The Apple iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus Review
anandtech.com
anandtech.com
That's quite an endorsement, that is quite rare from Anandtech, if I've been following correctly.
I'm not always a huge fan of the iPhone, but I have to say that, after testing the 6S, it's really tempting.
The last smartphone to get a similar endorsement was HTC One M7.
HTC offered some sort of replacement program but that would require me to go without a phone for weeks.
Eventually Verizon sent me a replacement unit whose camera was even worse. I decided my next phone would be an iPhone. I now have the 6 Plus and it's the best point and shoot camera I've ever had, period (even counting standalone cameras.) If something goes wrong with the phone I know I can go to an Apple retail store and get it fixed or replaced immediately, not in weeks.
but at the same time it's kind of worth it, because it's easily the best camera on a cellphone i've ever used.
But man, the battery...
Also, Nexus 6P (with the usb 3.1 type C) can get fully charged in under 10 minutes. I've heard that it's possible to get days worth of usage with just like 8 or 9 minutes of charging. That sounds pretty nifty.
As a Xperia Z5 owner, I don't believe you ;)
Seriously, there are more phones with great cameras now. Both Samsung and Apple can get lost in the crowd - see above mentioned Xperia or LG G4.
Taste is subjective, I have no doubt you like the Samsung more. But subjectively, on average, people like iPhone photos more often than they like Android photos.
On an internet poll. When the results are this close, details matter. Not to mention there are no Android photos, only Samsung, Nokia, &c. And even then, different models.
Not saying you're wrong (I think you're right). But if you're going to quote something, choose a believable source that sustains your point, not a dodgy one that almost refutes it.
That part is definitely not false... My Sony RX100 II blows these cameras out of the water and its a pocket camera.
Ultimately, smartphone cameras have very small sensors, so their "technical" performance (the pixel peeping I mentioned) is inherently inferior to that of larger format cameras.
It would even be valid suggesting that a point and shoot outclasses mobile phone cameras.
Also, please before someone does, do not use the “The best watercolors are the watercolors you have on you” trope.
2 years later and the only definite "improvements" I can cite between the M7 and the M9 is the inclusion of an SD slot and the tap-to-wake option on the screen. I understand that both of these were in the M8, so I probably could've saved myself $200 and grabbed that.
I know on the 6 you can double tap the home key to bring the screen down, but that is a bandaid. I also found the double tap unresponsive sometimes, often having to try two or three times, in which time I could have just repositioned my hand.
To me, the 5 is near the optimal smartphone size.
This would appear to be reasonably dependent on the size of the person. The idea that a smaller person and an NBA player would like the same size is a bit silly, no?
Hopefully there will be a future update at the smaller size.
Sure, some people can multi-task. I might even be one of them. But I prefer not to.
I know this isn't the question you asked and you've already moved on, but for others, there is a way around this problem on the iPhone. If you 'soft tap' the home button twice, the entire display shifts down about 3 inches.
I think he already know that, and I kind of agree.
I actually went so far as to buy a new 5S a couple of weeks ago after I got drunk and threw my old one at the ground one too many times and smashed it to pieces. It was due for replacement anyway because the battery was hosed and losing charge way too fast. I could've paid a bit more for the 6 or 6s and I love the shape and construction of the phone, but the size is simply a dealbreaker for me.
What puzzles me is that I don't know anybody else who feels like this. Most people are surprised at me, or don't seem to notice that they suddenly need two hands to operate their smartphone.
Before, I would avoid doing some tasks on my phone like taking more than a few lines of notes. The bigger screen feels less cramped and I don't feel annoyed while using it. In fact I wrote this comment out on my phone. I've never done that with any of the smaller phones I've had.
I can totally see how having a bigger screen and bigger battery are great. But unfortunately for some of us, we have times where we need to be able to use the phone with one hand.
Over time I've discovered that many apps over alternative ways of doing things that don't require you to reach so far.
I am also a tall guy with long fingers so usually I do not have to re-position the phone to reach everything. When I do, I can do it with one hand pretty smoothly now with a year of daily practice.
