Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus
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21 New Features of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, Compare to iPhone 5S

Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus
Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus

Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are now official. Besides the bigger phone sizes, what are new about iPhone 6 comparing to iPhone 5S? Read on to learn about all the new iPhone 6 features.

(If not specified, “iPhone 6” in this article is referring to both iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models)

Hardware & Design

iPhone 6 design
iPhone 6 design
  1. iPhone 6 is powered by latest and fastest Apple 64-bit A8 chip with M8 motion coprocessor for even better performance.
  2. Available in 3 different storage size: 16GB, 64GB and new 128GB. 32GB option is no longer available.

  3. iPhone 6 is Apple’s biggest smartphone ever. iPhone 6 is 4.7″ display and 5.5″ for iPhone 6 Plus. iPhone 6 Plus is also the first iPhone with Full HD resolution (1920×1080 pixels at 401 ppi), or Retina HD as Apple preferred.

4. Dual Domain Pixels for wider viewing angle. Display also has higher contrast ratio.

5.With the larger size, Apple moves the iPhone 6’s power/sleep & wake up button to the right edge as oppose to top side in previous generations.

6.Bigger iPhone 6 now display apps in 4 columns x 6 rows grids. Display Zoom will increase app icon size to display only 5 rows of apps.

Digital Zoom feature (right) found in iPhone 6
Digital Zoom feature (right) for iPhone 6 (pic: onemorething.nl)

7. Reachability allows you to still use bigger iPhone 6 with one hand. It can be activated by double tapping (not double-press) on the Home button (Touch ID sensor). The upper part of the screen will drop down to be reached by your thumb. (GIF)

iPhone 6 Reachability demo
iPhone 6 Reachability demo (pic: geek.com)

8.iPhone 6 supports 20 LTE bands. It will work with almost every LTE networks in the World.

9.Support Voice over LTE (VoLTE) — make calls using 4G data network — provided your telco enable it.

10.iPhone 6 supports NFC for wireless device communication by tapping each other. (Only in U.S.) You can use Apple Pay to make payments using iPhone 6’s NFC and Touch ID.

11.iPhone 6 build-in barometer sensor for measuring atmospheric pressure. It can be used in weather forecasting and determining altitude.

12.Bigger iPhone size comes with bigger battery thus better battery life. iPhone 6 Plus has up to 4 hours more battery life than iPhone 5S. iPhone 6 has up to 2 hours more battery life than iPhone 5S on 3G Internet use.

Cameras and video

iPhone 6 camera
iPhone 6 camera

13.While iPhone 6 back-facing camera is still 8MP resolution, the sensor now feature Focus Pixels for better and faster autofocus.

14.You also take sharper photos using iPhone 6. Thanks to the Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) in iPhone 6 Plus and Auto Image Stabilization (take 4 burst photos then calculate into one sharp photo) of iPhone 6.

15.Able to shoot 1080p HD video at 60 fps, 240 fps slow motion video at 720p, as well as time-lapse video (fast-forwarding-like video clips, opposite of slow motion video).

16.Continuous autofocus video make sure your object is always in focus in your video.

17.Front-facing camera is still 1.2MP (1280×960 pixels) but aperture increase from F/2.4 to F/2.2 — 81% more light capture.

18.Front-facing camera supports selfie “burst mode” to take up to 10 photos per second.

19.iPhone 6 cameras has better face detection. Both front- and back-facing cameras can recognizes faces faster and more accurately, even those farther away or in a crowd.

20.iPhone 6 could take higher resolution panorama photos up to 43 Megapixels.

21.Cinematic video stabilization enable to take steady video shots.

Thoughts

As you seen from the list above, Apple focus a lot on the camera features. Apple has to convince customers that iPhone 6 cameras, while keeping the same pixel count, will produce better photos and videos — same thing HTC is doing for 4MP UltraPixel camera.

Bigger iPhone 6 has better battery life but it is only 2 to 4 hours more than iPhone 5S. You still have to charge the bigger iPhone daily and bring a power bank as backup.

Glad to see iPhone supports NFC, finally. The NFC contactless payment has been around for Android devices sometime but the adoption rate is low. Currently, NFC mostly used for pairing wireless devices, smartphone automation, and NFC tags. Hopefully, iPhone with NFC will boost the adoption of NFC technology.

Without 32GB storage option, you have to buy either 16GB or 64GB. 16GB is not recommended because your apps, photos, and videos will fill up all the storage space in no time. Remember, iPhone 6 does not support external memory card.

You should buy 64GB or 128GB version. The latter is a good news for people who store movies and music collection, and never move photos & videos out of iPhone.

Frankly, iPhone 6 is not innovative. Yes, it is doing what other Android manufacturers already did few years ago. But iPhone customers do not care, they get what they want — bigger screen display, longer battery life, better camera, and a smartphone that will works smoothly out of the box.

What say you? Are you buying iPhone 6? Why?

P.S. Did I miss out any new iPhone 6  feature? Please add in the comment.

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