Gadgetory

so for the first time ever I'm reviewing both the number and number s variant of an iPhone why you might ask well maybe it's happening because I've gone full mainstream that is when I'm not busy running to gaming systems off a single tower like I did in this recent video or maybe it's because the 6s is legitimately our really interesting phone maybe even more so than the six before it what makes it so interesting you might ask I guess we'll find out won't we these cell cases are exquisitely finished bumper cases made of wood and aluminum for the iphone 5 6 and 6s series products they're stylish slim minimalistic and just plain gorgeous check out the link in the video description to learn more for better or for worse other than the new pink color and yes it's pink rose gold Apple has changed pretty much nothing about the device outwardly in spite of outcry about the antenna panty lines or the ever-popular rumors about Apple removing headphone jacks or doing away with the physical home button it is to the naked eye indistinguishable to anyone but a member of Cook's cult from the previous generation device which isn't to say at all that this is the same phone being repackaged and sold to us as if it's new they really did change a lot first there was the knee-jerk reaction to the iPhone 6 pluses bendgate Fiasco which was to assure us that the new phone is made of 7000 series aluminum oh then there's the really cool under the hood stuff like man this is great if the S is for speed then wow did the engineers ever take that to heart first you've got the new a9 CPU which is lightning fast in single threaded tasks and even surprisingly competitive with quad and eight core processors in multi-threaded workloads not to mention its chart-topping new GPU which is useful for accelerating a lot more than games by the way with video and image processing workloads both being capable of utilizing a graphics processor second while Apple retains that inexcusable $900 16 gig model a capacity that cost $500 off contract back in February of 2008 by the way they have at least acknowledged that Ram has gotten cheaper and have finally upped the ante when it comes to system memory giving both the 6s and the 6s plus a bump to two gigs for better multitasking which coming back to storage leads to our next s bullet point the on-board storage it's noticeable like day-to-day Oh ABB's switching between them floating webpages noticeable that the 6s is fast and it's too much of an improvement over the six for it to be CPU speed alone but I have no idea why until I read Joshua ho from a non Tech's early benchmarks of the 6s where he figured it out Apple engineered an nvme SSD controller for this new lineup no wonder it feels so fast we're talking about a phone with storage that's nearly twice the speed of other flagship devices out there that are still using MMC holy crap and there are actually a few more s notes before we move on the AC Wi-Fi now appears to be wave 2 which resulted in the following speeds compared to our iPhone 6 on a ruckus our 710 access point running on a gigabit fiber internet connection the S six supports LTE advanced if you're one of the lucky bastards with service in your area and the fingerprint scanner is more reliable when covered with grime or water and it is lightning fast now like to the point where it's actually kind of inconvenient if you're like me and habitually wake your phone to view notifications with the home button they'll be gone before you even have a chance to see them enough about speed though let's talk about 3d touch right now the way it's used in some cases is just kind of a party trick a really cool well executed party trick but if we're being honest with ourselves the amount of time that you save force touching the camera app and then clicking selfie versus launching the camera with a gesture like you can do on some Android handsets and then choosing selfie mode is not significant where it really got my attention was in Safari where it legitimately changed the way that I browsed the web similarly to how tabbed browsing did for me on the desktop like I'm I'm a skimmer so being able to force touch articles or threads in a forum and read now in a new tab or save for later is flippin awesome and I can see this being used in so many ways because now with forced touch we effectively have three different clicks that we can execute on a single thing you've got your short your long press and then you've got your D press and like I said in my 2015 MacBook video it just feels great to use like I complain about crappy vibration motors and phones but for the most part the guys that are doing it well have all been doing it the same level of pretty well for a while ah this is a whole new level it's easy to feel while it's next to you it is damn near silent when it's not next to you so you don't get that noise with the only disadvantage here being that it's kind of hard to find if you accidentally drop it between a couch cushion like I did good thing for me though I had an Apple watch on when I did that so I was able to ping it with that little feature which is about the only good experience I had with the Apple watch first gen while I was doing this review I was really hoping that watch OS 2 would change my mind about the Apple watch and I could justify doing a full review of watch OS 2 but that's not going to happen time travel is slower than just swiping through events would be and the way that it desperately clings to its pathetic battery life makes for a terrible experience I feel bad for me and everyone else who bought one still which on the subject of software I guess leads us to iOS 9 there's still a lot of random stuff that drives