I do have to say, that any bigger and it would be too big. I can also see that someone who is less willing to compromise on drawbacks of a large screen would not like it.
If you have powerful computer from 2010, it'll happily run Windows 10 and almost any application, including almost any game in medium (or even high) mode. I wonder, whether this race on mobile platform will continue or iPhone 6S will be able to run iOS 15 without any lags?
On an unrelated note, I really don't understand, why iOS 9 (actually iOS 7+) is so slow on iPhone 4S. I was able to run powerful 3D games on that phone. Like a lot of shaders, triangles, special effects, and so on. This phone actually has good enough GPU. Why simple sliding animation could lag? Why opening "Settings" app takes few seconds? That's crazy. Probably there are good technical reasons for that, but I just don't understand, what they could be. Sometimes I think that there is intentional performance bottlenecks for old phones, so people would want to buy a new ones. I has the chance to compare iOS 6 and iOS 8/9 on the same phone, and difference is huge.
What possible incentive could any phone manufacturer have to build a phone that significantly over-lasts the rough 2 year cycle that their bulk buyers, i.e the networks, sell the phones on?
That's not rhetorical, I'm really asking - does anyone know of any?
1. General brand goodwill. If it's known that the phone you buy today will be functional for the next 5 years, then long-term customer loyalty may incentivize a company to make sure their units last that long
2. App-store market share. The longer your phone lasts, the lest likely its purchaser will replace it with another ecosystem's product. This would increase the lifetime revenue you get from that buyer.
Again, I'm not sure if these two incentives are enough to outweigh the "new every two!" hardware refresh profits.
Consider it this way: the actual evidence we have disagrees with your conclusion. Apple has seemingly gone out of their way to ensure that new releases continue to run on increasingly-older generations of hardware. Look at calvin_c's comment[1] for a complete breakdown of this.
It's hard not to believe that planned obsolesence isn't at least part of that strategy. It's certainly incidental. I don't hold a grudge against Apple for doing this, but not acknowledging it is turning a blind eye.
But in the consumer mobile OS space, there are really only a few big players. It looks like google does patch old versions of the OS, albeit up to a limit: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/01/12/google-not-fixing-som...
But on the other hand with the way the android adoption curve looks, that's still a lot of people. I just checked wikipedia right now, something like 35% of users are running a version which google stopped patching. So to have the same coverage of security updates, google has to support more OS versions. And even then, they're leaving a lot of people in the dust.
I'm sure google would like people to upgrade too, less versions for them to maintain, but they've got the whole carrier situation to deal with in that ecosystem.
What if you displease them in one way, by making older phones have a limited lifespan, but redress that by pleasing them enough to make the difference in other ways, for example by developing newer phones with superior features that get them excited enough not to care so much about the shortcomings of the old model (shortcomings which wouldn't necessarily be as apparent if the phone had a longer lifespan)?
Might it then be the best strategy to displease your customers on purpose, and accept the negative impact of that since it's also contributing to a wider goal of selling more phones and making more profit?
@aljones gives such an incentive.
Now, you try to cook up particular parameter values under which this reasoning would not apply ("what if you displease them in one way..."). What is the point of this?
I asked for incentives because I'm not aware of any strong ones, aljones replied with what they thought was such an incentive. But, am I obliged to agree? If I disagree, should I not point this out and continue the discussion in a constructive manner?
Additionally, cook up particular parameter values - I don't understand what you mean - we are talking specifically about the 2 year lifecycle of a phone, and the manufacturers' incentives for keeping it as such - I didn't bring that in out of nowhere, that's what we were originally talking about!
The incentive is called actually giving a fuck about quality, and doing the best job you can.
This is thoroughly ingrained in Apple's culture, and NOT ingrained in competitors' culture.
2 year cycle? Nope. Apple's mobile products have a very solid 4-year cycle. Far superior to competitors.
Compared to its competitors, decidedly no. The state of affairs on Android is even worse.
