iPhone 4s

October 14, 2011

The iPhone 4s is a smartphone that was developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is the fifth generation of the iPhone, succeeding the iPhone 4 and preceding the iPhone 5. It was announced on October 4, 2011, at Apple's Cupertino campus, and was the final Apple product announced in the lifetime of former Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs, who died the following day.

Orders could be placed on October 7, 2011, and mainstream availability in retail stores began on October 14, 2011, in the United States, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan. Sales peaked over its predecessor with more than a million sales in the first twenty-four hours of order availability and more than four million sales in the first four days of retail availability. Further worldwide rollout, including 22 additional countries on October 28, came during the next several months.

This iPhone was named "4s" where the "s" stood for Siri, an intelligent personal assistant that was initially exclusive to the 4s and later included in future Apple products. Retaining most of the external design of the iPhone 4, the 4s hosted major internal upgrades, including an upgrade to the Apple A5 chipset, and an 8-megapixel camera with 1080p video recording. It debuted with iOS 5, the fifth major version of iOS, Apple's mobile operating system, that introduced features including iCloud, iMessage, Notification Center, Reminders, and Twitter integration.

Reception to the iPhone 4s was favorable. Reviewers noted Siri, the new camera, and processing speeds as significant advantages over the prior model. It was succeeded by the iPhone 5 as Apple's flagship smartphone on September 12, 2012. The 16 GB iPhone 4s remained on sale at a reduced price point, with the 32 and 64 GB models discontinued. The 16 GB 4s was also subsequently discontinued in September 2013 with the release of the iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S and replaced with the 8 GB model which was offered free on contract in the United States.

The 4s was officially discontinued on September 9, 2014, following the announcement of the iPhone 6, although production did continue for developing markets until February 17, 2016. During the course of its lifetime, the iPhone 4s was one of the best-selling iPhones ever produced and was the first iPhone to support five major versions of iOS: iOS 5, iOS 6, iOS 7, iOS 8, and iOS 9 (the iPad 2 was supported from iOS 4 to iOS 9).

The 4s is the last iPhone to have Apple's proprietary 30 pin connector, as the iPhone 5 replaced it with the all digital Lightning connector.