Apple Introduces the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus

[dantillberg]

According to [0], these "phones" are 5.4 and 6.2 inches tall (not diagonally). 5.4 inches should not be the "small" size phone. That's huge. I have reasonably large hands and I really hate this about my phone (I have a Nexus 5, which is around the same size as the iPhone 6S).

Please, let's make us some smartphones that are nice and compact and small. Or at least medium.

[0]: http://www.apple.com/iphone-6s/specs/

[ihowlatthemoon]

From what I see, Sony is the only manufacturer currently offering a high end phone at a smaller size with the Xperia Compact line. Still 5 inches tall though.

[sanderjd]

Yeah, I can't wait for the backlash trend, where everything goes back to being smaller, but thinner this time.

I really wanted to sign up for Google Fi, but I want a phone, not a tablet.

[puranjay]

I've recently switched back to an old Nokia feature phone and holy shit, it's incredible when I hold it up to my ear...I can actually grab the entire thing in the palm of my hand.

[roymurdock]

I'll be holding on to my iPhone 5 until it bricks at this rate.

[tertius]

Agreed, I have an N5 and it's about as large as my hands can go. It could have a better display, but not a larger one.

I tried out the Moto X for about 3 months, like it a lot, display was just a little too big.

Now my wife has small hands and small fingers. She can't handle the N5 comfortable even.

I don't know the averages though.

[bane]

I hate the name, but the 3d touch is a nice interaction model. I really like peaking as a UI metaphor. It helps slice through layers of information without committing to the next layer.

edit and you have to be fucking kidding me with 16GB base models...

edit2 oh, I get it, it's a push for iCloud storage, lame

[tsunamifury]

Its interesting to see Apple re-introduce 'modes' something that Jobs himself hated.

Things like right clicking, force/3D touching, or stylus's are specific modes that need to be activated and de-activated discreetly -- showing a separate set of otherwise non-discoverable features.

[interlocutor]

It is not discoverable. It is a power-user feature that makes the UI less obvious for ordinary people.

A lot depends on how developers use/abuse this feature. If only power-user features are hidden in the 3D-touch menu then it will be OK. But if ordinary features are only exposed via this menu then apps will become harder to use.

[vowelless]

Why not just call it force touch, like the macbook? Craig Federighi even had a slip and referred to 3d touch as force touch.

[angryasian]

I'm just reading the live blog, but can someone provide more details on how this works. To me it just appears to be a contextual menu based on long press of the app icon ? Is it something more than this ? I'm curious as to how this will effect when you want to move app icons.

[wjoe]

Sounds like it would be very difficult to get right. I can imagine a lot of false positives where I want to do a normal click, but I happen to press lighter than usual so it registers it as a "peek". Maybe they'll do it well enough that this doesn't happen, and maybe it's just something you'd get used to after a while, but to me it's a bit of "trying to be too clever", but then I'm the sort of person that disables things like auto-rotate for that reason.

[snegu]

That's what hover has done on desktop for a while now. This is not a new concept, just new tech allowing us to do it on touchscreens.

[feld]

iCloud storage doesn't help. Trust me.

/5c with 16GB and 0 free space... even with "optimize storage on phone" for photos enabled they still take up all my space

I have several gigs taken up by whatsapp alone and I do not want to delete my history.

[ohitsdom]

I'm concerned about durability. Is 3D touch passive sensing, or is the screen/glass actually moving? IIRC, Force Touch physically depresses (which explains why they didn't call it Force Touch).

[hardtke]

I suspect 3D touch will cause more cases of iPhone induced tennis elbow. Matt Bonner (San Antonio Spurs) and I are two victims. Forcing us to press harder will trigger more cases.

[Karunamon]

Would someone explain to me why there's so much hate towards the base model? I really, truly don't understand what's wrong with offering an entry level device? I carry a 16GB 6+ and am quite happy with it.

[pdeuchler]

Is control over your own data dead? Even if I use all cloud services I don't see 16GB being remotely reasonable for an age of HD photos, videos, unlimited music libraries (my spotify cache takes up 6GB alone). Even androids with microSD cards only go so big. If apple is serious about this push to using iCloud storage for everything I don't see myself using their products for much longer (and I've been a fanboi forever). Problem is I don't see a good alternative.

[BinaryIdiot]

It's 2015, they just added 4K recording and a higher megapixel camera and the base model is STILL 16GB? Is this a joke? I just can't understand that at all. That space is going to get used up so fast. Android manufacturers have the same issue so it's not like it's an Apple only problem.

The minimum at this point should be 32GB.

[ralmeida]

They've lowered the prices for iCloud storage, so you _could_ argue that keeping the base size at 16GB is a means to get more people to sign up for iCloud.

[swinglock]

It's so that they can reel you in with the lower price but end up selling you a much more expensive device for minimum extra manufacturing cost.

[stumpf]

I believe this is a push to get users to use iCloud, for which they also announced pricing updates.

[mozumder]

16GB is fine. Lots of people don't even download apps.

[Kiro]

Speak for yourself. I don't install anything or take any photos with my phone. I just use it to make calls and browse the web so I very much doubt I will ever use up 16GB.

[DuskStar]

>and all iPhone models are made with a brand new Apple custom alloy, the same alloys used in the aerospace industry.

"Brand New" and "Same as used in X" - choose one. (I think this is just standard TechCrunch, not from Apple, but still rather irritating)

[amazon_not]

Apple is going to make bank by turning into a bank. The installment plan with free upgrades each year is brilliant. The user lock-in is going to be unsurpassed and no competing phone maker has the mountains of cash required to match it.

