MacRumors

The first GeekBench benchmarks for the iPhone 4S seem to be rolling in. At present, two iPhone4,1 (4S) benchmarks have been posted and seem, at first glance, to be legitimate.

The listed specs show a dual core processor that resembles the results from from the iPad 2 which also shares an A5 processor. Free RAM appears to be in-line with what we believe (512MB) and the benchmarks line up with known devices.

The iPhone 4S receives a total Geekbench score of ~622. This falls slightly below the iPad 2 scores of 749, but well above the iPhone 4 benchmarks of 370. So, the new iPhone seems to benchmark about 68% faster than the iPhone 4, and about 17% slower than the iPad 2.

The iPhone 4S A5 processor is likely underclocked (800MHz) as compared to the iPad 2 processor (1 GHz), explaining the slightly lower performance.

The iPhone 4S is currently shipping to customers for delivery on October 14th, but it seems at least a few units are already in the wild.

Update: Anandtech compiles these results (and more) in nice graphs:

Meanwhile, graphics performance of the iPhone 4S is confirmed to be about 7x faster than the iPhone 4.

Facebook today announced the release of its first native application for the iPad, coming as an update to the company's existing iPhone application. The new iPad compatibility is being featured on Facebook's site.

A New Way to Experience Facebook

- Enjoy bigger, better photos: Your photos take on new life on the iPad. They're big, high-res and easy to flip through—like a real photo album.
- Focus on what matters: With less on the screen, it's easier to zoom in on your friends' photos, updates and stories.
- Navigate anywhere, fast: Just tap, slide or pinch to get from one screen to another and back again in no time.
- Never lose your place: Use simplified navigation to send a message, see your notifications or browse your bookmarks without switching screens.
- Play games on the go: Play your favorite Facebook games wherever you are, and on a bigger screen.
- Tap to send messages: A simple dropdown menu makes it easy to scan and send messages without visiting your inbox.

The updated app should be propagating through to the App Store at any moment [App Store].

Facebook's long-awaited iPad application had apparently been delayed several times, with lead developer Jeff Verkoeyen quitting in part due to the delays. The New York Times reported back in June that a Facebook app for iPad would be released "in coming weeks". In late July, an iPad version of the existing app for iPhone was discovered inside the iPhone app, accessible through a tweak, but Facebook quickly disabled access to the iPad-specific interface through that mechanism.

Update: The universal Facebook application (version 4.0) is now available in the App Store.

Details on the improvements to the iPhone version of the app:

With improved search and browsing, the facebook.com features you use most are now just a touch away. It’s a faster, fuller Facebook for iPhone.

- Games & Apps: Play games and access your favorite apps on the go
- Navigation: Send a message or see your notifications from any screen, and swipe to browse Facebook without losing your place in News Feed
- Bookmarks: Your groups, pages and apps are all in your left-hand menu, and the ones you use most are right on top
- Search: Search for anything on Facebook—people, apps, pages and more—without having to click around or switch views
- Security: We’ve added a few updates to make the app more secure

Update 2: Some users who already had the Facebook app installed on their iPads are reporting that the app is now crashing immediately upon launch. Deleting the application from the device entirely and redownloading it appears to resolve the issue.

Bloomberg reports that Steve Jobs' death certificate has been released, citing respiratory arrest and a pancreatic tumor as the cause of death. Jobs died last Wednesday at approximately 3:00 PM Pacific time.

Steve Jobs died at home of respiratory arrest and a pancreatic tumor at about 3 p.m. on Oct. 5, according to his death certificate. His occupation was listed as “entrepreneur.”

The Santa Clara County Public Health Department in San Jose, California, released the document today.

While many had assumed that Jobs' death was ultimately related to the rare form of pancreatic cancer for which he was initially treated back in 2004, official word on Jobs' ailments over the past few years has been scant. Jobs underwent a liver transplant in April 2009, but even at that time the transplant was described as treating an "undisclosed medical condition" and his condition had initially been described as a "hormone imbalance" when he went on a medical leave of absence early that year.

Jobs took his final leave of absence in January of this year, with sources reporting at the time that he was dealing "immune system issues common with people who have received liver transplants" and not necessarily continued battles with pancreatic cancer.

