The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus


I'll have to think about this a bit whether I want a phone as large as 5.5-inches. I'm a little concerned about how useable it will be with one hand and fitting in my pocket. It is a bit thinner though, and a different design, so we'll see.

What's remarkable is the constant march of improved CPU and GPU performance in each phone generation. The A8 is 25% faster CPU and 50% graphics than the iPhone 5s. And without affecting battery life. Just in general mobile processing power is keeping an impressive pace. The 6 Plus is a native 1080p resolution at 401 pixels per inch. Even if the video is exported to an external display, it's hard to imagine a big future in gaming consoles.

One nice thing about a larger display is there's an opportunity for a larger battery. The iPhone 6 Plus is to offer 16 days of standby, up from 10 on the iPhone 5s and iPhone 6. 3G talk time is 24 hours on the 6 Plus and 14 on the 6 vs 10 on the 5s. Faster, bigger display, and better battery life. That's pretty great.

Each generation of iPhone I'm particularly interested in the camera. I use my iPhone camera a lot and it records a lot of important moments for our family. So, I'm happy to hear the focus performance is improving. Kids don't sit still long for photos. Also improved is the image processing for face and blink/smile detection.This doesn't seem to be a revolutionary improvement but yet another iterative step over the iPhone 5s.

The lineup is a bit interesting. We finally get the 128 GB version. Interestingly Apple drops the 32 GB from the lineup. I would have expected Apple to either tack on another $100 for the 128 GB model or drop the 16 GB. So, for the iPhone 6 we have $199, $299, and $399 for the 16GB, 64GB, and 128GB. The iPhone 6 Plus is the same configurations for $100 more. For me the 64 GB is the sweet spot, so I'm OK with that.