I’m a self-prescribed Fan Girl, a true Apple addict. So when I heard Tim Cook’s first product announcement press conference as the new CEO of Apple was taking place at 1:00 on October 4, and the iPhone 5 was rumored to make its debut – I knew I was skipping lunch that day so I could follow along with the live-blogging. There was a lot of information to take in, and my colleagues around me were only mildly irritated when I shouted an update every time I got excited – sorry guys, but at least you got the skinny on the latest Apple updates in real-time. Here’s a recap of what was getting me so excited:

Siri: The anticipated iPhone 5 was what everyone was talking about and Apple must have known that since it wasn’t announcing it, they needed to ease the disappointment of Mac Fans everywhere with something big. Well, people appear to be excited about by Siri, the digital personal assistant that will be integrated into the iPhone 4S. I knew Siri would play a role in the next iPhone when I originally heard Apple had bought the company, but like many out there, I was curious how they would leverage the technology – and I assumed Apple would change the name to something predictable, like iTalk or iVoice.

With Siri, speak-to-text is integrated throughout the whole system and there’s even a microphone on your keyboard. It’s integrated throughout most of the iPhone apps, like weather, GPS, calendar, etc. Basically, you can ask your iPhone if you should wear a raincoat, and it will answer. Most of my colleagues can attest to the fact that the sopping wet version of me who arrived in the office yesterday would have appreciate that feature.  The question is – does it really work? Iff it doesn’t work, then it’s pointless and all this excitement is just meaningless hype. Can it actually understand me, but also decipher meaning? I’m interested, but not impressed yet.

iOS 5: I was impressed with iOS 5 – a lot more than I thought I would be, to be honest. Most notably, I’m an avid Tweeter, so I’ve been anxiously awaiting the all-out Twitter integration. I hate when I’m reading a great article in Safari or take a great photo and I can’t instantly share it to Twitter. Yes, that’s the social media butterfly in me, but it’s in a lot of others too and Apple answered the call, or Tweet, I suppose. I am curious if we’ll also be able to share photos directly to Facebook as well. I’m assuming, and hoping that’s true.

What else comes with iOS 5 is our own version of BBM, or at least that’s what I think, I never actually had to suffer through a BlackBerry – yes, I’m biased. But I see some potential problems with iMessaging. I like that it syncs across devices, so what I send or receive is updated in real-time across my devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod). In fact, I love that part of it. Essentially, it gives us the ability to text on our iPod Touches and iPads, with WiFi of course. But I think the delivery and receipt notifications (I hear it will turn blue when it’s read), will be pointless. Most people will deactivate this – I know I will. We’re all guilty of ignoring text messages – don’t even try to pretend you never have folks. Whether it’s from a friend, a parent or a significant other, we’ve all done it. I don’t want them to know when I ignore them, or else I’ll be forced to respond when my mom asks me why I haven’t been over for dinner in two weeks. Er, sorry mom.

Also coming with iOS 5 is less intrusive reminder feature, which will be huge, for me at least. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to click on a reminder, hoping that it will bring me to the application, or how many times I’ve wanted them to get off my screen when I’m doing something else.  You can also set up reminders based on location. So if you’re near the dry cleaners, a notification will pop up to remind you to pick up the dry cleaning. I bet a lot of wives out there will appreciate this one. I expect big things from iOS 5, and so don’t a lot of developers apparently, Tim Cook says there are already 100,000 of them.

Something that’s not relevant for me, but I think it great for runners, ahem @JennyGardynksi, is the iPod Nano and the fact that it will integrate with Nike+ to track your runs and progress over time. It also comes with nifty watch interfaces, like LED and Mickey Mouse.

iPhone 4S – I wouldn’t rush out and buy it if you have the iPhone 4, but those who are eligible for an upgrade should feel confident in buying it. I do like the feature that all photos will be automatically downloaded to the iCloud, so they’re not stuck on your phone. I wasn’t too excited for the Find My Friends geo-location app, but I do like location-based apps like FourSquare so chances are it’ll grow on me if I can get real value from it and my friends actually use it too.

Considering the fact that I already love my iPhone 4, and combine that with iOS 5 and Siri, I think we’re in for an interesting upgrade.  The tech people and bloggers are all excited about a lot of the new features, and disappointed in the lack of an iPhone 5, but it will be interesting to see the reaction of the consumer world when all of these things hit the market. What are your thoughts on Apple’s announcements? Are you disappointed, or excited about the updates? Will iOS continue to be the number one selling mobile operating system on the market?