Following months of rumors, Apple today officially unveiled the 4.7″-screened iPhone 6s and 5.5″-screened iPhone 6s Plus, the “S”-series sequels to last year’s hugely successful iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus — billed by Apple as the most popular iPhones ever. Preserving their predecessors’ physical sizes and glass-and-metal industrial designs, the new models have been updated with a collection of enhancements, including:
- 3D Touch, force-sensing technology that adds new gestures “peek” and “pop,” which bring up modal windows and things hidden under panes.
- A9 processor promising 70% increase on A8 speed and 90% faster graphics (“console class”), enabling games to offer all sorts of special effects and frame rates better than A8.
- M9 motion coprocessor, always on, along with always-on Siri.
- Second-generation Touch ID, twice as fast as before.
- All new 12MP iSight camera. 50% more pixels than before, more accurate autofocus. They decided they would not add pixels over the 6/6 Plus camera until they wouldn’t compromise image quality. 4K video support has been added, as well.
- New 5MP FaceTime HD camera, including “Retina Flash” (screen) with True Tone ability. Screen can light up three times brighter than usual for this.
- Support for Live Photos, pictures you can save and watch animate (with sound) as you press with 3D Touch. They’re mini videos automatically created as you take pictures. But they’re not videos, a series of frame-to-frame compressed videos that work on all devices.
- Wi-Fi and LTE Advanced with “up to” 23 LTE bands, 2X faster LTE, and 2X faster Wi-Fi (866Mbps).
New leather, silicone, and dock colors have been announced as well. Photos and many more details are below. We’re still updating, refresh for more…
Other new iPhone 6s, 6s Plus features include:
- A new rose gold aluminum finish, an Apple custom 7000-series aluminum, added to the other three prior colors (silver, space gray, gold).
- Brand new glass, billed by Apple as using a “dual ion-exchange process.”
- 3D Touch works everywhere from the Home screen to within apps, and provides tactile feedback for touch interactions. You can open an email message with a “peek” to show a window rather than going all the way in, or press more to see the entire message in full screen. Or open the front camera directly from the Home screen rather than defaulting to the rear camera.
- New Taptic Engine that’s apparently faster than the Apple Watch one, capable of running for mini-taps running 10ms and full taps at 15ms.
Some photos from the event: