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The Apple iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus Review

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121–130 of 173 posts

Re: The Apple iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus Review

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have to disagree. I love the large form factor of the 6 Plus. Now that I have been using it for a year, I have learned to hardly notice the big footprint that it has. I am probably on the extreme side as to how often I use the device, so for me I can't immagine going back to a teeny screen. 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,…

You're also a self-admitted tall user with long fingers, and the device is pretty much at the size limit of what you would find usable. That means that for the average person, it's definitely too big, and surpassed the size of what they find usable. Also, being able to reposition the phone to do day-to-day activities being easy for you after a year isn't an upside to me, that's a downside. That's you saying, "After a…

might as well learn to play the violin

Re: The Apple iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus Review

#122

I wonder, how many years iPhone 6S will be able to stay relevant. For example iPhone 4S started lagging on iOS 7. While it's certainly usable on iOS 9, it feels as an old and underpowered device. 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 iPhon…

There are definitely not any intentional performance bottlenecks; that's just absurd.

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.

Re: The Apple iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus Review

#123
post #109
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the 6s+, and yeah I can't use it with one hand, but I'm okay with that because I love having the bigger screen so much more. I can see a lot more while typing, watching videos is a better experience, and I've noticed myself using the bigger phone (I used to have a 5s) in new ways a lot more. Before, I would avoid doing some tasks on my phone like taking more than a few lines of notes. The bigger screen feels l…

I think it probably has to do with the kind of lifestyle you have. For me, I have to commute by bus, and most of the time it's packed so I have to stand. While on the bus I'd like to use my phone to avoid boredom, which means using it with one hand because I need the other to hold onto something. I can totally see how having a bigger screen and bigger battery are great. But unfortunately for some of us, we have times…

You're right - there's no one size fits all solution. I'm glad that phones have gotten bigger because they fit my use cases, and based on their popularity I'm definitely not alone. I am surprised that 4" phones have been lost - especially by Apple. Despite the low sales of the 5c, I figured we'd still see a 6c to satisfy those not wanting a bigger phone. It seems like a decent number of people are refusing to upgrade to a newer iPhone, and I'm not aware of any good, modern Android phones at 4" for these people to switch to.

Re: The Apple iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus Review

#124

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Built in obsolescence?

Almost certainly. I try really hard to be as un-cynical as possible about this, but there's a great quote I heard from someone smart whose name I can't recall right now - economics is incentives all the way down - and it applies perfectly here I think. 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 network…

Emphatically yes.

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.

Re: The Apple iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus Review

#125
post #96
post #71

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Customer goodwill? 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. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10502753

It makes a big difference that Apple won't let you downgrade to a previous OS. Only sheer stubbornness kept me from upgrading my iPhone 4 (iOS 7) to an iPhone 6 when all I really wanted was a phone that didn't take half a second to respond to input. Downgrading to iOS 6 would have accomplished the same thing. It's hard not to believe that planned obsolesence isn't at least part of that strategy. It's certainly incide…

Think about it from the company/engineer's point of view: would you want to maintain the old version of the code (adding security fixes and the like) for years after it's current, for probably less than 1000 people per version? Remember that the old versions of code probably build with old versions of the compiler, old trains, etc. And you can't not maintain this code, since there will be bugs found, jailbreaks, etc. Every engineering team I know has more features than man-hours, it's hard to imagine them willingly making this tradeoff for such a small gain in their overall user happiness (people posting on HN are the exception, most people just update their devices for the shiniest new features)

Re: The Apple iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus Review

#126

I don't like the iphone 6 line. They are too big. I bike and run with my phone all the time and don't like having a clunker strapped to my arm. I got rid of the 6 and got a 5c and I like it way more. Just as fast as an iphone6 and 1/3 the price. By just as fast, I mean for normal use - not playing games and using crazy apps (which I don't do)

I think all phones are too big - I have stuck with my iPhone 4s purely because it is so easy to carry around and does everything I want. Please Apple release an iPhone nano.

Re: The Apple iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus Review

#127
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost certainly. I try really hard to be as un-cynical as possible about this, but there's a great quote I heard from someone smart whose name I can't recall right now - economics is incentives all the way down - and it applies perfectly here I think. 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 network…

Emphatically yes. 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.

Apple phones definitely do seem to have a longer lifespan, I agree that quality being the cornerstone of their branding provides a very strong incentive for them to do this, with other manufacturers (my experience is mostly with Samsung) seeming to take a more it'll be fine, after 2 years the S(current+2) will be out and they'll want that anyway because it will be far better hardware type approach. It's one of the reasons I'm now strongly considering switching over to the iPhone after my current Samsung S4 finally dies (it's still just about crawling along with some problems after about 28 months since I bought it)

Re: The Apple iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus Review

#128
post #120

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I currently own a 5C and I think I'll eventually replace it with a 5S. The iPhone 6/6S can fit my hand also, but it's not really as comfortable as the 5S and below were.

Respectfully, as a person who once agreed with you, I would say that you can't possibly really know this until you actually USE a 6/6S for a couple weeks, all the time. You might be shocked at how quickly your hand adapts and finds the new size to be just as natural as the old 5S size. I was shocked.

This is a very good point, but I have a counterpoint: I suffered through a year with the 6 before downgrading to the 5S last month. My only regret? Waiting so long to ditch the 6.

Re: The Apple iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus Review

#129
post #62

How big of a difference is the camera on the 6s without OIS versus the 6s plus with OIS? I can't really notice a difference in the low light pictures on the site. 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…

Unless you're taking video very often, there's no difference. I take a lot of photos, and I found the smaller form factor of the 6S outweighed any small improvements on the larger handset.

The only other place you may notice it is in low light.

I've seen some of the videos with OIS and it is QUITE noticeably more stable.

Re: The Apple iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus Review

#130
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of these phones have great cameras, but they don't hold a candle to the performance of even crop sensor entry level DSLRs and mirrorless bodies. It seems pointless to me to split hairs over picture quality between two strong options when anyone who _seriously_ cares about pixel peeping wouldn't use a smartphone for photography in the first place

This is just plainly false. There are now serious photographers and movie-makers using the iPhone for serious photography. A lot of them.

"Both of these phones have great cameras, but they don't hold a candle to the performance of even crop sensor entry level DSLRs and mirrorless bodies. "

That part is definitely not false... My Sony RX100 II blows these cameras out of the water and its a pocket camera.

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