Gadgetory

this is the new iPhone 2015 being an S year it's a lot like the old iPhone that means it's a solid smartphone simple yet capable it's the phone you recommend to your friends who can't be bothered with optimizations to parents who want something that just works - henry david thoreau fans but with a new operating system and the biggest interface upgrade in apple's history if this year's iPhone isn't as simple as its forerunners I'm Michael Fisher with PocketNow let's find out what that added complexity brings for better and for worse in our iPhone 6s plus review almost nothing about the design has changed since last year the new 7000 series aluminum is more resistant to bending and it's got a slightly rougher texture but it's still fairly slippery compared to most phones it's also still got last year's wide radius corners pronounced antenna channels and bezels that look a little chubby next to some of the latest Android phones so while comfortable to hold even at this larger size it's not likely to win any beauty contests that's objective of course as is whether you'll be able to tell that the five and a half inch display is only full HD hope you heard those air quotes because for us 401 pixels per inch is still plenty dense for a smart phone more pixels would certainly be nice yes but we've spent the majority of this year testing phones with super high res displays and big batteries and then being disappointed in their endurance the iPhone 6 plus is the opposite it packs a smaller power pack than most but it's really good at making the most of it we've got the details in our full review at pocket now but this phone lasted seven hours of grueling heavy use before giving up the ghost the same kind of usage that torpedoed the Moto X pure edition in just five hours in more typical conditions and with the help of power saving mode the 6s plus got us through almost two days of moderate use without charging for a phone this size that's really solid endurance and it helps make up for the fact that the iPhone has no wireless or super fast charging options like some of its competitors that's not to say the new iPhone is without its toys the new touch ID fingerprint scanner is so fast it's too fast we almost never see our lockscreen notifications and the camera shortcut is useless so all you need to do is graze the home button to unlock the thing the notification switch is nothing new but it's so great to be able to silence the entire device with one click and when you do apples taptic engine delivers a much more subtle vibration impulse the taptic engine also makes its presence known every time you use the new iPhones most famous feature 3d touch is well remember the blackberry storm and it's awful clicking touchscreen 3d touches like that if it worked the way it was supposed to you press a little harder on the clock for example you can jump right into the stopwatch do it on the Evernote elephant and you can start a new note see how many messages are waiting from your VIP contacts instantly start Shazam in a song see what your next calendar appointment is this is the kind of stuff you don't immediately get and it's easy to forget the function is there unless you're constantly using it but the first time you peek into an email and then pop into the full version or do the same with a link in the browser or reposition your cursor in a text field you get it it's not mind-blowing or anything but it is of very clever means of extracting more usefulness from a touchscreen and it's only gonna get better as more developers start embracing it for their applications the rest of Apple's new OS is a largely positive experience with some new and old frustrations mixed in iOS 9 brings a new multitasking screen that makes it easy to shuffle between apps and even with only 2 gigs of RAM we didn't often find ourselves waiting for apps to reload from idle the reach ability is still here to make stretching to the top of the screen a little easier if you're trying to use this big phone one-handed and spotlight search is the easiest way to find or do basically everything on the phone the new proactive panel on the leftmost home screen is pretty good at delivering contextually relevant shortcuts and information and it's strange that Apple is the only big software maker to embrace a swipe up from the bottom control panel it's so convenient that every large phone should include it but it doesn't include notifications for those you need to head up at the top of the screen which is just as annoying here as on every other large smartphone reach ability or no Notification Center is much improved these days but alerts are duplicated via badges on the Immortals springboard so if you have a lot of spam sitting unread and some of your email folders get ready to see this all the time unless you want to manually tell iOS which apps do and don't get badges as for the springboard itself that grid of icons and folders is just as inflexible as it's been for nearly a decade you can change your wallpaper and move stuff around and that's about it voice dictation works really wonderfully until it stops working for no good reason Safari is pretty quick at loading pages but it's got some really confusing interface quirks that make it frustrating to use the list goes on iOS 9 is really cool there's much more than we can cover in this video but like many new releases it needs some refinement the iPhone has made a name for itself in photography mainly thanks to a combination of solid optics and dead simple software this phone is no different in that regard the most attention by far has gone to live photos which are basically other short videos but Apple would prefer you didn't call them that they add a little life to the gallery you can animate them with a 3d touch or even set one as your wallpaper which is very cool is it worth the slew of video files and your photo exports and the storage penalty yeah probably unless you get that 16 gig iPhone which you shouldn't more conventional photos look quite nice courtesy of the new 12 megapixel camera hardware and the combination of digital and optical stabilization on the 6s plus makes for smooth video even when on walkabout a video which you can then edit right on the phone in iMovie the stills seem a bit underexposed on the whole but low-light photos are actually pretty good with or without the color correcting dual LED flash the selfie shooter got the more significant update by far it's now 5 megapixels and it's augmented by a clever display based flash that adjusts its color temperature based on the ambient lighting of a scene that's cool but it's a shame Apple once again failed to include a wide-angle lens as good as the iPhone is its competitors have really stepped up their output quality this year with contenders from Samsung and LG in particular sometimes taking better photos than the iPhone so it'll be interesting to see what Apple brings to the table next year for now the iPhone 6s plus camera experience is pretty tight Apple just needs to come up with a different way to launch it faster thanks to that to quick fingerprint sensor maybe we suggest a double click of the home button oh right no we can't that shortcut has already claimed by multitasking when the phones awake and Apple pay when it's asleep that's part of the added complexity we mentioned in the opening it's tough to get used to a shortcut when it's not consistent but you know what it's so worth it because Apple pay is so fast and its ubiquity at least in cities like Boston is a striking reminder that ecosystem is about more than apps and when you buy into Apple you buy into a big ecosystem that's ahead of the pack in some ways in others Apple's just now catching up the new motion coprocessor gives the phone more contextual awareness letting you do things like summon Siri hands-free using just your voice but there's no automatic activation of the display when you take the phone from a pocket nor any of the more advanced stuff Motorola has been doing for years the reception doesn't seem as good as some of the devices in our inventory either and finally there are precious few large screen optimizations here there's none of the split-screen multitasking as we see on the Galaxy Note or the iPad there's not even a persistent number Rho and the default keyboard as on so many other phones Apple relies on a dual pane interface in some apps to maximize screen real estate and that's fine iOS shouldn't be like other platforms it should do its own thing but Apple's conservative evolution of features on its plus sized iPhone and continues to make it feel to us like little more than a scaled up version of the original we think there's some unused potential here and yet a scaled up version of something great is still great and as it enters its ninth generation the iPhone remains a great smartphone its challenges a steeper learning curve less elegant software and a year old hardware design are counterbalanced by great battery life a deep ecosystem of apps and services 3d touch and a solid camera the iPhone 6s plus isn't the most exciting smartphone of 2015 not by a longshot but it wasn't meant to be either it was meant to be the best oversized iPhone yet and this phone delivers there's much more detail in our full review folks check it out at pocketnow.com or you can also find our full review of the iPhone 6s - and follow us on social media at pocket now till next time i'm michael fisher captain to phones on twitter reminding you to keep your photos live and your battery charged thanks for watching we'll see you next time