What folks are saying about the iPhone 6
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Version 0 of 1. U2 was there. Apple chief executive Tim Cook was there. The Earth moved. The stars aligned. Someone likely wept. And, on Sept. 9 in a huge white building in Cupertino, Calif., America’s biggest corporation unveiled potentially paradigm-shifting wearable tech: the Apple Watch. Oh, right: Cook, Bono and company also mentioned the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus. What are these bigger, ostensibly better gadgets — or as the Apple diviners sometimes call them, phablets — like? With the Phone 6 press embargo lifted last night, the critics have spoken. And they are mostly ready to go to war in Cook’s name. “The question of the moment isn’t whether to get a new iPhone, but which one: large or extra-large,” wrote the Wall Street Journal’s Geoffrey A. Fowler. “Everything is better and nothing is different,” wrote David Pierce of the Verge. “Apple has gone all in,” Matt Egan of Macworld wrote. “And how.” “It’s a winner,” said the headline on the review by Walt Mossberg of Re/Code, the dean of tech reviewers: I’ve been testing the more mainstream of the two models, the 4.7-inch iPhone 6, for about a week now, and I think it’s a terrific phone. In my view, it’s the best smartphone on the market, when you combine its hardware, all-new operating system, and the Apple ecosystem whose doors it opens. Sounds awesome. Now let’s get down to the iDetails. THE SIZE First thing to remember: The iPhone 6 has a 4.7-inch screen — already bigger than any previously extant iPhone — but the iPhone 6 Plus has an even bigger 5.5-inch screen. “I found it easier to type, interact with apps or look at photos,” Fowler wrote. “For people with vision challenges, type and app icons can be made blissfully larger.” (See the folks over at the Wall Street Journal for a meticulously constructed graphic that attempts to answer the question “Does Your Hand Fit Your Phone Screen?“) Worried that 5.5 inches might be too big for your tiny thumb? Don’t be. “To counteract the issue of having a screen in your hand that is far too large for single-handed use, Apple has created a new feature called Reachability,” wrote Joshua Topolsky of Bloomberg Businessweek. “You simply double-press (that’s a light tap) on your home button and it brings the top of the screen down to reach your thumb.” The fussy ol’ New York Times did have one complaint. “Apple has made one phone that is actually a little too small and one that’s a little too big,” Molly Wood wrote. THE BATTERY The future won’t work if the batteries keep dying. How did Apple deal with that? Well, bigger phones have bigger batteries that can last longer. And, borrowing a move from the Federal Reserve, reviewers did stress tests. “If, like me, you rarely get a full day out of your current iPhone’s battery, this might excite you,” wrote Lauren Good of Re/Code. “In my tests, which involved setting the display brightness to 50 percent and cycling through my regular routine of apps and phone calls, the iPhone 6 Plus would last from early one morning until evening the following day.” “The greatest advantage to the iPhone 6 Plus is a larger battery,” Fowler wrote. “It allowed the 6 Plus to run up to 15% longer in my stress tests.” “Impressive battery life up to two days,” wrote MacRumors. THE OPERATING SYSTEM AND APPS The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus don’t sit in their anodized aluminum shells. Unlike the NoPhone, they do stuff. “iOS 8 brings numerous improvements, starting with a better predictive Apple keyboard you come to appreciate quickly,” wrote Edward C. Baig of USA Today. “The ability to install third-party keyboards as on Android phones is an added plus.” “The iPhones do include some tricks created for bigger phones, like a zoom feature that lets you subtly increase the size of app icons and text in native apps,” Wood wrote. This feature doesn’t always work perfectly — but it might not matter. “Even scaled-up apps benefit from simply being bigger,” wrote Nilay Patel of Verge. “Instagram is awesome on the iPhone 6 Plus. So are Facebook photos. Watching video on the 6 Plus is tremendous — the display is almost as big as the iPad mini.
Well done, Cook. Seems like the biggest complaint about your new product is about its music.
Attention iPhone users: Apple decided to put U2′s Songs of Innocence on your phone! Here’s the link to uninstall it. https://t.co/J5haqNXcQv — Jeff in WNC (@dahbigj) September 16, 2014 Attention iPhone users: Apple decided to put U2′s Songs of Innocence on your phone! Here’s the link to uninstall it. https://t.co/J5haqNXcQv — Jeff in WNC (@dahbigj) September 16, 2014 |