But more important to many would-be buyers, however, may be that it comes with unique technology that switches a radio signal between its two exterior antennas to provide better reception.

Those two antennas were behind the that erupted last year after the iPhone 4 launched and users found that holding the device a certain way led to dropped calls. With the iPhone 4S, Apple seems to have come up with an internal fix for the "death grip" issue, analysts said.

Apple officials only briefly mentioned the new antenna design in their presentation, and an Apple statement about the new phone, which goes on sale Oct. 14, was succinct: "Improving on the innovative stainless steel external, dual-antenna design of iPhone 4, iPhone 4S is the first phone to intelligently switch between two antennas to send and receive."

Apple didn't respond to a request to more details. But Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg said the company probably tweaked the new phone's hardware and software to eliminate reception problems that plagued some iPhone 4 devices.

"Apple didn't go into details of what they are doing, but they were clearly laying to rest early on the issues over reception seen in iPhone 4," Gartenberg said. "Since the iPhone 4S exterior design is relatively unchanged from iPhone 4, people were obviously wondering if there would be any issues with the antenna again, call it 'Antennagate' or whatever."