Apple iPhone 6: Looking good, slim. AW... your battery died When Apple released the first commercially available multi-touch phone in 2007, it had to decide how big it should be. And it got it right first time. Yet this year’s new models – the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus – both break that mould. The iPhone 6 Plus, which we review tomorrow, makes a feature of its bigness; but the …
yes , i still wait for the iphone 6s ,it must be smart and amazing . all these problem will be solved out , i believe.to protect your iphone, case will be the best. http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-Stock-TPU-Case-Back-Cover-Colorful-Hard-Matte-for-Apple-IPhone-6-4-7-/371177934722?ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT
If you use Apple Pay, a one time code is sent to the merchant, so they don't have a re-usable credit card number stored as they will if you swipe your credit/debit card. They don't get your name, nor any sort of unique information at all that lets them know whether you're a first time customer or visit them daily.
So not only are you safe when the next Home Depot style breach hits (about one per month lately) you don't give their Big Data machine any personally identifying information.
But yes, you do have to whip out an expensive phone, so you might want to pass if you're in a dodgy neighborhood.
"they don't have a re-usable credit card number stored as they will if you swipe your credit/debit card. They don't get your name, nor any sort of unique information at all that lets them know whether you're a first time customer or visit them daily"
No, Apple get all that lovely info instead! and as any leading lady of the hunger games will tell you, Apple's security is top notch :)
Given that a few weeks ago customers were begging Apple to delete the details of them buying sex apps from there purchase history so their friends/parents/kids/jealous partners...et al. didn't know they were normal humans after all. What chance is there that Apple aren't going to be collecting this too.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/04/teenagers_in_shamegasms_after_downloading_iphone_sitonmyfacetime_apps/
"No, Apple get all that lovely info instead! and as any leading lady of the hunger games will tell you, Apple's security is top notch :)"
Credit card info, like your fingerprints, never leaves the phone. And Apple security is by far the best. Quiz: Which company has no malware in their walled garden? And which company has almost all of its users on very recent versions of the OS, with all the latest security patches? Those various celebrity accounts were compromised over the course of years, by answering security questions to recover "lost passwords". If you use two-factor authentication, there's no way they could ever get to that point. And the reason most celebrity pictures were stolen from iPhones is because ... most celebrities use iPhones!
"So not only are you safe when the next Home Depot style breach hits (about one per month lately) you don't give their Big Data machine any personally identifying information."
Believe that at your own peril.
At some point, in order to complete the authorization, the card issuer has to connect that "one-time code" to an actual customer account. Since you can bet that your friendly merchant really likes their Big Data and can simply opt out of any POS system that doesn't get it to them eventually, they are probably going to get all that data in a summarized monthly statement from the issuers. Maybe not the card number itself, but just about everything else.
The other question this article brings to mind: Can you still use Apple Pay if your battery's flat?
You cannot use it with a flat battery, which is rather potentially exciting when one considers that the nominal user might need it to buy their ticket back home or a coffee/charge at a local shop. It just makes the smaller battery look questionable for reasons other than the obviously undesirable camera wobble.
The merchant doesn't have power in this relationship, so they aren't going to get this, especially when they've demonstrated they can't be trusted to keep end user information safe.
As for what happens if your battery is flat - it won't work. Nor will Android NFC payments in a year when they've caught up and use the same one time codes required by the upcoming EMV standard (in the US at least)
"The merchant doesn't have power in this relationship, so they aren't going to get this"
The merchant's power lies in simply not adopting the system. No adoption=useless feature. I know that they've announced some support at the launch, but in the modern world, no data means no real advantage for the merchant, thus no motivation to adopt.
What is Apple's compelling case to the merchant that will overcome losing access to all that nifty marketing data? If they are. Which I very seriously doubt.
"The merchant's power lies in simply not adopting the system"
They certainly have that choice, but it has consequences - any merchant who does not make the switch (this is the US we're talking about - everywhere else in the western world already has, years ago) becomes liable for any fraudulent transactions which occur after the cut-off date.
