Flipkart 4

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Renders for Apple watch Sport Gold 42mm

These are the renders and edited photographs giving an idea as to how the newly launched Apple Watch Sport Gold 42 mm which comes by default with a midnight blue strap, would look with the black sport band.







Original photos taken from various respected websites with no intention of any defamation or harm.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Apple watch sport new colours launched with Watch OS 2

From http://appadvice.com/appnn (Appadvice)

Apple Watch Sport - New Colours with OS 2



I have to admit, the new Apple Watch Sport Band colors have me a little giddy. Just as we’d hoped when Jony Ive teased these colors last spring, we have a bevy of beautiful Sport Bands to choose from now. No longer limited to black, white, or neon shades of green, pink, and blue, we have a rainbow of subtle, fun, and wearable shades.
All of the new Apple Watch models on display, except for Hermès
All of the new Apple Watch models on display, except for Hermès

We’ve got warm neutrals like Walnut, Stone, and Antique White. There are cool neutrals like Fog and Midnight Blue. Two colors that I know many people have been clamoring for all over the Internet: (PRODUCT) RED and Orange. And finally, we have a selection of soft, sophisticated colors: Turquoise, Vintage Rose, and Lavender.
Some of the new colors are available to ship in as little as five to seven business days while others show shipping times of five to six weeks. You might even get lucky and find some of the colors in the Apple Store now. As an added bonus, when watchOS 2 is released, you’ll see many of these new colors available for your watch faces. We won’t be limited to bright colors and white any longer. I am especially excited about this, since while I can’t always change my watch band to match my outfit, I can certainly change the color of my watch face every day.

New Apple Watch Sport colors

Two new Apple Watch Sport colors were announced: Gold and Rose Gold. They’re quite striking, actually, and it’s no surprise that a new wave of slightly used Silver and Space Gray Apple Watch Sports have recently hit eBay. If I were in the market for an Apple Watch Sport, that Rose Gold would be awfully tempting, particularly if I buy an iPhone 6s in that shade.
rosegold
Note that you cannot buy an Apple Watch Sport with any color band you wish. Only 12 combinations are currently available to order on Apple’s site. You can get the Silver in either the 38mm or 42mm size with the Orange, White, or Blue band. Incidentally, the Blue is a new shade of blue – it’s slightly warmer than the old one but just as bright. Space Gray in either size still comes with the Black band. If you want a 38mm Rose Gold Apple Watch Sport, you get a Lavender band. If you want the 42mm, your band is Stone. The 38mm Gold Apple Watch Sport has an Antique White band, while the 42mm features Midnight Blue. All of the colors are quite lovely, actually, but I find it a bit silly that you can’t get a Watch with any band you want.
Why not just sell the Watches and bands separately? That’s a rhetorical question, of course. Apple doesn’t want you to own just one watch band. At any rate, they are available right now in my local Apple store, so check the store in your area if you’re interested.

A subtle change to the Classic Buckle

w42ss-cbbk2-sel-201509_GEO_US
Without making any formal announcement, Apple has made a slight change to the Classic Buckle. Some people have complained that the original Classic Buckle wasn’t secure, so Apple must have listened to those complaints. The new Classic Buckle has a two-toned look, with the inside being brown on the Black version, and lighter brown on the Brown one. Presumably the clasp is more secure, since I’m assuming that’s what prompted the change. If I already owned one of these, I’d be rather ticked at the switcheroo. Perhaps Apple will have a heart and swap out the older versions for the new one if the customer requests it. One can only hope.
Save some bucks on your Space Black Apple Watch by skipping the Link Bracelet.
Save some bucks on your Space Black Apple Watch by skipping the Link Bracelet.

Space Black + Sport Band

Great news for anyone who wants the Space Black stainless steel Apple Watch, but doesn’t want the pricey Link Bracelet: now you can buy that model with a Black Sport Band instead.

Hermès

Hermès specializes in luxury goods, and the new Apple Watch is no exception. This partnership between Hermès and Apple has resulted in an Apple Watch that differs from the standard stainless steel model in two ways: a special face and a special selection of bands.
The face, which looks very much like some of Hermès’ analog watches, is exclusive to the Hermès model. You can’t buy the bands separately, either. The bands are crafted from leather and come in three different styles and five colors. The Apple Watch with the Single Tour band, which looks like a standard leather watch band to me, will set you back $1,100. It comes in Fauve (brown), Noir (black), and Capucine (red). The Double Tour band wraps twice around the wrist and runs $1,250. In addition to Fauve and Capucine, it comes in Etain (dark gray) and Bleu Jean. And finally, the chunky Cuff style comes only in Fauve, only in 42mm, and costs $1,500.
Hermès Apple Watch

These are by no means inexpensive watches, but they start at the same price as the highest-priced Link Bracelet model. For people looking for a luxury name brand, the Hermès Apple Watches will fill a niche. They’re still significantly less expensive than the Apple Watch Edition. I won’t be buying one of these when they are available at select stores in October, but I do believe there will be a market for them.
The fact that Apple has created an exclusive Hermès face for this special watch brings up another thought. The watch faces are a big deal to Apple Watch owners. I believe that now we have the real reason why Apple has not opened up third-party faces to developers and probably never will. Apple is maintaining tight control over its faces so that they can continue to slowly trickle out products like this. The Hermès Apple Watch has more value because you get not only a band, but also a face that no one else can have. You could always buy an Hermès band, or use a band from another watch, but you’ll never have the Hermès face on your Apple Watch unless you buy this particular watch from Apple. I wonder what other high-end brands Apple will partner with in the future. I’m sure that Hermès is just the first of several.

Bottom line

I think that while none of these items are inexpensive, Apple has introduced some more affordable luxury for Apple Watch customers. Without spending $10,000 to $17,000 on an Apple Watch Edition model, you can get a high-end Hermès brand Apple Watch for $1,100 to $1,500. Instead of spending over $1,000 on a Space Black Apple Watch with Link Bracelet, you can get the exact same shiny black steel watch and sapphire screen with a Sport Band instead for less than $600. And finally, in the Apple Watch Sport arena, you can get that desirable gold or rose gold shade for $349 or $399, a tiny fraction of the cost of the Apple Watch Edition.

iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus Review

via: http://www.9to5mac.com/ (9to5Mac)

Apple iPhone 6S and 6S plus Review


This year’s iPhone launch is over, so the earliest millions of adopters are already playing with and forming opinions on the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. Past history suggests that Apple will sell over 100 million of these phones over the next year or so, which means that there are a lot of people still deciding on which model to buy.

If you’re still on the fence about buying one of Apple’s latest and greatest smartphones, there are a few important things you need to know. On the surface, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus look nearly identical to their predecessors, as we’ve come to expect with “s” models, but there’s a lot of new tech inside that makes these models different. Will any of the changes justify this purchase for you? Or will you be better off with last year’s (now cheaper) iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus? Let’s find out…

If your plan was to strut around town hoping people would notice your shiny new iPhone 6s, that likely won’t be the case, since this year’s model looks just like its predecessor. There’s a small awkwardly placed “s” on the backside to remind you just in case, but if you really want people to know you’re rocking a new iPhone, your best bet is to pick up the new Rose Gold color option. If you don’t care for that new color, you can spice things up with a case or a skin to keep it minimal.

Like last year, there are two iPhone sizes available. You have the iPhone 6s with a 4.7-inch display, 1334 x 750 resolution and 326 ppi, and then there’s the iPhone 6s Plus with a 5.5-inch display, 1920 x 1080 resolution, and 401 ppi. Both displays are super crispy, but that’s especially true for the iPhone 6s Plus, though you’re dealing with a much larger phone at that point.

If you’re hoping for big changes, this isn’t the year for them. The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus story is really about a collection of small details and a few stand out features.


Performance

Let’s start with performance — these new iPhones are crazy fast. Inside you’ll find Apple’s latest A9 processor and 2GB of RAM, which may sound like less than some other phones, but Apple’s RAM management is absolutely phenomenal. Benchmarks show very promising results and overall, performance alone may be enough incentive to upgrade if speed is what you desire. Everything is very smooth and apps run like a champ with the new processor. That said, last year’s iPhone 6 is still a fast phone, and happens to be cheaper now.

As for size, the iPhone 6s Plus is much better when it comes to playing games, watching videos, browsing the web, and pretty much anything else you’d expect out of a larger screen. Personally, I prefer the smaller form factor of the iPhone 6s, even if the battery life and resolution take hits by comparison.



3D Touch

While the screens on these new iPhones are the same as last year’s, the touch technology behind them is much different. This year Apple has introduced a new 3D Touch feature that will actually detect the amount of pressure applied to the screen with your finger, and trigger various actions. With 3D Touch, you can tap on the display for standard actions, but you can press into the display for more features. Think of this as three options: a tap, a soft press, and a hard press, all of which can do different things depending on the pressure applied and where the action is taking place.

Not everything with 3D Touch is amazing at the moment, but I do have some favorites. For example, you can get quick access to app-specific features with a hard press on the icon, which I enjoy using with a select few apps — not many third-party apps are compatible yet, but more are rolling out each day. You also have the ability to 3D Touch the keyboard when typing. With a soft press, you can use the keyboard as a trackpad to move the cursor around the screen, and with a hard press you can easily select text from a line.

Another one of my favorite features is quickly previewing links and other items. The same rules apply here: 3D Touch on a link to open a small preview window, then you can press even harder to pop it open into full browser mode. Apple calls this Peek and Pop, and it’s quite useful in some situations. It can also be used in places like the Photos app, Calendar, Messages, Notes, basically anywhere that there’s a list style view of items.

Screen Shot 2015-10-08 at 1.33.19 AM

In most cases, it’s not incredibly faster to use this feature, but it’s handy nonetheless. 3D Touch has potential for sure, but don’t let 3D Touch be the main reason you upgrade — at the moment, without mainstream app support and innovative uses, it’s not worth the hype. This will happen in time, but trust me when I say that it’s not here yet.



Camera

Well, if 3D Touch isn’t worth the upgrade, certainly the camera must be, right? The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus both feature an all new 12-megapixel still camera this time around, which also shoots up to 4K video, but you’ll only get optical image stabilization on the iPhone 6s Plus. Luckily, the iPhone 6s does utilize digital stabilization with 4K video to keep everything smooth, but it won’t work like OIS does for low light photos. The new camera also shoots higher resolution Slo-Mo video at 120 frames per second in 1080p, which is great but not a huge selling point. Photos are natural-looking and can definitely look good, especially if you’re willing to do a little editing work. Apple’s photos aren’t as sharpened or saturated as other smartphone cameras on the market, for better and for worse.


Check out our iPhone 6s/6s Plus camera gallery below:
On both of the devices, there’s a 5-megapixel camera above the display with 720p video recording capabilities and a flash, but it’s probably not the kind of flash you’re thinking about. Apple calls this feature Retina Flash. According to Apple, there’s a special display chip inside that helps detect the ambient light around you, then matches the tone with a flash of the display that’s three times brighter than usual. I probably won’t use it much, but it’s pretty handy when you need it.



Touch ID & Live Photos

Speaking of camera features, Apple has a new Live Photos feature which is pretty neat, but not something I’ll use often. It will allow you to take a normal photo, which can then be brought to life (with audio and 3 seconds of surrounding low-res, low-frame-rate video) by using 3D Touch. You can share these Live Photos and even set them as wallpapers, though you’ll have to 3D Touch on the lock screen to see any movement from them. It’s a cool feature for some people, just not for me really.
Screen Shot 2015-10-08 at 1.34.53 AM
Touch ID improvements are also a big part of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. It’s actually twice as fast over last year’s model and you can really tell the difference. Gone are the days of quickly pressing the Home button to view your notifications — it’s that fast. If I just want to check my notifications now, it’s much easier to use my knuckle to press the Home button, or simply use the Sleep/Wake button on the side of the phone. Once again, the Touch ID improvements aren’t really a reason to buy the iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, but they’re nice.



Battery Life

If all of the reasons mentioned in the video aren’t good enough to warrant buying the new iPhone, surely battery life has improved this time around, right? Nope. It’s actually about the same as last year’s, which is cool if you think about all the extra tech packed inside, but there’s no revolutionary break-through on battery performance here. I struggle to get a full day from the iPhone 6s, while the 6s Plus definitely can last a day and then some.



The Verdict

So we’ve basically covered everything that would make the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus a worthy purchase or upgrade over its predecessor, but somehow, it doesn’t add up to enough in my book. 3D Touch is cool, the camera has been bumped up, and you definitely won’t find a pink iPhone anywhere else, but none of these reasons scream “must upgrade” to me. I’ve heard it said elsewhere that the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus might be worth buying because all of their small improvements collectively make for a large year-over-year change. But after testing both phones, I’d say that the small improvements start out exciting but quickly begin to feel underwhelming. This isn’t a case of many small things adding up to one big thing, but rather, many small things feeling small.
Screen Shot 2015-10-08 at 1.39.33 AM

Should you buy the iPhone 6s or 6s Plus? 


If you have an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, I’d recommend sticking with it. But if you have an older iPhone or another device you’re considering upgrading, you could comfortably go with whichever iPhone 6 or 6s model appeals to you, or wait another year for the iPhone 7. Whether you go with a cheaper iPhone 6 or hold out for the iPhone 7, you won’t be missing out on much by skipping the 6s.

My feeling is that unless you’re rocking a 5s or anything lower, I’d save my money and wait. If you don’t currently have an iPhone, these are pretty nice, but so are last year’s models and they’re cheaper now, too. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for improvements and these new devices are very fast. But unless you’re easily satisfied with incremental upgrades, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus won’t deliver the “huge” smartphone upgrade you may have been waiting for.

Thank You

Saturday, August 8, 2015

It seems Apple is launching their next iPhones and iPads on 9th of September

For those of you who are waiting for the next iPhone, here is some good news: Apple will unveil the device in the second week of September, most likely on September 9, according to a latest report.
The report also notes that alongside the new iPhone, the Cupertino-based company will also announce the iPad Pro as well as the next-gen Apple TV, something which is in-line with what we've already heard earlier.
If recent reports are to be believed, the next iPhone will be called the iPhone 6S. It will feature a Force Touch display and the Series 7000 aluminum, which is up to 60% tougher than the current aluminum alloy.
Hit this blog for more of the rumours, leaks and any info on the iPhone. 
Via Gsmarena

Friday, February 13, 2015

iPhone 6: Review, What's new


After establishing iPhone 5s as a "forward thinking" high-end luxury device a year ago, Apple is now enhancing its eighth generation of iPhone with a broad range of new and improved hardware components, inside a slimmer new case design with a much larger, higher-resolution display.


iPhone 5c, 5s, 6, 6 Plus




The 4.7-inch iPhone 6 delivers five major categories of enhancements over Apple's bestselling iPhone 5s (which was already both the world's top selling iPhone and top selling smartphone): a new Retina HD display packing more pixels in a larger panel with significant technology advancements; improved A8 and M8 processors enhance speed and battery efficiency; new cameras enable better photos and videos; enhanced wireless supports much faster Wi-Fi, faster and feature-enhanced LTE mobile and new NFC-based Apple Pay features; and a slim new unibody design makes the larger device easier to carry and use given their large size.

Apple's new iPhone 6 models represent not only a major update but also a new expansion of choice: an acknowledgment that while most iPhone users would welcome a larger model, not everyone wants the same size. For the first time ever, Apple is now offering two new distinct sizes of new iPhone models (just as it previously has for MacBooks, iMacs and iPads).

Below, features new to iPhone 6 and 6 Plus compared to the 2013 iPhone 5s are highlighted in red. Apple will continue to sell iPhone 5c and 5s, with each getting a $100 price decrease. 


iPhone 6: What's new




To help account for its larger screen, iPhone 6 gets a larger 1,810mAh battery compared to iPhone 5s' 1,570mAh and the 1,440mAh battery in the original iPhone 5. The larger iPhone 6 Plus gets an even larger 2,915mAh battery. 


What's new, #1: Retina HD Display



The most obvious change for Apple's eighth generation of iPhone is the new display, which Apple is calling Retina HD. The screen's visual appeal and potential for supporting more detailed and information-rich interfaces (a few apps have already taken advantage of the new display) are the big plusses, while extra bulk, more difficult one-handed operation and slightly greater weight (its size actually makes them feel lighter) are the obvious downsides of the new form factor.

When Steve Jobs introduced iPhone 4 in 2010, "Retina display" was used to brand a screen pixel density so dense (960×640 at 326ppi) that one could no longer discern individual pixels at a normal viewing distance. That was a major change in the industry, which until then had been focused on using extra pixels to simply display additional pixelated content: a "larger desktop" rather than a sharper screen showing the same amount of content.

Apple made the Retina iPhone 4-class screen a bit taller with the 1,136x640 iPhone 5 series at the same 326ppi density (and has similarly quadrupled the pixel count of its standard iPads and MacBook Pros to deliver "Retina display" tablets and notebooks, although it hasn't yet done the same for iMacs or MacBook Air models, or for Apple TV: a jump that would support "4K" televisions).

The Retina HD display of the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 delivers a 1,334x750 or "1 megapixel" resolution (a quarter million more pixels than iPhone 5's 727,040) at the same 326ppi pixel density. So rather than being "more densely Retina," it is "more Retina surface area" just like iPhone 5 was compared to iPhone 4. Specifically, iPhone 6 delivers 38 percent more viewing area at the same pixel density, a jump comparable to the taller expansion of iPhone 5, although iPhone 6 grows larger in both directions. 


iPhone 6




The iPhone 6 screen itself is now 2.30 x 4.09 inches, or 9.4 square inches, compared to the previous iPhone 5 display of 1.96 x 3.48 inches or 6.8 square inches. That results in that 38 percent more viewing area, paired with a slight overall increase in size that makes it feel like a bit of a stretch to navigate one-handedly. 

If you really love the compact form factor of previous iPhones, the new 6 might feel too big initially, but many observed the same about the "tall" iPhone 5, which now seems pretty standard. 

To facilitate one-handed use of iPhone 6's larger screen, Apple has added a new Reachability feature. It uses the contact-sensitive ring of Touch ID to sense a double touch gesture on the Home button. 

Reachability pulls the top of the screen down (shown below) so you can easily target anything on the very top of the iPhone 6 screen in the middle of the display. Once you tap a top-row app icon or web browser location field (or after a few seconds of inactivity), the display reverts to normal settings. 


Reachability




Reachability also works to pull down Notification Center without reaching all the way to the top of the screen. Simply invoke Reachability and pull down from the middle of the screen and you can see your Today widgets and notifications. You can even invoke Reachability again within the Notification Center to tap top-of-the-screen targets there, too.

You don't use Reachability for "pull down" search fields (like Home screen Spotlight search), because you can invoke these without tapping a top target; simply pull down from the middle of the screen and you're ready to begin typing a search term. One puzzling missing link from the Reachability solution is that it doesn't work for tapping iOS top screen targets like background GPS, FaceTime, phone call or tethering banners. You can invoke Reachability, but those banners stick to the top of the screen. 

Beyond that, Reachability seems to work well to make navigating across the larger screen more manageable. Particularly for users with smaller hands, the new iPhone 6 may require more frequent two handed operation for typing and swiping. Even for people with large hands (like me), the smaller iPhone 6 model requires noticeably more thumb stretching to navigate with one hand.


iPhone 6, 6 Plus, iPad mini




More pixels for more UI detail




The move to "Retina HD" for the iPhone 6 models isn't really intended to make a discernible difference in whether one can see pixels "even less." Instead, the primary focus is on showing more content, or alternatively, easier-to-see content represented at a larger scale.
Third party developers can take advantage of the extra pixels to add additional UI features to their apps—on both the 6 and 6 Plus—as they see fit


For iPhone 6 Plus in particular, those extra pixels can enable iPad-like user interface elements on the screen, including multiple columns of messages in Mail or Messages. 

Third party developers can take advantage of the extra pixels to add additional UI features to their apps—on both the 6 and 6 Plus—as they see fit. Until they do, their apps simply appear enlarged on the new screens.

Apple has taken advantage of the extra screen area and resolution to add several iPad-originating features to the 6 Plus, including the ability to flip the Home screen into landscape (shown below; just like an iPad, it rearranges your app icon layout to fit in landscape). A number of Apple's app enhancements for the 6 Plus (including multiple pane Mail and Messages) are not available on iPhone 6, however. 


iPhone 6 landscape UI



Essentially, iPhone 6 is a larger iPhone, while iPhone 6 Plus is a new hybrid class of device that merges iPhone and iPad features. Apple makes some "iPad nano" UI tweaks to its own apps to make special use of the 6 Plus' increased resolution, but neither of the two new models uses the extra new pixels available to put additional keys on iOS 8's built in portrait QuickType keyboard (such as common punctuation or numbers, as some new Android phablets do). It remains unchanged, just gets scaled up in size on the larger 6 and muy grande 6 Plus. 


iPhone 6 portrait UI



Apple does however make some modest enhancements to the landscape keyboard on both models, with new buttons on both to make it easy to type a period or comma, along with a new Undo key (if you don't like "shake to undo"), new left and right arrow keys for precisely moving the insertion point (or selecting text, when used in conjunction with caps lock) without the 'loupe,' along with a new button to dismiss the keyboard (which first appeared on iPad).

Compare the plain jane iPhone 5s and earlier keyboard:


iPhone 5 landscape Mail UI




...with the new iPhone 6 keyboard in landscape:


iPhone 6 landscape Mail UI




There's also no option to manually configure the standard keyboard to add or arrange frequently-used keys of your own choosing. It's also a little strange that Apple lays out keys slightly differently on the 6 and 6 Plus keyboards, although few users are likely to move back and forth between the two models. Apple already lays out iPad keys with just enough differences to introduce confusions for iPhone users moving between their phone and tablet, particularly the dual shift keys that create two independent ways to type common punctuation. 

On the other hand, iOS 8 does greatly enhance text entry overall with Apple's own new QuickType keyboard featuring context-aware, app-specific predictive text selections for a number of major languages. If you repeatedly hit the middle suggestion, you'll get an amusingly nonsensical string of machine poetry (as appears above in the example photos in Mail).

Additionally, iOS 8 also now supports third party custom keyboards via the new App Extensions architecture, so users who want a more complex keyboard can now find, install and use one.


More pixels for larger content




When you initially configure a new iPhone 6, it asks you to pick between two Display Zoom settings: "Regular" gives you the maximum screen area for your phone. For iPhone 6, you get room for an additional row of Home screen app icons and on iPhone 6 Plus, you get iPad-like features including dual pane apps.