Samsung Galaxy S2 release: May 2, 2011
Apple iPhone 4S release: October 14, 2011
Google Galaxy Nexus: November 17, 2011
Galaxy S2 last OS release: October 9, 2012
4S's latest OS release: October 21, *2015*
Galaxy Nexus' last OS release: October 3, 2013
Compared to other industries, like computers or cars, sure. Maybe it's planned obsolescence.
Or maybe it's just that it's such a new product that innovations and consumer desire are faster than usual (or, likely, sustainable).
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_4S
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_II
As for the other complaints: yes, it's not a perfect situation, but it's better than the alternatives. At the very least, it is still receiving security updates. Those Android phones' last updates predate Heartbleed...
Clothes don't need to break, lightbulbs can be built that last forever, cars can and should run indefinitely when we can build aeroplanes that don't fall out of the sky and the performance of animations on an iOS device do not need to degrade substantially every OS release.
Apple release new versions of their OS to support the App Store (which make billions every year) not at all to increase the longevity of devices but to decrease them!!
I assume some of you think this is a paranoid conspiracy or something??
A much safer bet would be a popular Android device, where anyone can port the latest Android version to the device and there is no monetary interest in not doing so, and thus it's likely that updates will be available forever.
Apple doesn't give users the freedom to run their own software, so you are instead beholden to their benevolence.
Perhaps it's the memory requirements. The 4S had 512MB RAM, the 6S has 2GB (plain 6/plus have 1GB).
I'm not sure the comparison to PCs is fair. Smartphones are still pretty young, and both the OS and chipsets make large leaps every year. If the pace of progress were as fast in the PC industry, you'd also expect a 5-year-old laptop to be unable to keep up.
I expect the pace of progress will slow down for smartphones. Consequently, the iPhone 6S will be usable for longer than the iPhone 4S.
So yeah, while there is certainly some performance lost on a 4S running iOS 9, it's not nearly as bad as the original iPad running iOS 5, or the original iPhone running iOS 3. I imagine the 6S will easily be able to handle iOS XV.
Also noteworthy is that the only iPad not still receiving updates is the original model, meaning the iPad 2 has received the most major updates of any iOS device at five.
Maybe I'm just used to being able to repurpose old laptops and desktops with slimmed down Linux when they run current versions of Windows or OSX too slowly. All I know is that my original Nexus 7 (2012) is not getting the newest Android update while my iPad 2 (2011) is getting the latest iOS...
...but I want nothing more than to be able to put a third party ROM image on that old iPad or even downgrade it to an older iOS because while the Nexus 7 still works fine, the iPad running the latest iOS is practically unusable. Even reading books on it causes hangs and stutters. Task switching is miserable and trying to run more than one or two tabs in the browser is just masochistic.
I don't even care about jailbreaking or rooting or warranties or any of that. These things are both out of warranty and I own both so I accept the risks. But to this day, I still can't find any way to get something less demanding up and running on that iPad 2. I don't mind not having new features that require new hardware. I'd be happy with good performance and a simple set of apps (browser, email, calendar, e-reader, etc) as long as it didn't stutter and lag through it all.
1: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/09/a-slide-into-obsolescen...
Maybe when iOS 15 comes along someone will put iOS 9 on it somehow and it will blaze along. I doubt it, but I would not be at all surprised if the delays in opening apps are the same in iOS 15 and the hardware that goes with it. There should be a 'Moore's Constant' for this, to describe how all advances in silicon are instantly negated by operating systems at boot time to have a consistent amount of delay when opening apps.
The iPhone 4s used the A5, an 800 mhz 32-bit processor with 512MB of RAM.
From the review, the iPhone 6s is a 64-bit processor with access to 2GB of RAM. And with the advancements announced at WWDC like App Thinning and LLVM and Swift optimizations, we may be close to the end of seeing any noticeable slowdown in the foreseeable future of these devices.
But that's probably because the iPhone 4S has half as much RAM and a 0.3GHz slower CPU.
The 4S is now 4 years old. That is a long time. The 4S is also 2 full years older than the first-ever 64-bit smartphone, the iPhone 5S, which really was a tremendous performance leap.