And as we know from that experience in the rest of the world what happens is that fraud sharply falls off in the merchants which adopt and shifts over to those who haven't, which is why when your (European) credit card number is somehow stolen or cloned or generated by fraudsters it isn't USED in Europe, it can't be, it has to be used in places without these systems, hence the US or some Asian countries.
The same will happen in the US - those merchants who do not fall in line with what they payment processors are demanding will find themselves with an ever increasing share of the fraudulent transactions and will eventually (and by eventually, I don't mean in years, I mean in months) have to transition themselves or it will start to affect their bottom line, and that's something American shareholders will understand and ask questions of Management for.
In the US, adoption is entirely controlled by merchants, and they hold a lot of power if they decide to band together.
Unlike Europe, where POS terminals are rented to merchants by the acquirers, US merchants have to purchase their point-of-sale equipment. Upgrading to newer technology means hitting merchants with a one-off cost, and historically, US merchants have resisted this.
Apple Pay is going to hit the same barriers. All the card issuers are hoping is that the Apple magic pixie dust will create so much customer whining that the merchants will be forced to purchase new EMV-compliant NFC terminals.
The interesting thing about this is that, despite what Apple says, Apple Pay isn't a proprietary system - it's a brand-name for Apple's implementation of the payment industry's EMVCo specification. (see this summary of how Apple Pay and EMVCo are related: http://www.aviso.io/apple-pay-brings-new-problems-acquirers/ )
There's no reason to assume that Apple Pay will be more secure than NFC cards (NFC cards might be spoofable, but on the other hand Apple Pay is, running on a general-purpose computer OS, one that relies on its AppStore as a gatekeeper for malware). The existing NFC system doesn't send your card details to anywhere, and the tokens it produces are not re-usable. This has been the case since Chip+PIN, but for the reasons outlined above, the USA has had tol skip that generation of technology completely.
There's also another problem with attaching card and phone like this. Now, your phone gets stolen, you've lost use of your card too. Same goes when the iPhone's battery life leaves you stranded (the 6 has done nothing to improve iPhones' lousy battery performance). If you're going to have to carry a credit card anyway, why bother with Apple Pay?
It's a door-opener for NFC payment in the USA, certainly, but it's not a lock-in for Apple. Apple will do their damnedest to make people think that it's a lock-in, but the card companies won that round - which is good for customers. The idea that you'd need to purchase an $800 phone just to have safer card payments is unpleasant on many levels, and would have done nothing to solve the very real problem of card fraud in the USA
Merchants will have to go out of their way not to support Apple Pay. In the US retailers are being forced to be EMV compliant just over a year from now. Those that aren't will be penalized with higher transaction fees. Apple Pay is the first fully EMV compliant payment solution out there, so any retailer who adopts EMV will automatically support Apple Pay. They pay the same fee either way (the bank is eating Apple's 0.15%) so why should they care?
Apple Pay is more secure than NFC in the US because it hasn't been passing tokens, it has been passing the actual card number. NFC outside the US was more mature and already had the security the US will finally be getting with EMV.
I agree it is not a lock-in for Apple, and I don't see anywhere that Apple is claiming that it is. It is more the people assuming "oh, it is Apple so of course they've created a proprietary system". Apple is merely claiming you can use your iPhone 6 to buy stuff in a more secure way, which is true. Currently it is the only way to do so except for the small number of people who might have early EMV cards (not sure if those are being distributed yet or not) but it is standards based so an iPhone owner can choose to use their EMV card instead of their phone and it works the same.
The banks are eating the 0.15% fee, not the merchants. The merchants rate won't change, but as they will have reduced fraudulent charges they're forced to eat, they win.
The banks also win, because the reason they're willing to accept 0.15% less is due to a reduction in their own costs for fraud (issuing new cards, fraud detection infrastructure, more CSRs to deal with customers calling in about fraud, etc.) Presumably by more than 0.15%, or they wouldn't have agreed to it. They also get the first fully compliant EMV implementation out there, so they can begin pushing that harder.
