Everything You Need To Know About The New iPhone 6 And 6 Plus

Apple’s annual iPhone launch event took place yesterday with much excitement since its announcement just a week prior. Two anticipated products – the latest iteration of the iPhone (iPhone 6) and the much-rumored iWatch, spawned the hype surrounding the event. Apple enthusiasts were not disappointed in that regard as Tim Cook and Apple revealed three products: The iPhone 6, the iPhone 6 Plus and the Apple Watch. The launch comes among widespread discussion of iCloud being at least partly responsible for the hacking of celebrity nudes, and the live feed of the event suffered some major issues. All that said, we have a new iPhone coming to the market soon!

iPhone 6
Let’s start looking at the newest iteration of the iPhone by examining the past. The iPhone 5S came to market a year ago as the premiere device with all the features, and an iPhone 5C was also launched as a discounted version of the popular phone. This time around the ‘cheaper’ alternative has no C attached, and rather rebrands the iPhone 6 as the less expensive iteration compared to its big brother; the iPhone 6 Plus. One cannot help but admire Apple for this slightly ballsy move.

The iPhone 6 offers a 4.7-inch screen with Retina display, though resolution is an odd 1334 x 750-pixel count. While larger physically, it is thinner, has curved the edges and ditches the glass back by replacing it with aluminum. The camera gets an upgrade with something called ‘Focus Pixels” that determines the direction and depth of the target, which leads to sharper images. The camera remains 8-megapixels, and is capable of shooting 1080p, no different from the iPhone 5S. On the opposite side, the front facing camera gets a minor upgrade as well in the form of a larger aperture.

Running a brand new proprietary A8 chip, the device is supposedly 20% faster than the A7 at CPU based tasks, and 50% faster on GPU. Additionally, for the first time, the iPhone will have a 128GB storage option, along with the 16GB and 64G variants (dropping 32GB). Battery life has improved, giving users 10 days of standby time, 11 hours of video viewing or 10 hours of LTE internet browsing. With all these upgrades also comes an “upgrade” on price. Prices in Canada start at $750 for the 16GB model, $860 for the 64GB model and $970 for the 128GB model, which is $100-$120 more expensive than they are in the US. While ‘two year contract’ pricing has not been unveiled yet, one can probably assume that the price increase will be in line with what’s above – Starting at $199 in the States could mean starting at $250 in Canada.

iPhone 6 Plus
The second iteration of the iPhone is a Phablet. The 5.5-inch screen continues to offer Retina display at a much more normalized 1080p resolution and features similar design to the iPhone 6. The camera on both the front and back remain the same as the iPhone 6, however the iPhone 6 Plus has Optical Image Stabilization while the iPhone 6 only offers a cheaper digital image stabilization software. Again, there will be 16GB, 64GB and 128GB variants of the iPhone 6 Plus.

Where the iPhone 6 Plus makes up some ground on the iPhone 6 is in battery life. The added size of the Plus results in a bigger battery, offering additional hours of use across the board with 16 days of standby time, 14 hours of video viewing or 12 hours of LTE browsing. Again prices rise on the larger unit $860 for the 16GB, $970 for the 64GB and $1080 for the 128GB units.

While the iPhone 6 didn’t impressed me with the features of both phones nor the upgraded interiors, this does mark the first major redesign of the phone. Perhaps recognizing that Apple fanatics will continue to purchase these devices, they did not want to stray too far from what people have come to know, and love. If you have an iPhone 5S, I am not sure that the upgrade to an iPhone 6 makes the most sense, unless you are interested in Apple Pay (which probably will not be very usable in Canada), or you want to get the new Apple Watch. If I was an iPhone user, I’d personally wait until next year.

What are your thoughts on the new iPhone 6 and 6 plus? Let us know in the comments below or tweet us @ViewTheVibe.