me crazy clearing the search field and Apple map still requires me to click again to start typing a new address and that ridiculous multitasking rolodex thing that I thought we all agreed was bad in Windows Vista why is that back in fashion and holy s--t Apple implement t9 dialing if you're watching this it's 2015 let me dial the numbers that correspond to the names of my contacts it is way faster than going through the contacts list and you know what some people have more than you know 10 contacts ok it's way better on a more positive note Apple continues their excellent support of older devices something that many Android users poopoo noting that performance is often degraded in these cases but I personally prefer to have in gaping security holes and what was it something like 87% of the user base out there so there's that and on the subject of features they've added some welcome stuff like that handy Proactive thing when you swipe to the left that shows you you know cool nearby stuff relevant news that kind of thing they've got this cool battery life widget for your phone and your connected devices and the today pulldown the scrubbing browsing feature in photos I absolutely love especially when combined with the HTC Zoe asked snippets of live action with a second and a half on either side of the shutter press that go along with your still photos in live photo mode those are cool and then there's about sixty other some odd cool things this isn't a comprehensive iOS 9 review check out the article linked in the video description on iPhone hacks calm for a more complete list back to photos in the meantime though the rear camera is great but not nearly as revolutionary as you might think given the huge megapixel bump from eight to twelve I mean to be clear it's very competitive with the galaxy s6 and the LG g4 but so was the iPhone 6 and if you do a lot of low-light photography or 4k video recording which by the way it records 4k now which is cool the lack of optical stabilization in the non plus model will hurt you that is to say unless you happen to be rocking inline skates when it's time to capture a moment the selfie camera is a big improvement it's 5 megapixels now and I guess having the screen boost its brightness to act as a pseudo flash is better than nothing but I still prefer the super wide angle lens on the galaxy s6 for my self-portraits which I guess leads us finally to the conclusion you can like Apple orb you can hate Apple I don't care and frankly I doubt that they do either but what I'm tired of hearing from the haters in particular is Apple doesn't innovate innovate a new thing to criticize them though I mean sure Apple didn't invent the idea of higher resolution displays being better when they launched the iPhone 4 they didn't invent fingerprint scanners for authentication with the 5s and they sure as hell didn't invent fast storage being critical for overall system performance with the 6s but what they did do is implement these technologies in a compelling way in a real product that isn't just a tech demo the 6 didn't impress me it was on hey I can make a bigger phone to response to the changing mark place and did nothing to lead the industry the 6s on the other hand is a striking return to form and takes the place of the iPhone 4 as my favorite iPhone yet this is a device that has so much to offer that Apple didn't even feel the need to draw attention to the fact that it's just about as water-resistant as any other phone on the market it's a device that I feel like you could buy with confidence knowing that it will last a long time before there is a meaningful reason to need an upgraded iPhone that is to say unless they finally decide at some point to compromise a millimeter here or there and deliver a 4.7 inch device with a half decent sized battery in it I made it through the day without a charger only about 70% of the time but for some reason we all accept that aspect of the iPhone experience so I guess complaining about it won't do me any good and on the subject of complaints we've had a few complaints that our phones always have those vinyl skins on them in our b-roll and so we took those complaints and we burned them in a fire today's episode sponsor is D brand you head over to deep brand calm you put in whatever device you've got whether it's an iPhone 6s or whether it's a Playstation 4 or like MacBook or they even do game controllers those ones are freaking cool and then you go ahead you go through their customizer utility which is awesome and gives you a really great idea of what your device is going to look like you pay a reasonable price for a high-quality vinyl skin and then you pay $3 flat shipping to have it shipped to you they've got tons of happy customers they're one of the sponsors that we get just boatloads of positive feedback about they've got great customer service and overall we can't say enough positive things about d-brane so we'll phones continue to have D brand skins on them in our reviews yes they will so there you go thanks for watching the video today guys if you just liked it I think you know what to do but if you liked it hit that like button get subscribed to Linus tech tips and maybe even consider supporting us you can buy a cool shirt like this one you can change your Amazon bookmarked one with our affiliate code instructions for how to do that up there and you can even join our community forum and give us a direct monthly get a cool badge next to your name if you're done doing all that stuff and you're wondering what to watch next check out this video where I actually took the iPhone 6s and liquid-cooled it compared to some other top-tier devices like the Galaxy s6 edge as well as the LG g4