A private funeral for Jobs was held last Friday, and Apple will be holding a celebration of his life for company employees on Wednesday, October 19th.

Research firm comScore today announced the results of its latest study of digital media consumption in the United States, perhaps unsurprisingly finding that the iPad has continued to dominate the tablet industry and has even quickly overcome the iPhone's headstart to lead it in total traffic. Among iOS devices, the iPad is now responsible for more U.S. Internet traffic than the iPhone, taking the title by a margin of 46.8% to 42.6%.

Perhaps most notably, the iPad continues to dominate the U.S. tablet industry even as numerous high-profile competitors have introduced (and in some cases already discontinued) their own tablet products to take on the iPad. According to comScore, the iPad accounted for 97.2% of U.S. Internet traffic, as measured by browser-basd page views, from tablet devices over the June-August period.

Looking at the broader tablet and smartphone market, iOS as a whole represented 43.1% of the installed user base for connected devices in the United States over the study period, with Android placing second at 34.1%. But in looking at traffic from those devices as a gauge for how much they are being used, iOS takes a commanding 58.5% of the market while Android dips to 31.9%.

Apple fans have frequently pointed to the company's strong performance with the iPad and iPod touch as data that should be included when comparing the relative adoption of iOS versus Android. And given that Android has yet to take off in the tablet and non-phone connected device markets, iOS continues to hold a sizable lead in overall platform comparisons despite Android's rapid ascent in the smartphone portion of the market.

MacGeneration shares an internal email from Apple CEO Tim Cook to company employees informing them of a private celebration of Steve Jobs' life, scheduled for October 19th on the company's campus in Cupertino, California.

Team,

Like many of you, I have experienced the saddest days of my lifetime and shed many tears during the past week. But I've found some comfort in the extraordinary number of tributes and condolences from people all over the world who were touched by Steve and his genius. And I've found comfort in both telling and listening to stories about Steve.

Although many of our hearts are still heavy, we are planning a celebration of his life for Apple employees to take time to remember the incredible things Steve achieved in his life and the many ways he made our world a better place. The celebration will be held on Wednesday, October 19, at 10am in the outdoor amphitheater on the Infinite Loop campus. We'll have more details on AppleWeb closer to the date, including arrangements for employees outside of Cupertino.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Tim

Jobs passed away last Wednesday, with Cook noting in a company-wide email sent soon after that the company was planning such a celebration. A small, private funeral was held for Jobs on Friday. No public events are scheduled, although many of Apple's retail stores around the world have become shrines where those wishing to pay tribute to Jobs have left notes, flowers, and other items of remembrance.

Following the posting of a hands-on video of the iPhone 4S, AppVV has also apparently posted the first consumer photo taken with an iPhone 4S. The photo above was taken with an iPhone 4S and measures in at 3264 x 2448 pixels.

EXIF data is quite easy to manipulate and the image has taken a pass through Photoshop in order to add the watermark, but given the existence of the hands-on video, the photo is likely authentic.

As part of its promotional materials for the iPhone 4S posted following last week's media event, Apple included full-resolution sample photos, but the new image from AppVV offers an example of the quality of photos users can expect simply from snapping a quick photo. And last month, a photo apparently taken by an Apple engineer using an iPhone 4S briefly appeared on Flickr, with the official specs for the iPhone 4S camera announced last week all but confirming that the photo was indeed taken by the device.

Last week, the Infinity Blade developer first suggested that the iPhone 4S still had 512MB of RAM, just like the iPhone 4:

"I'm still shocked that, with the iPhone 4S, I'm literally running around with a 1080p video camera in my pocket, with an eight megapixel camera, 64GB of hard drive space and an A5 chip with 512MB of memory. This is a really powerful computer, right?

The developer would be in a position to know as they had demoed their game on the new iPhone 4S during last week's keynote.

We had doubts about this claim, however, as we had previously heard that the new iPhone would carry 1GB of RAM. Note that we heard this alongside other information regarding Apple's Assistant feature that we accurately mocked up ahead of Siri's launch, so we were confident in the source.

