New iPhone leaves much to be desired

APPLE CEO TIM COOK INTRODUCES the iPhone 6 and the Apple Smartwatch at the Flint Center in Cupertino, Calif. Apple hopes to enter into the market of large phones and tech-wear.

The newest iPhone has been a long awaited release. Every year, many people wait on upgrading their phone until they get a chance to see the new iPhone that Apple releases. This September, Apple announced and released their newest iPhone, called the iPhone 6, and they also showed us the iPhone 6 Plus, which has some upgraded features and specifications compared to the iPhone 6. In this article, we will go over the new specifications and features of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus and compare them to the previous iPhone and some of the top competitors’ smartphones that are on the market today.

The new camera on the iPhone 6 is not new; the camera is the same camera that is on the iPhone 5s except for one or two differences. One of the differences that Apple claims is that the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have “improved face detection” compared to just regular face detection on the iPhone 5s. Another difference is that the iPhone 6 Plus has optical stabilization, but this is only offered for the iPhone 6 Plus. Excluding the noted changes, the camera on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus compared to previous iPhones will not have other noticeable differences.

Regarding camera quality, both the iPhone 6, 6 Plus and the iPhone 5s have 8 megapixel cameras that only support 720p video capture. This is average for smartphones on the market, but when compared to a top competitor like Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 and S5, the new iPhone camera falls short. The Galaxy Note 4 sports a 13 megapixel camera while the S5 sports a camera
with 16 megapixels and has full 1080p video capture. The Windows Nokia Lumia Icon smartphone has an even better camera at 20 megapixel with full 1080p video capture.

That said, Apple has made very few changes to the new iPhone 6’s and the iPhone 6 Plus’ camera. Apple did not seem to put a big effort in competing with their top competitors. Hopefully Apple makes more of an effort in some of their other features that we will go over later on.

The displays on the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have minor upgrades compared to the previous iPhones 5s’ displays. The iPhone 6 has a slightly better resolution while the iPhone 6 Plus has a full 1080p display. However, when compared to Samsung’s Note 3 and S5, the displays are basically identical with maybe a slightly better display on the Samsung phones, especially considering that Samsung manufactures Apple’s displays.

The new A8 chip for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is a 1.4 GHz processor. This is an upgrade from the iPhone 5s’ 1.3 GHz processor. The difference in the processor speeds is very minimal and compared to the Galaxy Note and S5 with a 1.9 GHz processor, the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus has a weaker processor. Also, Apple did not make any changes to the memory capacity for the phone. There is still only 1 GB of RAM and no SD card slot to expand memory storage. As a result you are stuck with the base 16 GB of phone storage.

Wi-Fi calling will be a new capability for iPhones much like the iMessage where you can transition from Wi-Fi to cellular. However, it is only supported by T-Mobile at the moment. We did see, however with iMessage, that it only works iPhone to iPhone, monopolizing the smartphone market by limiting the compatibility between cellphone makers.

The new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus “payments” will allow you to keep everything you would keep in your wallet on your iPhone 6.

With every new iPhone, we can expect a new version of iOS to follow at some point that will undoubtedly cause a fraction of old iPhones to turn into a brick. However, iOS 8 does offer a few updates. One of these updates is their new smart keyboard that suggests words to you as you type to finish your sentence, but this has already been seen in smartphones on the market such as on Windows and Android smartphones. The new iOS 8 also offers a real-time connection to the cloud to update your documents and pictures. This can be best explained by saying how Google Docs and Microsoft
Office 365 have real-time editing and updates.

The new Apple Watch will allow you to connect their iPhone to a screen strapped to your wrist. This watch is another “competitively priced” device that a user can wear on their wrist as an extension of their iPhone. This may end up just being another hassle to recharge, and having your watch and phone alert you to new messages and calls may become annoying.