Apple’s iPhone 4S rakes in over 1 million pre-orders

A lot of people were disappointed when Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S at their event last October 4. For one thing, it wasn’t an iPhone 5, which a lot of people were expecting. It still had the same outside appearance as the iPhone version preceding it; it didn’t have the rumoured wider screen or metal back and there certainly were no budget-friendly versions of the phone slated for release as well. Moreover, the release of the next generation iPhone was overshadowed the next day by the death of former CEO Steve Jobs.

Maybe Apple could have cushioned the blow by lowering the expectations of the waiting public by dispelling some of the rumours that spread like wildfire prior to the launch of the iPhone 4S–but they didn’t. A lot of tech bloggers and journalists walked away from the event disappointed, and these sentiments were reflected clearly in the articles and blog posts they penned afterwards.

So it might come as quite a shock (but a pleasant surprise to Apple, obviously) that pre-orders for the iPhone 4S have surpassed the one million mark after just 24 hours. In fact, it shattered the record that was previously held by the iPhone 4, which racked in 600,000 pre-orders one day after it was made available for pre-orders.

The newest smartphone offering from Apple will be hitting the shelves this Friday, with the 16GB version to be priced at £499. Orange, T-Mobile, and Vodafone have already announced their iPhone 4S tariffs earlier this week, so consumers will already know how much they will have to shell out or what subscription to sign up for to get the unit.

While the iPhone 4S looks completely the same as the iPhone 4 in the outside (as we’ve mentioned earlier), Apple did a lot of work to upgrade what was on the inside. The iPhone 4S is powered by the new iOS 5 software and is equipped with an 8-megapixel shooter. Aside from that, the latest iPhone makes use of an A5 chip, which is the same chip that can be found on the inside of the iPad 2.

Many industry experts have noted that the iPhone 4S is the iPhone 4 “on steroids,” running faster and more powerful than ever, even though the changes cannot be fathomed by the naked eye. Apple itself dubs the iPhone 4S as the “most amazing iPhone yet.”

One reason for the impressive pre-order figures could be because the smartphone has now been available on more networks compared to its predecessors. Another possible reason, although quite unexpected, is the passing of Steve Jobs. Steven Osinski, a marketing professor from the San Diego State University, commented: “Many potential Apple customers, who have been on the fences before, will probably now want to (buy) it. It’s no different than when John Lennon was assassinated, sales of Beatles records shot up for a little while.”

Source – Yahoo News