But, now, AppVV also confirms that the iPhone 4S has 512MB of RAM. In a discussion thread an administrator reports that it has 512MB. This fact is repeated on their Weibo page as well in response to a question:

Re @ LogIn_Kim: RAM have said before, is still 512MB.

Though they don't detail how they came to the figure, we're inclined to believe AppVV as they are the ones who posted a hands-on video of the iPhone 4S this morning.

Apple has announced that they have received over one million iPhone 4S pre-orders on the first 24 hours.

“We are blown away with the incredible customer response to iPhone 4S,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “The first day pre-orders for iPhone 4S have been the most for any new product that Apple has ever launched and we are thrilled that customers love iPhone 4S as much as we do.”

That number tops the previous record for Apple held by the iPhone 4 which sold 600,000 units in pre-order on the first day. AT&T previously announced that they alone were responsible for 200,000 iPhone 4S pre-orders.

The iPhone 4S launches officially on October 14th when it will become available in retail stores. Pre-orders should arrive to customers at about the same time.

It seems someone has gotten hold of an iPhone 4S ahead of launch. This video from AppVV.com shows off a new iPhone 4S with some early benchmarks (thanks BluC0la). It also shows the Siri settings interface which allows you to turn Siri On/Off, change Language Settings, Voice feedback, My Info and enable Raise to Speak.

To talk to Siri, press and hold the home button or raise the phone to your ear and speak.

Early Sunspider marks show a total score of 2222.1ms and a BrowserMark score of 89567. For comparison, it appears that the BrowserMark score for an iPhone 4 running iOS 5 is 44856, so the new iPhone 4S benches twice as fast in the browser.

The iPhone 4S doesn't officially launch until October 14th. Some readers have gotten early ship notices, but we hadn't heard of any deliveries thus far. It's not clear how this person obtained their iPhone 4S.

There have been several reports of readers getting ship notices for their early iPhone 4S pre-orders. These orders are starting to show up in UPS tracking databases with expected delivery dates ahead of the iPhone 4S launch date of October 14th.

Apple has in the past, however, coordinated with carriers to hold delivery until official product launch days, and it is likely the company will do so again for iPhone 4S. So, even with early shipment notifications, it's likely that most customers won't receive them until the 14th -- though there are occasional exceptions.

Readers are organizing in our iPhone forums to discuss their upcoming deliveries. Those who want to compare their tracking status changes can do so in these carrier specific threads: AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and International. Meanwhile, if you are desperate to find your tracking number as soon as possible, one poster provides a tip that may provide you that information if your shipment has already moved to "Preparing for shipment".

The iPhone 4S has already sold out of the initial pre-order stock, so if you haven't ordered yet, your only chance of picking one up on launch day is to stand in line. Apple Retail stores will open at 8:00 a.m. on October 14th to sell the iPhone 4S on a first come, first serve basis.

One of the most common Buyer's Guide related question we get asked is "Is it a good time to buy an Apple TV?"

We've never tracked the Apple TV in our buyers guide because it's a product that seems to have no regular release cycle. Apple maintains that the Apple TV is a "hobby" project, and that attitude shows in its infrequent update cycle. The Apple TV is unique in that it is more of a living room appliance whose primary purpose is to play iTunes content on your television. As a result, as long as the Apple TV can play all present iTunes content, there's no compelling reason for Apple to offer a major hardware upgrade.

The Apple TV has only seen two major hardware revisions during its lifetime. First was the original launch back in 2007 and the second was September 2010 when Apple released a smaller iOS-based version. We noted in June that iOS 5 opened the door to a true 1080p-capable Apple TV, but no evidence of such a device had been seen.

9to5Mac has now spotted a reference to a yet-unreleased "AppleTV3,1" in the latest version of iOS 5. This suggests that Apple is working on a next generation Apple TV in its labs. The previous models have carried the codenames "AppleTV1,1" and "AppleTV2,1".

A new Apple TV could integrate Apple's new A5 processor, which offers much faster graphics processing, and include true 1080p support. But unless Apple plans on offering 1080p content on iTunes, that feature would be of limited use to the majority of consumers. Fortunately, Apple has been rumored to be prepping movie studios to start submitting 1080p content to iTunes.

We should note that when previous iPhone references have been found in iOS releases, we've seen a lead time of up to 15 months. So, an imminent release is not guaranteed.