Apple wins, because they get 0.15%. That's a tiny drop in the bucket for them, even if Apple Pay eventually carries billions in transactions per year, but it compensates them for "first mover" advantage in being the first to see NFC as a way to benefit the consumer by making payments more secure, instead of merely a way to take a cut (like the carriers) or "hey look at me, I can buy stuff with my phone in a way that's actually less secure than when I buy stuff with my card" (previous adoptions of NFC payments on phones)
So everyone wins, except the fraudsters.
> What is Apple's compelling case to the merchant that will overcome losing access to all that nifty marketing data?
I imagine something like:
1. Our customers are reasonably affluent consumers who are persuaded by slick marketing to pay premium prices for products that are in many respects not as good as their less expensive competitors. In other words, our customers are the sort of high margin people that you want to attract into your business with this complimentary "we welcome Apple Pay here" sign.
2. Our customers can pay using their phones. They like to do this, coz we've made it look cool and it gives them warm, fuzzy feelings of living in some sort of scifi future. They choose to make purchases in stores where they can do this, and avoid stores where they can't (look, we have some research to prove it!). Moreover, x% of our customers no longer carry any other means of payment.
3. If you don't support this technology, you can't reach our affluent high-margin easily-susceptible customers - but your competitors will. You'll lose.
4. Besides, who said you need to lose access to that marketing data? By becoming an Apple Approved Retail Partner (only £250k per annum registration fee, plus an additional 0.5% per transaction), we'll furnish you with all the data you want.
Nice try.
All of Android's NFC payments are made through 1st and 3rd party apps. Unlike Apple they won't have to re-write the OS in order to support other standards, just the apps. Many apps can already read the EMV standard. Once EMV catches on all apps will move to fully cover the standard.
Because your American bank account still doesn't even give you a card with a chip in it, let alone one with NFC? I don't know why the American banks have ignored the technology until now but many of the retailers have got the terminals. If Apple really are getting 0.015% per transaction then it sounds like an easy, essentially free way to generate revenue for them.
"Because your American bank account still doesn't even give you a card with a chip in it, let alone one with NFC? I don't know why the American banks have ignored the technology until now but many of the retailers have got the terminals. If Apple really are getting 0.015% per transaction then it sounds like an easy, essentially free way to generate revenue for them."
Because passive NFC (the kind found in ID cards, a few bank cards, the store's anti-theft tags, etc) is insecure and can be captured by anyone passing by with a NFC reader. Active NFC on the other hand (the kind found in cell phones and other powered devices) is far more secure. The main problem with passive NFC is that it's always on which means that you're broadcasting your info at all times to anyone with the proper equipment but active NFC gets around this problem by requiring user input before communicating.
@Inventor. Don't worry, your actually doing just fine. You managed to write a whole comment proving you do actually do give more of a shit than you let on. With a bit of therapy to putting you in touch with your true inner feelings you might even be able to admit you want one!
>>"and failing miserably"
I realize where I've been going wrong all this time now. I had thought this was a forum for people who were enthusiastic about technology, but it's actually a place for people to complain about it. Both sorts of forum discuss tech though, so it was easy to mistake one for the other.
Much becomes clear!
"Isn't that the point though? Apple and it's fanboys have cried "innovation" above all else and there simply doesn't appear to be any in their new doohickey."
There hasn't been much in the line of innovation in Apple devices for years now and each generation is less innovative and more behind the times than the last. Apple now simply takes someone else's innovation, slaps their name on it and calls it innovative. I think Apple's last true innovation was Siri and that was quickly surpassed by Google's Google Now and now even Microsoft's Cortana.
@ h4rm0ny
Funnily enough, far from being totally jaundiced, I do have a quick look now and then to see if there is really anything I am missing, just in case I have somehow overlooked an improvement on sliced bread. Based on what I have seen so far, both in terms of the phone and the price, I am still failing to get anywhere near defecation mode
I do wish they'd easy up on the anorexia: an extra millimetre of thickness would both remove the camera protrusion and enhance the battery life, at the cost of an extra few drops of LiIon gunk in the box. Will you find a single person who thinks the iPhone is too *thick*? I doubt it: just those like me who think it's a bit too thin.