[devindotcom]

This rebranding of video as "live photos" ("they can have sound!") is cracking me up.

[kiddz]

tldr: My mom has no idea what force touch is. She'd not going to get 3d touch.

I love all of this, but it seems to me that there is really becoming a divide in the type of people who can fully appreciate/employ the UI nuances? I'm not a photographer, and basically only use photoshop to crop and do bullish things. But I know there's a whole universe of things I could do, if I appreciated the power set tools.

I think that's where many "smart" products are going, but because they are distributed to the masses (unlike PS for instance), that divide means something else.

For some people this is going to make their "daily lives" more enjoyable. For another set of folks, perhaps equal in size even, I think a lot of this stuff will just go over their heads.

[roymurdock]

Interested to hear whether people think the fragmentation/differentiation of the iPhone line is a good strategy or not. Where there used to be 1 flagship phone, there are now 4 different models, possibly 5 if they make a (c) version.

> iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus, iPhone 6c

What made the iPhone iconic was that there was one powerful and curated model, and that you trusted Apple to make design choices for you. You paid extra because you knew you were getting a quality phone, not the low-tier/hard to compare versions of the multitude of Android-based phone. Why move away from simplicity and curation?

[drinchev]

iPhones, marked with "S" are successors of the previous model and doesn't include any changes in their case.

[abritinthebay]

There's not 4, there's 2: the 6S and the 6S Plus.

Just two flagships. And they are differentiated on size, that's all.

This is no different to the 5/5C situation really (in fact, a clearer differentiation tbh).

The previous years models have always been available since the 3GS was released.

Seems like you're running about 6 years behind the times...?

[IkmoIkmo]

Who had to laugh when the guy was like 'live photos .... and they're not videos guys, really, believe me, repeat after me NOT videos, photos!'

Or when he was like 'this is based on revolutionary technology never seen before, and it's totally not half-a-vine, either, it's a new breakthrough, 3 second videos'.

I mean I don't even grin anymore when they say 'the iPhone 6 was the most popular iPhone.... EVER' or when they say 'the iPhone 6S is the best iphone... EVER' (no shit). I've gotten used to that level of hyperbole, but the rhetoric around the live photos was pretty ridiculous. (and I like it, too, I think it's a neat little feature that fits nicely in between photos and vines - the original massively-popular 7 second videos - the way it was presented was just way over the top.)

[hmate9]

These Harry Potter images have already been done by Nokie: http://lumiaconversations.microsoft.com/2014/04/15/relive-th...

[slg]

Higher resolution photos and video and somehow Apple is still going to have the 16 GB base model.

[switch007]

The 16GB is only there to make you buy the more expensive model

[noer]

To make you pay for cloud storage?

[chrisBob]

"Live Photos" They must really want more people to start paying for iCloud Drive every month. That sounds like a big data hog compared to a single photo every time I hit the shutter button.

[Breefield]

Still no SD card slot?

So fucking irritating that more/less the primary way Apple does price differentiation for their product models is by locking you in at storage capacity sizes.

My life is a hell of iCloud + Dropbox backups & constantly deleting all media so I can keep all of 40 apps on my 16GB iPhone.

[pazrul]

I'm curious what exactly they mean when they say Live Photos are 'not a movie, it's a photo!' So what's the file format? How does one encode sound to a moving photo and not call it a movie?

[rebootthesystem]

I think a lot of this is going to boild down to whether people give a shit. A nicer way to put it is: Are these solutions for non-existing problems?

Yes, yes, we teck-heads can geek-out at the idea of a force sensing screen. We are not the market. The maket is the average Joe or Jane. And it is my impression Joe and Jane, for the most part, won't give a shit. I know plenty of people with 4s's who have not updated the OS in a while, no longer get any apps --free or otherwise-- and feel perfectly served with what they have. When we ask them if they'd be interested in spending several hundred dollars to upgrade, the answer is often monosyllabic: "Why."

[Detrus]

For a better camera

I use an iPhone 4. Battery life went to hell at one point now it's back to being decent. It was a software problem.

Wouldn't mind it being slightly thinner, lighter, bigger with better screen and far better camera. But now the screens got too big.

[ultimoo]

I think once app developers fully adopt 3D touch and Apple refines the iOS UX in future iterations to take complete advantage of the tech, it's going to be a huge improvement in how we interact with smartphones.

[chrisBob]

Why can't they just list the prices? Does anyone still get their phone under a 2 year contract anymore? I have no clue what "From $199" means.

[DarkTree]

um.. yes? I can't imagine getting an iphone every year when you can just get one every 2 years for a third of the price.

[robflynn]

You can take the "estimated monthly cost" that they showed and multiply by 24. i.e. $36/mo = $864. $32/mo = $768. It may not be exact but it should be close.

[Navarr]

Very curious as to the intuitiveness of the variations in tapping. 3D Touch seems neat.. but I'd have to use it personally to know whether or not its a revolution, or an Amazon Fire Phone-esque gimmick.

[masklinn]

The shortcuts on the homescreen looked real useful (though they would depend on what the application developer decided to add as quick jumps), and I've done the "open message/back to list/open message/back to list" way too often

[xd1936]

Why are all of the top links to TechCrunch? They're the worst.

[meesterdude]

All I wanted was more storage and longer battery life. Looks like I have another year to wait for those. Not to knock the other improvements, but storage and battery life are the two that bug me the most.