Software evidence of Apple's future devices tends to appear rather early in the development process, as evidenced by iPhone3,1 appearing in iPhone OS configuration files in March 2009. That device turned out to be the iPhone 4, released 15 months later.

We also suspect that any new Apple TV may run up against Apple's future plans for television. There have been persistent rumors that Apple could be taking on the TV market at some point in the near future. The NYTimes revisited this speculation in the days following Steve Jobs' death.

But many in the tech industry contend that television is ripe for technological makeover, and that the next big challenge for Apple, after the death of Mr. Jobs, is likely to be in that area.

Last year, NYTimes' said that Apple was in negotiations over a new television subscription service but ultimately failed.

So, we can't be certain when Apple might be launching a new ApplebTV, but believe it would be tied to other offerings, either 1080p HD iTunes content or another television initiative altogether.

Following the lead of international pre-orders, new orders for the iPhone 4S made through Apple's U.S. online store are now listed with shipping estimates of 1-2 weeks, indicating that the door has closed on the opportunity for customers to pre-order the device through Apple for launch day delivery.

Demand for the iPhone 4S appears to be very strong, with AT&T having reported that it alone had taken 200,000 orders in the first 12 hours of availability. Apple's online store struggled to keep up with the traffic as pre-orders went live, with company eventually resorting to offering order temporary reservations as connections to carriers' systems to verify eligibility and service plans became overwhelmed. Users who received reservations from Apple in the first few hours of availability have until 5:00 PM Pacific Time on Saturday to return and complete their orders before losing their priority standing.

The iPhone 4S will launch next Friday, October 14th in the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

Reuters reports that AT&T is seeing "extraordinary demand" for the new iPhone 4S which became available for preorder at around 12:01 am Pacific time on Friday, October 7th. AT&T reveals that they have seen over 200,000 preorders for the iPhone 4S in the first 12 hours of sale.

For reference, last year, Apple announced that they saw a record-breaking 600,000 iPhone 4 pre-orders in the first day across all carriers in US, France, Germany, Japan and the UK. So, 2010's 600,000 number included all of Apple's launch carriers and over the first full day of sales.

This year, AT&T alone saw over 200,000 pre-orders in half the time. Unlike last year, the new iPhone 4S is now also available on Verizon and Sprint in the U.S, which will account for many other U.S. preorders. Despite being split across three carriers, AT&T says that this is "the most successful iPhone launch we’ve ever had".

Similarly, Apple also offered iPhone 4S preorders in several other countries outside the U.S. too (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the UK). So, it seems certain that the iPhone 4S will also be Apple's most successful phone launch ever.

Update: Sprint's website shows the 16GB iPhone 4S as sold out.

Deadline reports that Sony Pictures is presently working to acquire the rights for a feature film based on Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs.

I’ve just learned that Sony Pictures is making a hefty deal to acquire feature rights to Steve Jobs, the upcoming authorized biography by former CNN chairman and Time Magazine managing editor Walter Isaacson.

Deadline considers the studio to be a good match, having recently condensed another business book into the Oscar-nominated film The Social Network which dramatized the founding of Facebook.

Apple and Steve Jobs has already been the topic of one movie called Pirates of Silicon Valley which covered events of the early founding of Apple and up to the return of Steve Jobs at Apple in the late 90s. The movie was a relatively modest telling and targeted straight to television rather than a feature film. The movie was also released in 1999, well before Apple's massive rise in popularity and profitability.

There's no word on when such a film might be targeted for release.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Steve Jobs' funeral, a "small private gathering", is taking place today, two days after Jobs passed away at the age of 56.

While neither Apple nor the Jobs family is planning a public memorial service, Apple CEO Tim Cook noted in his email to company employees on Wednesday, that Apple will hold an event for Apple staff to celebrate Jobs' life.

There is no public memorial planned for Mr. Jobs's death, said an Apple spokesman.

In a letter to Apple's employees on Wednesday, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said that the company is "planning a celebration of Steve's extraordinary life" for staff that will take place soon.

Fans of Apple and Steve Jobs have of course taken memorial services into their own hands, setting up impromptu displays of flowers, messages, and other items at Apple retail stores around the world.