"Zoomed" gives you larger elements on the screen. For iPhone 6, you see basically what you'd see on an iPhone 5, just presented larger. For iPhone 6 Plus, you see what you'd see on an iPhone 6 in Regular mode (losing the iPad-like display elements, as well as the extra keys on the keyboard, as discussed above).

To help users pick between the two modes, Apple presents three dummy images representing the difference: a Home screen in Regular and Zoomed; a screen shot of Messages in each mode, and an example of Mail (below). Once you select a new Zoomed setting, the phone briefly resets. You can change it back later within Settings/Display & Brightness. 






Users can also still select (within iOS 8's Settings/Display & Brightness) one of 7 sizes of Dynamic Text and an independent Bolded Text option to further enhance the readability of text throughout the system and across most third party apps. Further, under Settings/General/Accessibility users can increase the size of text even more with "Larger Accessibility Sizes," which adds another five levels of Dynamic Text increments. 

These software features allow buyers to select the physical size of the phone they want independently from the size of the text and icons; you can by a larger display and set it to show more content on the screen at once, or stick with a 5-series screen and amp up the text to show big icons and large text. 

The only thing you can't currently do is select a "cramped" mode for presenting a Plus sized UI on the standard iPhone 6. While the idea of more keys on the regular sized 6 might sound alluring, you'd need to file down your fingers to type on the display. 

Currently, only a few developers have been able to revamp their apps for the larger display of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus over the launch weekend. On both models (but especially on the Plus) apps that aren't 6-savvy yet are just blown up to fill the screen, Android style. This makes for a basic-looking experience. As more apps are enhanced to take full advantage of the new Retina Display resolutions—and Apple has made this relatively easy in its iOS developer tools—the experience in using them will continue to improve. 

Unlike Android, where there are literally tens of thousands of different hardware configurations, the two new iPhone 6 resolutions will most certainly get screen optimizations from app vendors, just as iPads got tablet-optimized UIs and just as App Store developers were quick to support the original Retina Display and its taller variant on the iPhone 5 series. 

Until that happens however, a variety of popular apps (including Facebook, at the time of writing) have a big dumb Fisher-Price look to them, because they're simply scaled up. In addition to the app UI itself, elements of the display created by iOS—including the top status bar (carrier signal bars, time, battery life) and the keyboard—are scaled up too in order to match the app. 

A variety of apps have already released iPhone 6-savvy app updates over the launch weekend, including Twitter and Apple's own iWork productivity, iLife and other apps.


More than just more pixels




In addition to delivering more pixels and more surface area, Apple's new Retina HD iPhones incorporate a series of other improvements intended to make the screens look better. One example begins in manufacturing. Apple says it "developed an advanced process of photo alignment" which "involves using UV light to precisely position the display's liquid crystals so they lie exactly where they should. Better-aligned crystals deliver a superior viewing experience, with deeper blacks and sharper text."

The Retina HD screen also uses dual domain pixels, a display technology designed to improve color accuracy over wide viewing angles. I found it difficult to observe a readily apparent difference compared to iPhone 5s, but the primary benefit comes when viewing the screen at an angle; essentially the displayed colors remain vibrant and accurate, rather than shifting or darkening at extreme viewing angles. 

If you wear sunglasses, a more obvious improvement comes in the form of an enhanced polarizer layer in the display. Wearing standard polarized lenses, it can be quite difficult to read previous iPhones' displays because the polarizers in the glasses and the screen combine to create a very distracting shimmer of shifting colors. The new screen layer appears to completely eliminate this, as shown below in a photo taken though polarized sunglasses. 


iPhone 6 polarizer




Apple continues to use Corning Gorilla Glass, what it calls "Ion X glass," to cover the display, which is now fused to the polarizer and the display itself in a design that curves with precision up to the body of the device. If you break your screen, that means the entire glass and screen assembly gets replaced. 

However, Apple has worked to minimize the cost of screen replacements, which are now priced at $109 for iPhone 6, and just $129 for even the larger iPhone 6 Plus (which is the same fee for fixing an iPhone 5/5c/5s screen, reduced from an earlier $149). 


iPhone 6 shell




In contrast, FOSS Patents blogger Florian Mueller stated earlier this year that Samsung charged him around $400 to replace the cracked display of his identically sized Galaxy Note 2. This highlights another advantage Apple holds by selling large volumes of just a few different models: iPhone's minimal hardware fragmentation results in vast economies of scale that benefits end users in a variety of ways.


What's new, #2: A8, M8




After releasing the speedy new 64-bit A7 Application Processor last year and then dramatically improving the chip's graphics capabilities with new low level Metal developer APIs at WWDC this summer, there hasn't been much complaint about execution speed on the iPhone 5s.

However, there is always demand for greater efficiency enabling longer battery life. Samsung addressed this in its own flagship phone with a low power feature feature that switches the system into a long lasting but usability compromised, grey-scale efficiency mode.

Rather than doing the same, Apple radically revamped the A7 to deliver its A8 successor, with an incredible near-doubling of its transistor count and an equally impressive ability to do significantly more processing with substantially less power consumption. The A8 chip is now a bit faster overall (Apple states a 25 percent improvement in general CPU), but is specifically enhanced to handle advanced new photo and video analysis to support sophisticated new camera features (detailed below). 

It also drives smooth graphics for pushing all those additional pixels on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus displays, with a GPU that Apple says is now 50 percent more powerful than last year's state-of-the-art A7 GPU. 

GFXBench scores show a variety of improvements between 30 to 66 percent on the new phone's graphics capabilities, even without tapping into Apple's Metal API for optimizing games and other apps that make heavy use of the A7 or A8 graphics. 

