The equals sign means is equal to. It is telling us that one thing equates to another; that they are the same.
The iPhone 4 is the most recent iPhone to be discontinued from the iOS Update cycle. It did not receive the iOS 8 update, so it's final software version is iOS 7.1.2. You can update to this version through iTunes, or download it from an IPSW repository like this website: https://ipsw.me/.
iPhone 4S. The iPhone 4S (retroactively stylized with a lowercase 's' as iPhone 4s as of September 2013) is a smartphone that was designed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is the fifth generation of the iPhone, succeeding the iPhone 4 and preceding the iPhone 5.