The highest anticipated moment on Apple Event earlier today was the announcement of Apple’s next iPhone – the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus.
Though the “s” indicates incremental updates with no new design to the phone, it’s worth looking into. Apple even claims that “the only thing that’s changed is everything”. Should you even update from your iPhone 6 to iPhone 6s then?
iPhone 6s short video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar2wuOxBpDw
Stronger chassis & glass
The new iPhone 6s is now made with a different material – the 7000 series aluminium (even though it looks the same). The new material is stronger and more durable, which is used in the aerospace industry. They are also covered by stronger glass.
Will this mean less breakable and bendable iPhone? Looks that way but we can’t tell until real life tests come.
The next generation of touch
We all know multi touch (swiping, pinching, etc), but Apple now introduces “3D Touch” (or an improved version of “Force Touch” on the new MacBook). This allows the iPhone screen to also detect a press (like a right click of a mouse) and deep presses which will give you extra interaction methods to the screen.
It will save taps and provides new ways of doing things on supported apps (such as peeking and quick actions). You can also switch between apps without having to use the Home button.
Even games can take advantage of the new 3D Touch, such as doing a deep press to zoom in without lifting your finger off the screen.
3D Touch Official Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSTEB8cdQwo
Faster, Better
Like every new phone iteration, iPhone 6s is faster than iPhone 6 and more energy efficient (70-90% faster in performance). The question is, do we really need a faster iPhone?
Well, why not? More demanding games will load faster and able to dish out more effects and eye-candy without dropping any frame rates. The performance will also be noticeable in power-demanding apps like iMovie and other power-hungry ones.
Camera
One of the most amazing things of an iPhone is its camera. Sure, we have other smartphones with better camera that can take monster-sized pixels. But somehow iPhone camera and its post-processing are just so simple and beautiful without having to fiddle around with manual settings. It just works.
The rear camera of iPhone 6s now has 12 Megapixels, to increase details in the photos you take. Bigger megapixels does not mean better photos, please make a note. But in this case, Apple has also made improvements to the sensors and technology to ensure that the camera can shoot even better photos with all the details in.
The details from the iPhone 6s untouched sample photos are amazing even as you zoom into them. If you take lots of photos with your iPhone, the better camera is good enough for a reason to upgrade.
Selfies will also get better, thanks to the improved iPhone 6s front camera. And for the first time, iPhone can record 4K videos.
Live Photos
Combining the technology of 3D Touch and the improved iSight camera is Live Photos. In a nutshell, it looks like a few seconds of video clip being stored inside the photo you took earlier. By using a deep press on a photo, you can see the short clip. However, it’s not a video clip per se, but more like frames of photos being condensed and saved to be space-efficient.
You can turn this off, of course, but we’ll have to wait and see how much space a live photo uses. Coz it’s just cool (or useless, depending on how you see it).
Other Updates and Enhancements
- “Hey, Siri” is always on now, so you can trigger Siri even without having to plug your iPhone to power.
- 2nd Generation TouchID (twice as fast to recognise your thumb print compared to the previous generation)
- Faster LTE and Wi-Fi
- Some subtle things that are not announced officially – wait for official reviews.
iPhone 6s Official Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBYWGjIzvyw
Pre-order starts this Saturday (12 September) – which is weird as Apple normally did this on Fridays. The iPhone 6s will be available about 2 weeks after on the 25th of September.
Stay tuned at Craving Tech for the review!
Note: Images courtesy of Apple
