No iPhone 5 - and Now No iPhone 4S?

The feeling inside the tech community was of general disappointment, though. There was no redesign, no 4G version, nothing to put Apple as far ahead of its competitors as iPhone 4 was.

The new handset will have a dual core A5 processor like the one in iPad 2, and an eight-megapixel camera - all of which puts it in competition once again with rivals such as Samsung.

The most talked-about feature, though, was the phone's new 'artificially intelligent' assistant.

The feature, called Siri, will allow you to 'talk' to your iPhone like you talk to other people - for instance, you can ask the phone 'What is the forecast today?' while holding down the Home button, and it will bring up a weather forecast.

You can also simply say, 'Wake me up tomorrow at 8am,' and the device will set an alarm for you. You can even dictate your messages to the phone. The idea is that you will speak to Siri as if to a human being (see fact box, below). At launch, Siri will work in English, German and French.

The battery life has been improved - offering a reported 8 hours talk time. The phone will be compatible with fast HSPA+ networks (not 4G, but offering faster data speeds than current networks). Only around 20 phone networks offer this service worldwide, however.