Finally, Apple’s iPhone 4S has been launched in Kenya by Orange. I just got this information from Orange having checked my email a little late today. The good news is that Orange’s iPhone 4S prices actually seem to be lower than those that have been available to-date from “unofficial” Apple vendors in Kenya. However, the pricing is still pretty expensive but then again this is the iPhone 4S and not some run of the mill smartphone.

Apple’s iPhone 4S only just launched in markets like China so its safe to say that Kenya got it pretty early on this basis. Personally, I use an iPhone 4 and I love it! It’s quite simply one of the best smartphones out there – even with the arrival of the iPhone 4S. However, like all Apple fanboys I am now drooling at the prospect of upgrading to an iPhone 4S! Some of the reasons why the iPhone 4S is step up from the iPhone 4 and older iPhone variants are as follows:

• Siri – the biggest deal about the iPhone 4S is that it comes with Siri. Siri is a voice activated personal assistant that runs natively on the iPhone 4S. It’s probably the feature that Apple has really oversold about the iPhone 4S. The reality is that its more of a gimmick than anything else but it does represent possibly the next evolutionary jump in smartphones and Internet search. A few of my friends who have the iPhone 4S say Siri is really buggy and does not work “as advertised”. Whatever the case, Siri is pretty nifty and will get better with time like all cutting edge things from Apple.
• The A5 dual-core processor – the iPhone 4S comes with the dual-core A5 processor which was first seen in the iPad2. What this means is that its twice as fast as the A4 processor in the iPhone 4 and can run graphics as fast as 7 times faster. What does this mean for you if you buy the iPhone 4S? Everything just happens a lot faster when using the iPhone 4S compared to all older iPhone models. Especially when you upgrade to the latest IOS5, the extra processor speed is really handy!
• Camera – the iPhone 4 already has an amazing 5 megapixel camera and its takes fantastic photos! You do NOT need another digital camera with the iPhone 4. However, the iPhone 4S comes with an 8 megapixel camera and new optics compared to the iPhone 4. What does this mean for you? Even better pictures than you could expect from a typically good phone camera. At the same time, the iPhone 4S takes 1080p HD video which means your videos from the iPhone 4S are really vivid and sharp.
• iCloud – iCloud is actually available on iOS5 which can run on all iPhone models from the 3GS to the iPhone 4S. I have been on iOS5 for the better part of two months and it works really well. The main thing is that you are able to back-up all sorts of personal iPhone data onto iCloud and synchronize it as well on a regular basis. The cool thing is that moving your data from say your iPhone 3GS to an iPhone 4 is really easy with iCloud and also keeps your data secure.
• iOS5 – iOS5 has been around for the last few months since the iPhone 4S was launched. It has over 200 new improvements on iOS4 and actually seems to run quicker, even on an older iPhone 3GS. The iPhone 4s was designed to run iOS5 in an optimal manner meaning they just work better together! It helps that the A5 processor can crunch data much quicker though.

Orange is offering the iPhone 4S in Kenya on 12 month post-paid contracts with immediate effect. For the longest time, one of the caveats of buying an iPhone in Kenya on Orange was that they did not have 3G but this is no longer the case  – you can get speeds of up to 21 mbps on their network which is really great for the iPhone 4S. The iPhone 4S will be available in both black and white and below is the pricing information I received from Orange:

• iPhone 4S 16GB: Kes. 74,899.00
• iPhone 4S 32GB: Kes. 87,999.00
• iPhone 4S 64GB: Kes. 101,499.00