iPhone Announcement: It’s the iPhone 4S

Well, that was disappointing.

OK, OK, so the event hasn’t officially kicked off yet: since everybody and their mom is liveblogging it, we won’t be covering it until after the announcement is over. But there have been a few leaks and apparently all that perfectly reasonable and intelligent speculation about the iPhone 5 has turned out to be premature.

So how do we know it’s the 4S? Japan!

The Japanese store has leaked some screenshots, and the Apple Store is down, so everybody pretty much has let out a big “Awwww, nuts!” and shuffled into the event anyway.

So, what should we expect from the 4S? Going by the previous revisions, expect:

• More memory, probably a choice between 32 and 64GB. Previous revisions have always increased storage, so this will be no different.
• More DRAM, naturally. If you’re storing more apps, and multi-tasking, you’re going to need more on-board memory to run them.
• An incrementally faster processor. Each reiteration has gone up about 200 MHz, and this will probably feature an underclocked processor just like the rest.
• Some types of the iPhone 4 and the remaining iPhone 3GS to be discontinued after today’s announcement. The one with less memory will soldier on, but the 3GS is dead meat by this afternoon.
• The Sprint announcement, of course.

What shouldn’t we expect? Massive changes to the casing, the iPhone 5, or anything really revolutionary outside of the iPhone. Maybe we’ll hear a bit more about the iCloud, which is rapidly becoming a fascinating service. But, in general, expect it to be a relatively quiet event from Apple.

Oh, and we’re watching right now: Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs, but he’s an excellent presenter. Maybe if we’re nice he’ll prank call a Starbucks. Please, Tim? Pretty please? We’ll even dial the number for you!