By Lisa Carlin
Four million new iPhones have been sold, says Apple. The iPhone 4S was launched just three days ago (on October 14th). Its predecessor, the iPhone 4, had sold less than half as many units in the first three days of being launched. The iPhone 4S is currently available in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the UK, and will be available in 22 more countries on October 28 and more than 70 countries by the end of the year.
Apple has more good news to share. In the first five days of its release, more than 25 million customers are using iOS 5, Apple’s newest mobile operating system. More than 20 million customers have signed up for iCloud, Apple’s free cloud service.
Siri, Apple’s version of the ghost in the machine, has been getting rave reviews. Siri ‘understands’ common English; which appears to be quite the break both for people used to talking in high level languages, and for the rest of us lesser mortals who just ask for directions in common English, and wish mapping software would sometimes get that. Some of the anecdotes and videos going round the Net are more Stephen Fry than Isaac Asimov. What happens when two iPhones start talking to each other (Siri confuses the heck out of the other Siri), for example, or when an user asks Siri what is the best place to hide a body (Turns out a foundry is, among other places). The iCloud on the other hand have been seeing some glitches, making the service not entirely automatic to begin with, and not entirely effortless either.
Philip Schiller (Senior vice president, Worldwide Product Marketing, Apple): iPhone 4S is a hit with customers around the world, and together with iOS 5 and iCloud, is the best iPhone ever.
Lisa Carlin writes on gadgets and geeky things for techtaffy.com. She can be reached at [email protected].