At its native resolution, however, iPhone 6 is only slightly faster at fps rendering benchmarks than last year's iPhone 5s, because it is tasked with pushing so many more pixels.






Part of the trick in building so much more logic into a similar package size with increased overall efficiency is the A8's move to 20nm process, which appears to be the first A-series Application Processor fabricated by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. rather than Samsung.  

The more sophisticated fabrication process results in a smaller, more efficient and more cost effective component. Apple says the A8 is 50 percent more power efficient than even last year's A7, resulting in improved battery life despite the new iPhones' much larger screens and more capable wireless features (detailed below).

Despite Apple's A8 being run at a slower clock speed, and being dual core rather than quad core as many high end Android are, the new iPhone 6 beats the fastest phablets and flagships from LG, Motorola and Samsung. It's not only faster, it's more efficient, running longer on a slimmer battery.  






Apple's new A8 powered iPhone 6 is also around 18 to 22 percent faster at general CPU benchmarks than last year's A7, which was already a 64-bit powerhouse with more than twice the processing speed of iPhone 5. While moderately faster, the main selling point of the A8 is that is can sustain peak processing power for longer without having to slow down to avoid overheating, making it even better at real world apps and games than at short duration benchmarks.






Apple's M7 motion coprocessor, introduced last year as a way to constantly monitor accelerometer, compass and gyroscope data without requiring the constant attention of the main A7, enabled a new classof highly efficient fitness and health tracking apps. 

This year, Apple has incorporated a new electronic barometer (apparently the mysterious Bosch BMA280 identified by Chipworks) for sensing air pressure changes and thus computing elevation changes. 

A new M8 processor uses the barometer data to track not just steps but stair steps. Apple representatives stated that the sensor is accurate to track roughly a half flight of stairs, or about 5 feet of elevation change. It doesn't report your absolute elevation from sea level, but can be used to track relative elevation changes in your run up hills or flights of stairs.

The new M8 sensor monitoring chip also profiles your current activity mode for apps, allowing them to determine (if you approve of sharing motion data with them) if you are stationary, walking, running, riding a bike or sitting in a moving vehicle. Apple uses this in its own Maps app to switch from driving to walking directions once it determines that you are outside of your car.

Apple's interest in motion data began with the original iPhone's accelerometer, enhanced with the iPhone 3GS' digital compass, and further grew with iPhone 4's gyroscope. 

iOS has also progressively made working with this data easier for app developers via Apple's CoreMotion APIs, resulting in innovative apps and games with features that are simply not possible to deliver across platforms with fragmented hardware and spotty or beta-quality API support. 

From Panoramic photo stitching to hand shake motion compensation, Apple is making innovative use of the motion data available from the sensors its builds into its mobile devices, and demonstrated plans to expand on these features in HealthKit and with its new Apple Watch early next year.


What's new, #3: iSight & FaceTime Cameras




While camera phones were once judged by "how many megapixels" they boasted, it became clear over the last few years that simply packing in more sensor pixels didn't necessarily result in better pictures; it just wastes storage space for each image captured, because high megapixel sensors require more data to store their raw output, regardless of whether that extra data is contributing towards better photos.

iPhone 6 continues a series of incremental advancements in camera sensor pixel size, lens improvements and, notably, advanced processing built into the new A8. In fact, many of the physical camera specifications are the same as iPhone 5s, which already takes great pictures. One of the primary improvements comes from the A8's faster processing and dedicated camera processing logic.

The rear iSight camera gets faster 240fps capture of frames for extreme slo-mo playback (grabbing twice as many frames for clear slow motion playback). The example reel below shows how slo-mo can add drama to ordinary events. 





You can shoot in slo-mo and still play your videos back at normal speed, so it works well if you're trying to capture action sports shots or short duration events, even if you decide you don't want to watch it slowed down. Slo-mo videos capture high frame rates by reducing video resolution to the still pretty decent 720p, which is fine for sharing on social media. 

The biggest downside to slo-mo is that Apple doesn't support the format (and the start and end playback points set or edited on iPhone) very intuitively on the Mac, either in iPhoto or in Preview or iMovie. It is sort of frustrating and confusing how to make use of your captures after you sync them to your Mac, and even many iOS apps don't know how to use them properly. Hopefully, Apple will pull this together next spring with the new Photos app for Macs. 

The rear camera now captures 60fps in full 1080p HD video (up from the previous max of 30fps) This is an optional feature users must turn on (in Settings/Photos & Camera). High frame rate video isn't turned on by default because it has a strangely hyper-realistic look to it compared to more familiar 30fps television-like video or the very cinematic feel of 24fps film. 

Apple also enables "cinematic video stabilization" to help smooth out camera movement while recording, taking advantage of the iSight sensor's much higher than 1080p resolution to essentially crop away motion.

Unlike its bigger 6 Plus brother, the iPhone 6 does not feature Optical Image Stabilization, a hardware features which further helps to isolate hand shake—particularly in low light capture—by compensating for device motion via precisely moving the physical lens assembly in concert with accelerometer and gyroscope data. In initial testing, I wasn't blown away by OIS. However, both iPhone 6 and the 6 Plus take noticeably better photos than the already great iPhone 5s, particularly in low light conditions (below).






Another feature than seemed to work better in general is HDR. In the photo below, the colors look more natural and there's more realistic detail, compared to the slightly fake looking composite shot compiled by the iPhone 5s.






Apple states the iSight rear camera features "Focus Pixels" in its new sensor, which Apple says "gather more information about every image you shoot, making it easier to quickly capture any moment in focus." The primary benefit of these sensor Focus Pixels is the new extremely rapid photo focus that lets you catch photos that might otherwise be a blur. 






While the above food shot of my Thai lunch looks pretty identical between the 5s and 6, the closeup (below) that the 6 managed to capture is significantly better. Focusing up close has been a weakness of mobile cameras, but each generation of iPhone seems to get significantly better at it.






