleton isn’t the only one after the starfish. Crabs, seals, bears, and squids are all out to get Pendleton so beware.

The retro-ness of the game really comes out in the graphics and audio. Right away you notice the graphics being a little…dated. But hey, that’s retro! Right? And then I heard the in game audio and WOW it blew me away. I actually started loudly laughing in public. It is very retro. The beeps and bloops really create a great feel for the retro game.

Aesthetically speaking this game is definitely a blast from the past but in my opinion, a good retro game needs to have a bit of a modern twist built in. Unfortunately, that twist seems to be missing in Ice Tales HD and it’s not very different from 8-bit games twenty years ago. That’s not to say it isn’t fun.  Just that there’s nothing unique about it that helps it stand out.

Overall Value for it’s $1.99 price point

Overall: Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Graphics: Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Sound: Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Controls: Rating: 2 out of 5 stars