Try anything 5S or newer. You will be very happy.
This bothers me a lot, and cynical as I am I suspect that this is on purpose and Apple's way to encourage people to upgrade to a new phone. My wife has a four years old MacBook Pro, which after two years inexplicably started to slow down more and more to the point where the most trivial tasks like opening a menu became a major pain. It is very hard to imagine legitimate reasons for why this should happen, especially since my wife installed a bunch of programs when the computer was new and since then did not change anything.
Also, the battery duration has become worse. But that might also just be its age - although not sure.
Now, just because of that, I'm thinking about buying a new phone.
I wonder, is this similar for Android phones? When I buy a high-end Android phone now, can I expect it to still run fast in 3-5 years or so the future current version of Android?
I've felt ambivalent about 3d touch until now.
Now if I could get a dark UI theme on it my last gripe would go away. (No, negative is not good enough ;)
You're right, wish it could be more discoverable, but now that I know, am very happy.
Such as, the Plus is a large phone so you most often open it with the phone tilted somehow, giving you landscape mode. It does not easily revert to the upright state without juggling it around, nor is there an option to not go landscape on the home screen only (seriously who needs that?). It's not even in the settings menu to disable rotation entirely - you have to find it in the pull up menu.
Another gripe I have is that all the pull up and down menus also trigger when you don't want it. The screen has gotten really sensitive, which is great, but there are lots of unintended effects now.
A fanatical user running the company wouldn't have overlooked this.
Apple never had perfection. It's nothing more than revisionist history. Every one of their products has had issues.
> A fanatical user running the company wouldn't have overlooked this.
Steve Jobs was quite happy to allow dreadful products like OSX 1.0 or the original Retina MacBook to go to market despite a litany of issues. The fact is that the CEO can't be worried about stupid, small details like this. If you actually thought deep about all that goes on at Apple and the increasing need for CEOs to be involved in lobbying you would soon realise how silly your point is.
Original Retina MacBook Pro June 11, 2012
Steve Jobs 1955-2011
I believe you may have made a mistake in judging who made the final decisions on quality control procedures for the initial release of the rMBP.
What are you talking about? I got the first rMBP right out of the gate and was blown away. After 3+ years, it's still a wonderful product. Never had any issues with the hardware except a screen repair that was done under warranty.
The down side, of course, is that you lose some screen real-estate in your apps. They do need an option just for the home screen.
I'd like to grab the iPhone's product designer by his or her (designer) lapel and make one thing very clear: I should not have to look at my phone in order to turn it on, or to orient it for use.
This stuff should be obvious basic ergonomics, but ever since they released the infamous iPhone 4 with its perfectly symmetrical surfaces, they've always felt compelled to do at least one minor but annoying thing wrong. My previous iPhone 5 was a nice exception, but like its predecessors, it was just too small.
Gotta love all these First World problems, I suppose.
EDIT: Interesting. Watching the votes go up and then down makes me think that half of the people do not appreciate my comment. In that case, I feel like I should elaborate.
If the phone is in your pocket, then reaching in has two options. One is wrapping your hand around the sides and the other is a pinch on the front + back. With OP's button pressing issue, I think it's more likely to be wrapping.
I personally don't see how it would be a problem even with wrapping, unless you're used to squeezing hard, but it can be remedied easily by putting the phone in so that the home button is oriented top side. That also brings along the benefits of being unable to unlock quickly and allowing you to listen to music without straining your headphone jack as much.
If Apple had kept the home button on the top, there would be more complaints. A top button is hard to reach, especially on the new, taller iPhones. It was already a complaint when the iPhone 5 form factor was released. Having to reach up to lock makes your grip on the phone a bit more tenuous. Combined with exerting a downward force cause you're pressing the home button, dropping an iPhone becomes more likely.
Frankly, this is the first complaint I've seen directed towards a side power button. For right handed users (sorry, lefties), the button is easily accessible to the thumb now. There's less balancing required to lock the phone. I've only seen reviews that were upset at top home buttons on big phones (HTC One series), never ones about side power buttons.