Additionally, the new iPhone 6 uses Focus Pixels to do very rapid, continuous autofocus when shooting video. As you recompose your shot on new subjects, each comes into focus without requiring you to tap on specific targets. This makes a big difference in being able to record watchable video and capture action that might otherwise be lost in a blur because the camera didn't focus fast enough. 

The iPhone 6 iSight camera also features an improved, higher resolution Panorama capture that creates larger images with slightly greater detail, both in challenging low light conditions (below top, San Francisco Ferry Building) and in more normal conditions (below bottom, San Francisco Bay from the fire lookout on the East Peak of Mt. Tamalpais, with enough detail to see the Richmond Bridge).











Apple has also made significant improvements to the front facing FaceTime camera, including the ability to take Burst shots (with the "Favorites" feature for auto-selecting the best shots, rather than just a slow series of sequential stills), along with improved face, smile and blink detection (again, powered by the A8) to help recommend the best captures. 

The new FaceTime sensor features a wider aperture to let in more light for sharper, less grainy shots, but its still pretty limited in resolution and requires fairly good lighting to take usable photos. Both models are also capable of taking a new kind of "single shot" HDR photo and video, which adjusts exposure on a per-pixel level, so you'll see less ghosting when you capture HDR involving subjects in motion.

iSight hardware also benefits from the new Camera and Photos apps in iOS 8, which feature a 3 or 10 second shutter timer (which counts down before taking a Burst of ten shots, or a single shot if the flash is turned on), new Photo Editing Extensions as well as a new Time Lapse feature that automatically captures shots over a period of time and then puts them together into a rapid series. Along with the low light capabilities of iPhone 6, this works pretty well even in limited lighting (below, crossing the Bay Bridge into San Francisco). 





With better lighting, Time Lapse can capture high quality sequences of moving scenes (below top, crossing the Richmond Bridge heading to the East Peak of Mt. Tamalpais; below bottom, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge in the fog afterward)






It's too bad Time Lapse doesn't allow you to configure anything, from playback speed to the duration of capture. Some of the results are too fast to watch, and there's no obvious way to slow playback down. However, the resulting movie can easily be shared in social media, unlike iOS 7's slo-mo captures that services like Instagram and Facebook still don't know how to handle properly. 

Unlike Instagram's relatively new Hyperlapse app, the resulting video captured by iOS 8 Time Lapse is a lot higher quality, even if it's fully automatic and doesn't let you set the pacing yourself. Essentially, Time Lapse captures stills at a progressively slower rate the longer you record for, resulting in a final video that targets a watchable output duration. 

There's no UI telling you how long you've been recording in Time Lapse, and there's no way to set a specific capture duration (such as 1 hour to grab a sunset). The feature isn't flawless; it stopped during capture once because the camera overheated from being positioned on the dash, directly in the sun. However, the captured video was saved. When Hyperlapse crashed on me, it lost my entire capture. 

Beyond capturing your own movement, you can also capture a slow moving scene and speed it up, the exact opposite of slo-mo. To do this over a lengthy period, you'll want a tripod or simply a stable perch for your phone (below top, the fog rolling in over San Francisco from the East Peak of Mt. Tamalpais); holding the camera by hand will likely produce bumpy results, but can work for short sequences (below, a Muni train leaves the station before I rode the escalator out) .






You can also chalk up the larger new Retina HD display as a camera feature because it essentially acts as your viewfinder, allowing you to see a better, larger representation of your subjects as you compose your shot or as you shoot video. 

Apple's iPads have long been saddled with low quality cameras, but you frequently see people using them as cameras anyway, largely because it's easy to see what you are recording. The larger iPhone 6 screen will likely help a lot of people to compose and capture photos better, given that the large new models pack Apple's best cameras ever. 

Apple continues to maintain the best combination of hardware and software of any mainstream, popular smartphone. However, there are a few disappointments and limitations. Apple uses a sophisticated lens assembly for a tiny mobile device, but it is not without flaws and limitations.

The latest iPhone 6 still exhibits a refraction dot (an artifact of small plastic lenses, shown below) that can be distracting in photos, particularly in sunsets and in low light scenes with a bright light source. Overall, low light photos are very challenging on mobile devices, and iPhone 6 offers only minor improvements here over the already impressive iPhone 5s camera. It also carries forward the True Tone flash, which is often far more effective at lighting a subject than a typical LED lamp.






It's also disappointing to see that neither iPhone 6 model is capable of supporting external lenses, a rumored feature tied to Apple's patent applications for bayonet mounted lenses. Given how broadly popular iPhones are as cameras, the ability to easily snap on a wide angle, magnifying macro or high quality lens filters would no doubt enable a wide array of new capabilities for both photos and video. There are third party solutions to address this market, but they require a special case or external mounting bracket. 


What's new, #4: Wi-Fi, LTE & NFC




Apple now supports 20 LTE bands on iPhone 6, but that isn't very important unless you are a world traveler and happen to be visiting parts of the world that happen to be compatible with your domestic carrier. 

More importantly, Apple has support for Wideband LTE, which lets carriers use more spectrum to enable faster downloads, up to an astounding 150Mbps. For comparison, U.S. 3G speeds a few years ago hovered around 3Mbps. Only a short list of carriers are currently supporting the full potential of Wideband LTE, including T-Mobile. 

Only a few LTE carriers also support Voice over LTE (VoLTE), which carries phone calls over LTE rather than just data. Verizon Wireless, for example, formerly provided data over LTE but put voice calls on CDMA. A side issue with this is that when you were on a phone call, you couldn't use data (such as to check for a new email your caller is discussing with you, or look up a location on the map). 

Verizon and T-Mobile (among other carriers) are now supporting both VoLTE and simultaneous Voice and Data via LTE across a growing number of markets they serve.