They should do an iphone phat for people that don't mind trading phone bulk for a massive pile of mAH. Now they've started the trend with 2 different sizes and the 5s/5c living on, why not?
Also the base models need to be far less anorexic with the flash, and the bumps should be FAR cheaper - how much is 16gb of flash these days to apple anyway? $2?
"While we are at it, perhaps we can persuade Ford (et al) to charge the same price for a 6l engine as for a 1.25l engine - after all it has the exact same number of components..."
False equivalency.
More accurately it would be like Ford charging you $40,000 for a 6l engine when it only cost them $800.
I recently downgraded my Samsung GTE1170 to a Nokia 515 after being found unworthy of keeping the GTE1170 on my person any longer.
I could talk endlessly about how amazing the GTE1170 really is and how most mortals will just have to accept something like an IPhone S6 however I will instead just limit myself to talking about the battery life.
Both the GTE1170 and the Nokia 515 (The closest replacement I could find) have a similar battery life of about 14 days in the real world. However in reality the 515 leaves me massively disappointed in this department. The difference is in how the 515 leaves me feeling. After about 10 days the GTE1170 was telling me it was down to 1 bar. From experience I knew I had at least 3 days left. I could talk on one bar for hours and hours on end and not worry about the battery running out. Day 12 would come and it might drop to zero bars and yet I'd still have TWO WHOLE DAYS LEFT! If I reached day 13 or beyond and the phone did finally give up I truly felt it had given me everything it had. (Kind of like that dude that dies with all the arrows in him in LOTR). When it finally gave in I felt like I had betrayed the phone for not giving it more juice desspite of all it's warnings. This is the way it should be.
Now compare this to the 515. It gets to day 13 and the battery drops to 1 bar and then it di-
All Phone manufacturers should take note here. Increasing battery life is only going to get you so far. It's about how it uses those bars that counts.
While they are in standby. A smart phone is, at the very least, fetching emails and running other background tasks. It's the fact that you are using the phone continually throughout the day that kills the battery, as would spending the day talking on the Nokia.
What the fuck is a GTE1170???
After a quick internet search, I think you should consider the following:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/444874673/icups-the-ultimate-ironic-accessory
Infinite battery life - much better than your Samsung GTE1170 and Nokia 515 - and about as much functionality.
> Why is it some people are so insanely angry about the idea of a telephone just being a telephone?
Insanely angry is a bit melodramatic, but anyway; because people keep coming into stories about pocket sized but virtually fully fledged computers - commonly known as "smartphones" - and writing sneery comments about how an old fashioned brick of a telephone which could do nothing but make calls and send texts lasts twenty times longer on a charge.
Well, duh, no shit.
"Why is it some people are so insanely angry about the idea of a telephone just being a telephone?"
Because we're talking about SMART phones not regular old dinky hard-line telephones. If you want a plain old telephone then get one, if you want a cell phone then you're going to have to cope with a more useful phone that can do much more than your grandmother's old rotary. People don't want a useless phone that only does phone calls, get used to it.
You probably would have complained when telegraphs were being replaced by telephones. Why is it some people are so insanely angry about the idea of a telegraph just being a telegraph?
Roughly first half of the noughties, Nokia did the opposite with the battery meter: full bars until 50%, and then vaguely linear dropoff from there to 1 bar, which was whatever threshold their engineers felt the algorithm could reliably predict there'd be enough power left for orderly shutdown.
This "show full until half" was a neat trick, in a day when users' metric was "check out my new phone, got it 5 days ago, on my first charge, and it still has 5 of 5 battery bars!"
You're buying the name. Apple is as much an marketing company as Google is an advertising one.
I'm a committed Android user but had a play on a colleague's 6 today. I will say it's a really nicely-built handset and the screen is wonderful. I can't knock the hardware and, it might be (to me) restrictive but the software works well too.
But is it really any better - really - than a top-end Android phone? Both make calls, send texts and emails; both run the same batch of common apps; both attract desperate fandom; and both are now mature products.
