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Tech

The iPhone 4S went on sale on October 14th. Despite lukewarm reaction to the announcement of the 4S, initial sales number appear to be very healthy. As usual, people were lined up at Apple Stores. Pre-order sales were very strong – over one million pre-order units in the first 24 hours – and AT&T’s activation servers were overloaded when everyone tried to activate their phones at the same time. Some analysts predict that Apple will sell 4 million phones over the weekend and another analyst estimates that Apple will sell 24 million iPhones in Q4 2011. Apple stock closed at an all-time high ($422 a share) on Friday.

iPhone 4S launch at Apple’s 5th Avenue Store:

Reviews of the iPhone 4S were very positive, especially for the new Siri personal assistant.

Speech recognition. Crazy good, transformative, category-redefining speech recognition.

David Pogue, New York Times – New iPhone Conceals Pure Magic

Here’s a roundup of other iPhone 4S reviews:

The iPhone 4S: Faster, More Capable And You Can Talk To It – MG Siegler / TechCrunch
The iPhone 4S Review – Joshua Topolsky / This Is My Next
The iPhone Finds Its Voice – Walt Mossberg / Wall Street Journal
It’s the iPhone 4, Only More So – Harry McCracken / Time Magazine
The iPhone 4S – John Gruber / Daring Fireball
more reviews here

People are having a lot of fun with Siri.

Siri Demo from SlashGear:

A few days before the iPhone 4S went on sale, iOS 5 was released.

iOS 5 Review: Ambitious update rings in the changes – MacWorld
There were some upgrade issues when iOS 5 was released but those issues appear to be calming down
iOS 5 discussion on GDGT
There are some issues with apps that store content for offline viewing. This post by the creator of Instapaper goes into details.
iOS 5 video – official Apple video

Other tech news this week:

Apps

FourSquare introduces Radar – a location-based alert system (iTunes)
The new Facebook iPad app (iTunes)
Pearltree for iPad (iTunes, RWW review, Robert Scoble video)
Hipstamatic will release an app that simulates the disposable camera experience. You can’t view the photos until you finish the roll.

Music

Ryan Adams / Ashes & Fire (Spotify, Stereogum review)
An album of cover-songs of U2’s Achtung Baby will be released in November. You can listen to Jack White’s cover of Love Is Blindness here
Tycho – Dive is a great album for chilling out
The Treasure Island music festival was held over the weekend near San Francisco

Sports

The 49ers’ impressive 25-19 victory over the previously undefeated Lions is almost overshadowed by Jim Harbaugh’s overly aggressive post-game handshake
Good news for Giants fans: Buster Posey catches bullpen sessions in Arizona
Inside the Collapse – more details about the Boston Red Sox 2011 Implosion

Television

The Breaking Bad season 4 final was last Sunday. Here are the reviews:
Listen to the Breaking Bad Insider podcast where producer Vince Gilligan, editor Kelly Dixon, and others discuss the finale

San Francisco Restaurants

Paxti’s (Chicago-style pizza) new location on Irving Street is opening soon
Umami Burger on Union Street opened earlier this week
You wouldn’t know if from their Twitter or Facebook accounts, but Suppenkuche Biergarten in Hayes Valley is open for business. In This City SF has details.

The Week Ahead

Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Oct. 17-19
The World Series starts on Wednesday – Rangers vs Cardinals
Product Camp San Francisco on Oct 22nd (sold out)
The annual Bridge School Benefit Concert (Neil Young, Arcade Fire, Foo Fighters, Eddie Vedder, Mumford & Sons, Beck, and others) Oct. 22-23 at Shoreline Ampitheater in Mountain View
Update – video highlights from this concert…

mdoeff