(Image via The Verge)
Apple has just announced its latest iPhone 6s and iPhone 6 Plus flagship smartphones at today’s “Hey Siri, give us a hint” media event held at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. “They are the most advanced smartphones in the world”, said Phil Schiller while unveiling the new iPhones. Both handsets are housed in an entirely new aluminum, a custom Apple alloy, and will be available in Silver, Gold, Space Gray and a brand new Rose Gold colour.
Ion-X glass and 3D Touch
While both devices feature the same physical form as their predecessors, their displays are now covered by a brand new Ion-X glass, which is the strongest in the industry. The new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus also feature a ground-breaking ‘3D Touch’ technology, which is basically an advanced form of the Force Touch in Apple Watch. Apple details that in the iPhone, a system measures the distance between the glass and the backlight to detect how hard the user is pressing. New gestures called “Peek” and “Pop” let you call up contextual menus on home screen icons.
2nd Gen Touch ID and New 12 MP iSight Camera
Both new iPhones feature 2nd generation Touch ID, as well as an all-new 12 megapixels iSight camera with 50% more pixels than before, improved sensor and superior autofocus capabilities. Schiller explained how Apple’s engineers have worked to reduce crosstalk and noise. “A great technology called ‘deep trench isolation’ to seperate the diodes and make them more accurate”, he said. Best of all, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus cameras can now shoot video in 4K resolution.
5MP FaceTime HD Camera with Retina Flash
In both the new iPhones, the FaceTime HD camera has been upgraded to 5 megapixels with “Retina Flash”, in which the entire display can light up 3X brighter than usual to be a flash for the front-facing camera.
Shooting ‘Live Photos’
The new iPhones can also take ‘Live Photos’ with the new camera system. “What if you could press with 3D Touch on your photos and this happened?” said Schiller. Apple notes that taking Live Photos is the same as you take regular photos. “You just take a photo like you always have, by default it’s on. These are regular photos, we extend the capture moment just before and after”, Schiller explained during the keynote.
A9 Chip, Improved Graphics, Faster LTE and More
The new A9 chip featuring a transistor architecture optimized for real world use, is 70% faster than the A8 offering 90% faster graphics. The new M9 motion coprocessor is always on, enabling “Hey Siri” feature anytime, anywhere. LTE is now twice as fast and supports 23 bands. Wi-Fi has also been improved for faster wireless performance all around.
Pricing and Availability
Both the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus cost the same as their predecessors (see below) and will be available on September 25 in U.S., Canada and other first wave countries. We’ll update you with Canadian pricing shortly as well. Stay tuned!
[UPDATE] Canadian Pricing and Pre-Order Info
iPhone 6s will be available for $899 (CAD) for the 16GB model, $1,029 (CAD) for the 64GB model and $1,159 (CAD) for the 128GB model. Similarly, iPhone 6s Plus will be available for $1,029 (CAD) for the 16GB model, $1,159 (CAD) for the 64GB model and $1,289 (CAD) for the 128GB model.
Both models will be available in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Singapore, the UK and US beginning Friday, September 25, with pre-orders beginning Saturday, September 12.
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ARGH! No Apple Pay in Canada yet >.<
More importantly, still 16GB. Damn pissed at that.
That I can live with but it pisses me off knowing that the only reason we likely don’t have it is because of the banks greed.
Insane, isn’t it? They should’ve dumped 16GB in the base model years ago. Unbelievable.
Why, businesses still use them, they don’t want to shell out for 32gb and they don’t want their employees putting tonnes of apps on them! It’s not worth it for them to have a 32gb when most will pay the extra $100 for the 64gb. They do their market research every year and the 16 still sells in huge numbers to a lot of people who just want to text and tweet on it and don’t need all that extra space.
what a freaking waste
What were you expecting?
Think I might ditch the + size and go down to a 6S from 6+.
im doing the same
Not me. After using my 6 Plus (and Galaxy S6), I got used to the bigger 5.5″ screen. The 6/6S screen is just way too tiny now.
So the screen wont be the rumored 2K screen?
How about optical image stabilization for the 6s?
OIS just on the 6s+ only.
That’s disappointing. Also the same screen resolution as last gen. The phone is nice but is it worth paying $1,029 plus tax?
It would be moronic for them to introduce a new screen resolution with this model. Do you seriously look at an iPhone 6 or 6+ screen and think “this screen resolution isn’t good enough”?
Ya, every time I look over at a Galaxy S6. Apple thinks the same but they will hold off on adding a 2K screen until next year so they will have a few more buzz words to throw on their keynote. Next year they will say the current screen isn’t good enough. I wonder how the battery will hold up with always on Siri and “3D touch” I would have even taken a bump to the battery specs.
I have a Galaxy S6 and an iPhone 6 Plus, and I can’t tell the difference in res. between the two. They both look good. Keep in mind, the 2K display will take a major performance hit at that resolution. Try gaming on a 4K monitor.
When can we pre order?
on sept 12th.
WOW…. Canadian $ is hurting us badly…. the price are way too high!!!
I’m assuming the 6S non-Plus still lacks the cool image stabilization of the Plus model?
The price alone will make me move away from apple!!
I laughed when I saw the 16gb model; I had a feeling they were going to offer that as the base model again. This is where Apple changes from being a great tech company to being complete greedy a##holes. It’s 2015 for Pete’s sake, they release a phone that records 4K video, has a 12 megapixel camera, and “Live Photos”, install a few apps, games and maybe some music and that 16gb is gonna fill up very fast!
The only reason the 16gb model exists is to force people to buy the next model up. I have grown incredibly tired of this marketing scheme. If you look across their entire product line the base models are awful; Apple purposely makes them so completely unattractive that we will be forced to shell out more cash and buy the next model up. It’s really getting old. Apple has more cash on hand than most countries, they can stop nickel-and-diming us anytime now.
Yeah, 16GB has remained for way too long. To introduce 4K video and 16GB? Just crazy.