At that time, Lam also said that the Verizon iPhone 4 pointed to a likely recycling of the internal design in the next model. "Apple should be able to retain about 95% of the design of the CDMA iPhone [in its next-generation device," said Lam in February.

Although Apple made multiple changes to the iPhone 4S -- among them replacing last year's 5-megapixel camera with an 8-megapixel camera -- according to iFixit, the similarities between the new phone and the iPhone 4 outnumber the differences.

The iPhone 4S went on sale today at Apple's retail stores other outlets in the U.S., the U.K, Australia, Canada, France, Germany and Japan. Although at some locations, supplies appeared to be sufficient to meet demand.

Apple's new iPhone 4S relies on the same A5 app processor used by the iPad 2. (Image: iFixit)

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at , on or subscribe to . His e-mail address is .