Now, when I go to hit it, I almost always push the volume button at the other side as well when squeezing. I'm getting used to it, but this is it's third location! My first ipod touch had it on the top left.
I don't agree with your assertion that a top button is more awkward, even on the larger phones, but I wouldn't moderate anyone down for saying so. But you've got to consider how many Apple users, fans, and even employees are probably reading a site like this one. They may not have the time or motivation or even the ability to articulate a rational rebuttal to a critical comment, but the good ol' downvote button is only a click away. Can't take it too personally.
And speaking of usability facepalms, there's also the wonderful HN up/down button layout to contend with. I don't always hit the arrow I'm aiming at with an optical mouse, much less a finger on a touchscreen. I think those buttons amount to some kind of obscure hazing ritual or inside joke on YC's part; they can't be that obtusely-designed on purpose.
I love this subtle invocation of the principle of 'this never would have happened if Steve Jobs were still alive.'
Jobs, a fanatical user? I doubt it. He culled as many useful features as he added.
He was against many things users asked for: iPad minis. Larger iPhones. Styluses. Sounds more fanatical ideologue than a fanatical user.
The only "usage" based feature I specifically remember being attributed to him is Gorilla Glass, after he scratched up a prototype's screen with keys in the same pocket.
There's also small things that seem unpolished to the traditional "Apple" level. For example even 2 years after the iOS7 release, the size of the status bar at the top changes between the lock screen and the homescreen, which means that not only does text size change but also the number of symbols that show up near the battery display changes too if you're right at the limit of real estate there. Yes, it's minor, but stuff like that didn't seem to happen several generations ago, but I'm noticing it more and more.
Presumably this is so it's easier to read. It's a nice touch.
I was seriously considering going for an Android phone this time around but the 6s is really some amazing hardware. It isn't even as hyped up as it should be.
Completely agree that the 6S is underhyped, which is amazing because it's basically the new iPhone4.
So my latest tablet is a Samsung Tab S 8.4 and it's perfect for those needs in a way where an iPad would be sub par. Media management is way more straight forward on Android and I can have 64gb SD card.
But I did root the tablet and uninstall 70% of the bloatware running on it on the first day. It came with 4-5 pages of (useless) applications and I'm now down to 2. Apple products also come with useless uninstallable applications (Stocks, Watch, etc) but it no where near what this Samsung device had running.
My wife has an iPad and I really could not recommend, for her, an Android tablet.
Mobile Safari is very polished. I like how reliable the reader mode is. I like that it now does ad-blocking. On the other hand the web apps feel more integrated in Android. For example Chrome on Android does notifications now, so for example I could just use Facebook on the web and get push notifications. Also Android does alternative browsers, so Android has Firefox and Firefox has real extensions, including ad-blockers. Mobile Safari is really good though.
In terms of UI, Androids notifications are much better, as in they are reliable, they get grouped, you get shortcuts to act on them or you can dismiss them easily. On iOS the notifications are broken and the "unread" indicators are completely annoying. On iOS I also miss the Back button. They added sort of a hack lately for Safari, so you can return to the previous app from Safari. Along with double-tab on home, a pattern emerges ... they keep adding hacks as a substitute for the lack of a Back button. As a consequence of this, one of the things I hate on iOS is how every app opens its own web view. I mean, don't you just hate that?
Skype on my iOS is broken. It simply doesn't ring if the app is inactive. This is probably a bug, but it's also a bigger problem related to iOS. iOS is killing inactive apps, so it has special hooks for apps that need to be awoken by messages. This leads to weird effects - like Dropbox is unable to backup my photos in the background, because it cannot stay alive long enough to do it. And I've lost some photos that way, as I've reset my phone thinking that Dropbox managed to back me up. It's also weird to pause and then resume my music or my audiobooks. As resume doesn't necessarily work remote-controlled through your headsets as you have to wake your phone up first. Actually the behavior is inconsistent. It really depends on whether iOS managed to put your app to sleep or not. The upside of that is that the iPhone's idle mode is very efficient, but given my usage patterns, I haven't seen an overall improvement in battery life.
