Yup, the much awaited and highly anticipated iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, Apple’s newest iteration of its take on the smartphone front, is finally here. The phone dusted up a lot of hype these past few days and we’ve seen so many rumours about it that we could probably make an entirely new smartphone just out of the sheer concepts of the alleged features of the next iPhone.
Well, the Watch impressed us, the iPad made us go nuts and the TV stupefied us. Let’s see how the iPhone fared.
Cook started off the announcement by stating that the iPhone 6 is the most popular iPhone ever. Well, the new iPhone looks just like the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, as expected.
The phone will be available in two variants- a smaller 6S and a larger 6S Plus, just like its predecessor. The system has been built on an Apple A9 processor which is a 3rd generation 64-bit chipset that has been optimized for real world use.
That’s not all, the new chipset, Apple says, is based on a new transistor architecture. It is apparently 70 percent faster than the A8 to provide ‘desktop class’ performance. The graphics of the new iPhone are said to perform 90 percent better than the previous gen to give you a ‘console class’ experience.
The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus will also come in with an M9 motion coprocessor and second generation Touch ID. Another reason to upgrade to the new iPhone would be the new 12MP iSight rear sensor which, Apple says, has Autofocus better than ever before, making your pictures come to life. A new technology called ‘deep trench isolation’ has also been added to seperate the diodes and make them more accurate. This will be used to better picture colour reproduction. The camera is also 4K enabled, for those of you wondering. So yeah, you will be able to record and playback high definition videos on this beast.
When it comes down to the front facing camera, the latest iPhones boast a 5MP FaceTime HD camera. The camera will also use a new tech dubbed Retina Flash which will make your selfies look better. The entire display can light up 3 times brighter than usual to act like a flash for the front-facing camera.
That’s not all, you also get another new feature you can play around with called Live Photos. You do not need to do anything, in fact, just take photos like you normally do. The feature is on by default and it will allow you to 3D Touch a picture to make it animate like a video. In more than one way, this feature is like HTC’s Zoe.
The iPhones are also LTE enabled with 23 bands and apparently twice the speed. Apple also claims a 2X speed on the WiFi front. And to encourage you to move to iOS from Android, Apple has dumped in a new app in the Google Play Store to help you move from Android. That’s not all, you can recycle your old Android phone at any Apple Store now.
All that aside now, the main attraction of the new iPhone, by far, is the new touch technology that Apple is referring to as 3D Touch. Using this new way of interacting with your smartphone, you will get a stream of versatile gestures. Two of these gestures have been dubbed Peek and Pop. 3D Touch makes photos, emails, messages etc pop up in the display, with a kind of bokeh effect around the background. It’s basically right-click for your smartphone. The tech works using capacitive sensors integrated into the backlight of the retina display which measure the distance between the glass and the backlight. Press lightly to do one thing and press harder to do another. This is how Apple has taken Force Touch in its own kingdom.
3D Touch has been integrated into iOS 9 quite well so you will never be led to dead ends. Everything you see you can interact with.
Along with that, the Taptic Engine is coming to the iPhone. This will allow your iPhone to differentiate between ‘Mini-tap’ and ‘Full-tap’ allowing you to perform different functions for each.
The iPhones will be available in 3 variants: 16, 64 and 128GB storage and will start at $199 for a 2 year contract. While iOS 9 will be available next week on the 16th of September, the new iPhones will start rolling out from the 25th of this month.
Oh Wait ! Here’s Apple’s final blow (to the carriers) — its newly launched upgrade program. Take a look :
