Apple unveiled two new iPhones at its media event Wednesday: the iPhone 6S, and the iPhone 6S Plus.
Let's dive into the iPhone 6S Plus.
- It looks identical to last year's iPhone 6 Plus, but it's made of stronger 7000 series aluminum.
- There's a new way to interact with the phone called 3D Touch — not called Force Touch.
- 3D Touch gives you shortcuts to the actions you do frequently, but you can also use it from the home screen. If you lightly touch something you can "peek" at it — like a specific email from within the Mail app. If you push down further you can "pop" it out into the full application. 3D Touch allows you to dip into applications without leaving what you're doing.
- In Instagram, for instance, you can "peek" at people's photos without visiting their profile — and "peeking" at a video lets you play it automatically.
- The iPhone 6S comes with a unique taptic engine that can vibrate in shorter, more distinct feedback events.
- The iPhone 6S is built with an A9 chip, Apple's 3rd generation 64-bit chip that has new transistor architecture that's optimized for real-world use. Compared to the A8 chip, it's 70% faster at CPU tasks and 90% faster at graphics tasks.
- The cameras are much better in the new iPhones. The iPhone 6S features a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera for high-quality stills, but it also takes detailed videos. You can finally film 4K video on the iPhone 6S.
- The iPhone 6S also features a 5-megapixel front-facing camera for high-quality FaceTime images.
- The coolest new camera feature is called Live Photos. Basically it's a setting that lets you watch 3-second clips of any still picture you take, and makes those into GIFs. You can make Live Photos your wallpaper on any device, including your iPhone or Apple Watch.
Here's a complete rundown of the iPhone 6S Plus, courtesy of Apple:
The main difference between the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus is the display. The iPhone 6S features a 4.7-inch display with 326 pixels per inch, while the iPhone 6S Plus features a 5.5-inch display with 401 pixels per inch. The only other difference is that the larger iPhone 6S Plus comes with optical image stabilization to make sure your videos come out looking silky and smooth.
Prior to the event, reports stated the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus would feature an identical design to their predecessors, but be made out of a stronger alloy to prevent bending and deformities.
It was also said to be powered by an A9 chip, feature 2GB of RAM, a 5-megapixel camera on the front and a 12-megapixel camera on the back capable of shooting 4K video; the current iPhones have a 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera and an 8-megapixel camera on the rear, even though the iPhone 6S Plus also comes with optical image stabilization.
Also, the iPhone 6S Plus was rumored to come with the same pressure-sensitive Force Touch technology in the Apple Watch and MacBook. It would provide new ways to navigate and search through menu options within apps.