On the apps ecosystem, I feel Android has better apps. This may sound like heresy, but it's true, with Android having the benefit of a stronger open-source ecosystem. They finally unified the design under the material design guidelines. And with Marshmallow they finally fixed the permissions system, though iOS has the benefit of not having such a broken permissions model for such a long time. So for instance on iOS I felt comfortable installing Waze, but not on Android - thankfully that changes with Marshmallow.
iOS does better at out-of-the box standards being supported. It supports CalDAV and CardDAV for example. For Android you need special adapters that need to be bought for CalDAV / CardDAV and Google should be ashamed of themselves. On the other hand on Android just about anything is extensible, so support for CalDAV / CardDAV synching can be added by buying some available apps.
To sync my iPhone with my desktop I need to use iTunes. I hate iTunes with a passion, I really do. With Android I can just plug it in to my computer and just copy/paste some files in a folder.
Related to UX in general, iOS apps are good, except when they are not. For example RunKeeper on Android is more usable than RunKeeper on iOS, because on iOS you have to tap on things that don't seem tap-able. And for iBooks to not do bookmarks for audiobooks is a total screwup for a company like Apple.
On my iPhone I do like that I get SMS messages on my MacBook through iMessages and phone calls through FaceTime. That's pretty sweet. On Android I've used PushBullet but it's not the same. On the other hand I don't like feeling locked in Apple's ecosystem or in anybody's ecosystem for that matter. So I'm enjoying my iMessages and my FaceTime, but I try not to like it so much :-)
I think I can go on :-)
You mentioned you use a Macbook. I've never owned a Macbook, but frequently wonder if I'm as wrong about them as I was about the iPhone. I ran Cyanogenmod on my Androids and honestly I would not go back from iOS.
My opinions always change with new information and experiences but right now these are my products of choice for various categories. I own or use all of these currently, other than the laptops. Currently using work-provided laptops.
Phone- Apple iPhone
Console- Nintendo Wii U
Music match/service- Google Play Music (if I had Amazon Prime I'd probably move to Amazon Music but we shop more locally and are Costco members)
Browser- Mozilla Firefox
HTPC- Amazon FireTV (replaced a jailbroken AppleTV2)
Laptop- Lenovo Thinkpad
Cheap laptop- Acer Aspire One Cloudbook, 14-Inch
Desktop OS- Windows10 (gaming) & Linux Mint (dev)
Email- Google Gmail
Search- DuckDuckGo (bangs sold me on it, it's the new Google)
Programming language implementation- PyPy4 (Python 2.7)
Media- OTA antenna, Netflix and HBO Now
As you can see, I only use 1 Apple product currently and very diversified. Hardly an Apple diehard, but I'm learning and definitely don't carry that grudge against them that many long-term Android users do.
But my next laptop is going to be a Thinkpad, because these slick MacBooks can't be easily repaired and can't be upgraded. They look and feel good, but that's of no consequence when you suddenly need 16 GB of RAM, or when the battery has worn off, or when the keyboard started to peel. I hate this trend of slim laptops you can't tinker with. OS X is nice, but I prefer Ubuntu's software repositories, though having access to popular applications not available for Linux feels good. And the Retina display on this thing will make all alternatives look inferior.
That's what I do on my home machine, because I have 2 mice, 3 monitors and generally with a setup like that, I've found X falls down on its face pretty easily if you start to ask more of it than a basic laptop configuration presents.
Running in a VM I don't have to dual boot (I hate that more than anything) and gain the stuff you may struggle with, such as that VPN connection, with a silky smooth, problem free Linux environment while retaining full support from your company.
I think most of the things you described could be serviced same-day at an Apple store. I haven't been keeping up on them too closely, but I think even the Macbook Pros have soldered RAM and SSD now which is a bummer. A T450 is a pretty good option that's why I've always leaned towards one of those for my next laptop. I'm a gamer as well so I'm waiting to see how VR pans out before I upgrade again. May stick with upgrading the hardware in my Lian Li tower, or ditching the desktop and moving to a laptop for personal use.
Must be nice?
> I have many reasons for why I prefer Android
Do tell...
Tried an iPhone 6 and switched back to my Nexus 4 after a week because the notifications were driving me nuts compared to Android.
I have three different email accounts, and unless I used the native Mail app (which I hate), the Gmail app would show all of the individual email notifications on a separate row combined across all accounts. My notifications quickly became useless. On Android, they are rolled up into an accordion grouped by account, so I have three separate mail notifications, and I can long hold on them to see the top few email subject lines at a glance. SO much better.
There also didn't seem to be a way to have more visibility into the notifications on the lock screen the way you do on Android.
Lastly, lack of widgets.
I guess I'm one of the rare power users who cares more about the OS and the interface than the apps.
Oddly enough, I have an iPad 2 that I use as a browsing/media/reading/gaming device around the house and I love it for that. I almost NEVER check email on it because I usually have my phone in my pocket and that is just easier.
--EDIT-- Not sure why I got downvoted for stating my opinion for why I prefer Android. iOS does some things really well, and I happen to like the Android way for other things. Different strokes for different folks. But apparently saying anything negative about iOS is not acceptable...
To be fair, I can't imagine a context where I would find your preferences to be interesting (on HN, that is) so I could be wrong. I didn't vote on your comment in any case.
* Very very very large (this is a big-ass phone),
* Very very very very fast,
* Some good options in the UI for heavier Mac style 'fuzzy' text,
* Battery life is barely dented after a typical day of surfing and texting occasionally at work,
* Phone is 'slippery' and I have to use a special grip, wrapping fingers around it to hold it securely,
* Camera is fantastic, with people asking me 'what lens' are you using, assuming I'm on my Nikon SLR,
* Fingerprint unlocking is here, and works perfectly.
Absolutely, but also, sort of not. After all, you'd want a decent phone, that sets you back say around $200 nowadays. The $700 then is really the premium you're paying.
Now you mentioned the 4S. It's still worth $100, whereas the resale value on a $200, 4 years later, is probably pretty much zero in comparison.
So now you're paying a $150 premium per year for the top of the line phone. Per month it'd be about $12.50 to have the latest tech instead of say the Moto G (sweet entry level phone).
Is that excessive or a lot? Well if you're earning a few k a month and you're on your phone 10% of the time, not really. Comparing it to say the cost of your car, your food (a $12.50 lunch), your entertainment (a $12.50 movie ticket) etc, puts it into perspective.
Anyway don't get me wrong, I'm on an iPhone 4 myself haha. I just don't have a need right now and raised on little, $12.50 is substantial when your disposable income is near zero, so I totally get it's a lot. But for a large portion of Americans who are on their phone a lot, the cost-benefit for this purchasing decision is tremendously positive.
Isn't the base model $750 btw instead of $900? Pretty sure it was. Of course you'd need to buy a plan as well.
I find it fascinating that Apple was able to get their process down to 14nm using the so called "3D process" up until now I really didn't understand why the qualcomm 810 was having so much trouble, now it makes a lot more sense.
I take a lot of pictures, but I'm not someone who dives into the details (jpg is fine for me... never even considered RAW). I prefer the 6s form factor, but don't want to end up with a bunch of blurry pictures that would be clear if I would have gotten a 6s Plus.
I've seen some of the videos with OIS and it is QUITE noticeably more stable.
This is of course as Apple states a fairly narrow and not necessarily representative test; but if I ever decide to upgrade from my 5s to 6s, I think I know which one I would want :)
Now, I'm not quite sure upgrade would be a good idea -- 5s seems snappy enough, and size does bother me quite a bit. On the other hand, I just noticed claims improved water resistance -- http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/02/iphone-6s-waterproof -- that make me seriously consider getting one...
I'm a bit happier with the price/performance ratio of my much, much too old smartphone after seeing that price tag.