Apple on Tuesday finally unveiled a new iPhone—the iPhone 4S.

Sprint was also added to the iPhone carrier lineup.

Pre-orders for the device start October 7 and they will be in stores on October 14. The iPhone 4S will come in black and white. A 16GB will cost $199, the 32GB will be $299, and, for the first time, a 64GB version will be $399.

The iPhone 4S will be sold in Apple Stores, as well as AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon Wireless (sorry, T-Mobile) retail outlets. It will be available in 22 more countries by the end of October, including Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Going forward, meanwhile, the iPhone 4 will be $99 and the iPhone 3GS will be free with a two-year contract.

"Don't be fooled. Inside it is all new," Apple's Phil Schiller said. That includes Apple's new dual-core A5 chip, as well as dual-core graphics and 7x faster performance, with the same retina display found on the iPhone 4.

Schiller said users will get eight hours of 3G talk time with the iPhone 4S, for the first time. He also said the device will "intelligently switch between two antennas to improve call quality" and double download speeds. It will support HSPA+ 14.4, which can deliver speeds up to 14.4 Mbps.

The "world phone" will support both CDMA and GSM networks.

One of the updates coming to the 4S is voice recognition. "We really just want to be able to talk to our device. Tell it what we want and have it do it for you," said Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iPhone Software at Apple.

Last year, Apple acquired voice-recognition application startup Siri and added some voice-to-text features to iOS 4. That option will be beefed up with the iPhone 4S to understand context and allow you to speak naturally when you ask it questions, Apple said.

Forstall asked Siri for the weather, for example, and it spit out the forecast. It also told him the time in Paris, and the status of the NASDAQ, and also provided restaurant recommendations for Palo Alto, sourced from Yelp.

Siri can also read messages aloud so you don't have to read them on the screen, Forstall said. Voice-activated search is also supported.

Siri is incorporated into the navigation of the device, so you can have Siri do just about anything you would do with your phone, according to Forstall. "You can manage your calendar now with your voice. You can compose and dictate emails right to Siri."

The technology will initially include support for English, French, and German. It will debut as a beta, meaning Apple will add more languages and services over time.

Apple boasted about the phone's camera capabilities, arguing that it will be better than the average point and shoot device. The 4S's camera will include an 8-megapixel sensor with 60 percent more pixels, hybrid IR filter for better image quality, five element lens, f/2.4 aperture for better low-light performance, and advanced face-detection algorithms, as well as 1080p video recording.

The iPhone 4S will come pre-loaded with iOS 5, which will make its debut on October 12, along with iCloud.

Schiller made the announcement at a press event at Apple's Cupertino headquarters, where Tim Cook also took the stage for the first time as CEO.

Cook said the iPhone 4 accounts for more than half of all the iPhones sold since the device's inception. "It's pummeling the competition," he said.

Apple also talked up its iPad tablet, and said Apple has now sold more than 250 million iOS devices. About 92 percent of Fortune 500 companies are also testing or deploying the tablet, which Cook said is "unheard of." Despite the competition, the iPad is "the undisputed, top selling tablet in the world," he said.

Rumors about Apple's next iPhone, meanwhile, have been making the rounds for the better part of a year, with reports of a completely revamped device, an edge-to-edge screen, no NFC (well, maybe), and an 8-megapixel camera, among other things.

Attention soon turned to when Apple might unveil the new device. For the last two years, Apple has announced its new iPhone at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in June. This year, however, Steve Jobs took to the stage to provide a glimpse of iOS 5 and Mac OS X Lion, but did not show off a new iPhone. Attention then turned to Apple's fall music event—September? October? Never? We finally got our answer late last month, when Apple sent out invites for today's event, urging attendees to "talk iPhone."

For more from today's Apple event, see the slideshow above. How did Apple's announcement stack up to our wish list? Check out 9 Things We Want From the iPhone 5 to compare.