WiFi is also greatly improved for iPhone 6, with new support for the 802.11ac standard used in Apple's tall form factor AirPort and Time Capsule base stations and newer Macs (as well as a variety of third party WiFi base stations). This includes 256 QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) and support for VHT80 (or 80MHz wideband WiFi channels), enabling WiFi speeds of up to 433MHz (this is the minimum standard for 802.11ac devices).

The HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4 and Note 3, and LG/Google Nexus 5 all introduced 802.11ac last year, meaning Apple is catching up in this arena. Supporting the faster speeds does require an 802.11ac network. If you're connecting at Starbucks or using the same home router you bought a several years ago, your WiFi speeds will be limited to 802.11n (150Mbps) or the older 802.11g (54Mpbs) or perhaps even slower.

In our tests with an 802.11ac WiFi router, the iPhone 6 achieved real time connection rates with a local NAS storage device that were about 60 percent higher than iPhone 5s. In broadband WiFi tests, iPhone 6 reached download speeds between 73 and 92 Mbps, compared to around 29Mbps for iPhone 5s, in line with the "up to 3 times faster" speeds Apple is advertising.






iPhone 6 also supports carrier calling over WiFi, which is currently only supported by T-Mobile in the U.S. This feature enables carrier phone calls over your WiFi connection, and with carrier support, the additional ability to hand off calls back and forth from WiFi to VoLTE. 

Along with a very few select Android flagship models, this is a very new feature that should greatly disrupt the carrier business model, allowing users to place international calls in other countries without roaming fees, and enabling voicemail and texts when using an airline's WiFi service, as T-Mobile has already announced support for.

As noted in last year's review of iPhone 5s, it would be great if Apple could link its own FaceTime audio and video service with phone numbers as seamlessly as it linked iMessage with SMS, enabling users to upgrade calls to FaceTime when it's available on the other end. As it is, the company has added prominent FaceTime options to Contacts, and pops up an option to use FaceTime or a standard audio call when you dial a number.

Apart from LTE and WiFi, another wireless area pioneered by other vendors (particularly Google) is NFC. Unlike Android, the new iPhone 6 is currently slated to only support NFC (near field communication, i.e. short range radio) for Apple Pay, enabling the devices to use the 200 million NFC payment terminals already in place at various retailers for payment transactions. 



However, similar to how Apple conservatively rolled out Touch ID last year before opening it up to third party developers in iOS 8, it's likely that Apple will later enable apps to make use of the new NFC radios to do things like scan and read static RFID tags and work with other NFC devices, including door locks or perhaps emulating other NFC tap to pay systems including transit gates or vending machines. Apple has avoided making any comment on its actual plans for NFC outside of Apple Pay. 

Conversely, while Android rolled out NFC features broadly without gaining much traction, Apple has focused its attention on building support for Bluetooth LE (low energy), which enables similar interaction with wireless peripherals (including door locks) but which works over a wider range and across groups of devices, making it better suited to configuring and managing "Internet of Things" devices such as home lighting and appliances (which Apple began addressing in HomeKit). 

Unlike NFC, BLE has been broadly adapted for a variety of peripheral uses ranging from health and fitness devices (addressed by Apple with HealthKit), along with computing and mobile peripherals ranging from keyboards to headsets. Apple has since worked to build a series of sophisticated services on top of BLE, ranging from iOS AirDrop to the new Continuity features between iOS 8 and the upcoming OS X Yosemite (as well as Apple Watch).

Apple Pay isn't scheduled to begin operation for a few weeks until October, so there's nothing to test yet, but AppleInsider will be watching to report on how the rollout works with the latest iPhones. 





What's new, #5: slim new unibody design



Tightly integrated into the new larger displays of iPhone 6 is a new case design that is the thinnest ever for an iPhone, an impressive feat given the larger battery and additional, enhanced components Apple had to shoehorn into the device. Apple's progress in industrial design over the past few years is depicted below in the 3G, 4, 5 and 6 series bodies.


iPhone family





iPhone family




The display of the 4.7 inch iPhone 6 provides 38 percent more viewing area compared to iPhone 5s, but the case is only 13 percent larger in volume. The larger 5.5 inch iPhone 6 Plus has an 88 percent larger display but its volume is only 55 percent larger. 

The new case design uses a single piece of aluminum, with lines in the case filled by a resin material to enable radio signals to pass through the metal. The rounded edges help minimize the apparent size of the new phones, but also make it impossible to stand the phone up on a flat edge, as was possible with the 4 and 5 series iPhones. 

The slightly protruding camera assembly on both new models (similar to the iPod touch) means that they won't lie flat on their back anymore, unless you use a case, which solves that issue. Apple's iPhone 6 camera certainly sports the most discreet bulge in the business, as shown in comparison with Samsung's Galaxy S5 Active (below).


Samsung Galaxy S5 Active Bulge




Also changed is the position of the sleep/wake/power button, which for the first time is located opposite the volume buttons on the upper right, rather than on the top corner. This takes some time to get used to, and I found myself searching for the location with my finger rather than it being right where you'd expect when you grab the top corner. The move is designed to make it easier to use with one hand, but ironically it's now virtually impossible to do a one-handed screen shot.

A final case issue Apple didn't address is water and dust resistance, a feature that's become popular on some high end competitors. Samsung's "Active" version of the Galaxy S5 claims temporary water resistance to a meter, but also requires USB plugs to seal the port, and has a much thicker overall body (basically from a case you can't take off, as shown below). 






Models from some vendors, including Motorola, have promoted nano-coating sealants that help repel water. Aftermarket services can bake this sort of solution onto a finished product at a reasonable cost of around INR 4000, although it requires mailing the device back and forth


Credits: Appleinsider