Gadgetory

it's September which means it's time to review a new iPhone and because it's an S year for the iPhone we're gonna have to look a little bit deeper for changes but that's okay it turns out that these new phones are all about going deeper this is the iPhone 6s and this is the iPhone 6s plus surprise they look just like the iPhone 6 in the iPhone 6 plus let's just get this out there I think if you're buying an iPhone you should buy the bigger 6s plus it's clear that phones with bigger screens are going to dominate the market then you get a slightly better camera and battery life to boot so it's actually really hard to review the iPhone 6s and the 6s plus it's the iPhone Apple sales are skyrocketing all these people are on me in Times Square are taking pictures with their iPhones the question isn't about specs of course the specs are getting better the question is about how the decision apples made with this phone will trickle into all of the millions of iPhones they'll sell in the future the biggest new feature of the iPhone 6s is 3d touch which lets you actually push into the screen to activate additional features there's also a new 12 megapixel camera that can shoot 4k videos and something Apple calls live photos which are kind of like a combination of a photo a gift and a video because the iPhone 6s and 6s plus looked just like the six and six plus I think it's fair to say that they're not the world's most beautiful phones the weird antenna lines in the back and the slippery shape pretty much just demand that you put them in a case but the body is made of a new higher strength aluminum and the screen has been upgraded with a stronger glass cover so if you have an iPhone 6 you'll definitely notice the 6s and 6s plus are a little bit thicker and heavier than the previous models it's not much it's just a few millimeters and a few grams but it's definitely noticeable I actually prefer the slightly heavier 6s to the 6 it feels a little bit less like it's going to fly out of my hands all the time the exercising weight comes from the 3d touch components which are network of 96 sensors under the screen that measure the distance between the glass and the backlight when you push down on the screen that distance changes and the phone can respond so on the home screen pushing an icon gives you a list of quick actions you can take in certain apps and when you're browsing in Safari you can push lightly to get a preview of a link and push it a little bit harder to pop it open into a window it's kind of like a little right-click for your phone you don't really need it but once you get used to it it's incredible useful that dynamic what Apple calls peak and pop is really the key to 3d touch it's not just like a button it's a way for the phone to sense an entire range of pressures all over the screen when you press down an icon on the home screen you see the background blur out in response to how hard you're pressing it's not useful but it's really cool and it enhances the sense that iOS is all about layers of information something Apple introduced the iPhone when Johnny I've dramatically redesigned iOS 7 3d touch feels like a big step along a path that's been taking shape ever since but here's the thing 3d touch won't really be all that useful until all your third-party apps are using it right now it only really works in Apple's apps so it's actually kind of easy to forget about it especially since Apple's built-in iPhone apps like mail and calendar kind of the weakest parts of the iPhone and that means 3d touch won't make a lot of sense for the next minute there's not a lot of rules for how app developers use it we're going to need a whole language for all these new kinds of pokes and presses it's going to take a while the upside is that 3d touch already feels much more natural than forced touch on the Apple watch which kind of does wildly different things in different apps and demos from apps like Instagram and others are pretty encouraging and a potential for pressure sensitive gaming is off the charts 3d touch might make games the iPhone something much more exciting than just furiously swiping on the screen if you have a big new feature of the iPhone 6s is the upgraded cameras the most important change might actually be to the front camera it's now 5 megapixels up from a tiny 1.2 that means it takes dramatically better photos and videos just a thing for selfies snapchats and FaceTime and the entire screen lights up as a flash which means low-light shots with the fun camera are much improved as well on the back apples boosted the resolution of the rear camera to 12 megapixels up from 8 and added the ability to shoot 4k video the iPhone is always taking the best in most natural photos of any phone so this is a pretty mild update the actual photos from the iPhone 6s aren't dramatically better than the photos from the iPhone 6 they're better but not so much intensely better that you'll notice a difference if you're just sharing them on Facebook you'll need to really blow them up to see the improvement both cameras can take Apple's new live photos which are a little strange when you press the shutter button you'll see a little live indicator pop up letting you know that the phone is recording a few frames before and after your shot later in your camera roll you can 3d touch the photo to playback a short audio and video clip of what you captured it's neat but you've got to remember to keep your camera pointed at your subject after you've shot a photo I have a lot of live photos of me putting the camera down you can share live photos with anyone using iOS 9 watch OS 2 or OS 10 I'll copy ton Apple also says it'll put out an API to let live photos work in third-party apps and on the web but I'm not really holding my breath for them and take off if you want to record short videos apps like vine and Instagram already worked great they work everywhere including Android phones and live photos take up double the space of regular photos so having every single photo you take include a short video seems like overkill it's a cool feature that you should turn on when you want but probably turn off by default 4k video in the iPhone 6s looks great Apple is very proud of the fact that the a9 processor can do all of the stabilization and image processing magic while shooting 4k and then even edit two streams of 4k video in iMovie that's legitimately impressive but 4k video isn't actually on by default you have to go into settings and turn it on that's because it takes up a huge amount of space to record in 4k and there's not a lot of places to watch that footage you need a 4k TV or a really high resolution monitor think of it as a pro feature it's great to have it'll be nice in the future but you're not going to really use it day to day that's kind of the entire vibe with the iPhone 6s and it's built for a much more powerful future it has a ridiculously fast processor it finally includes 2 gigs of RAM so apps and web browsing are smoother than ever the fingerprint sensor on the front is faster and I got about the same battery life as an iPhone 6 around a full day with normal use a little bit longer with iOS 9s low-power mode which turns down the brightness and under clocks the processor that's fine but I'm really hoping the next generation of phones lasts even longer 3d touch is clearly a new kind of interface pattern and the cameras are so good it's hard to even find ways to fully view what they can capture it's a series of tiny meaningful improvements the already great iPhone 6 and if you're using an iPhone 5s or anything older it's going to blow your mind the iPhone 6s is the best iPhone ever and probably the best phone ever the future is great but here's the thing until a couple weeks ago the iPhone 6 was the best phone ever made and it's still pretty damn good in fact I can't say that it's worth upgrading to the 6s from the six it'll definitely be worth it when every app supports 3d touch but by then you'll be buying an iPhone 7