So considering my 32GB LG G2 cost me £279 recently - a hypothetical 32GB iPhone 6 would come in at £579 - I think I can safely say you're paying through the nose.
But what it all comes down to is this: another colleague saw my LG recently and laughed. "LG? Don't they make washing machines?" Yes, they do. And tellies and probably deep-fat-fryers. But they also make a decent smartphone that does all yours does, love, for less than half the price. (And my battery lasts 2+ days; last night was at 28% after two days' unpluggedness.)
Some iPhone users will come round at some point. I was the first person of everyone I knew to get an iPod and have had several; for some reason the allure of the similarly-monikered phone escaped me. (Actually no it doesn't. Now I think about it that reason was iTunes, and a chill runs up my spine. Scared/scarred me for life.)
>>The lengths Apple went to to keep us away from the new iPhones was amusing."
Really? Care to share details? I'm sure quite a few El Reg readers would find a tell-all on Apple's press and marketing relationship quite an interesting one. How DO they keep you away from the phone or get you talking about it? Do they just say "no, you can't have a review sample" or do they bother to make up justifications? Do they ever hint you might be invited if you wrote a kinder review, etc?
"The lengths Apple went to to keep us away from the new iPhones was amusing."
Now that is a story or private blog post I'd love to read. I know Apple doesn't exactly have a love-in for The Register, but I'd be very curious to know how much that lack of love makes them do.
For this article, I found it to be a really good review of the device. It was clear, stuck to the facts, and unlike so many other articles I have read about Samsung gear, it didn't compare the iPhone 6 to Samsung or other Android powered brands at every drop of the hat.
Just last night I was reading an article reviewing the Samsung Tab S. The title of the article? "Samsung's Galaxy Tab S - Kicking the iPad where it hurts." And then in the end it was mostly an article talking about why this tablet costs so much and then comparing it to apple's devices from a fanboi point of view every chance it got. In the end the article title was just a click-bait kind of title, and the article's author threw out all of his credibility as a journalist at the end by making the assinine comment that iOS is much easier to use and that the Apple app ecosystem is much more robust. I don't mind a statement like that being made provided it is backed up with facts, but that was where it ended.
I found this article to be quite fair and a good overview of the iPhone 6.
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63%?
Really?
Ebay disagrees, you know where people actually value stuff by offering to pay hard earned readies for it, instead of spouting opinion?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Apple-iPhone-5-64-GB-Black-Slate-Unlocked-Smartphone-/181533048716?pt=UK_Mobile_Phones&hash=item2a44367f8c
Launch price
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/apple/3368919/iphone-5-price-in-uk/
699 ukp
Selling on ebay for...275 ukp
Hmm, I struggle, but what's 63% of 699 again.....
"Yes but after 2 years my phone holds 63% of its value, whereas your Android is worthless and without upgrade."
As the original AC of this group of replies (sorry about the slow reply) I can comfortably say that my G3 which I bought for £299 will probably go for £130 when I sell it this week. (I'd have got £160-odd 3 months ago when I got the LG.) That's not unfair depreciation.
Yes Apples hold their value, but possibly because they're perceived as "being better" and those who can't afford to buy them new stimulate demand in the second-hand market. They can't afford to buy them new because... they're expensive. Therefore perceived to be a desirable object.
As for the hate of Samsung's bloat, yes, I'm with you, I reserve nearly as much for that as I do for iTunes.
But at least with Android I get the option of buying from another vendor with different or even no crapware. LG's, unlike Samsung, I can actually live with. In fact in some areas it adds value to the underlying OS.
But I still say £600 is a lot for a phone when half that will get you a very similar-spec Android. All of these things are overpriced for what they are, but... we happily pay for them. It's just I pay less than you :)
I am allowing myself to be slightly smug in paying at most £250-£300 for a handset -- that is 6 to 12 months old -- then getting £100-150 when I flog it when I "upgrade"; all on a Virgin monthly contract that costs about £7 for as much as everything as I can eat. Really. When I see people paying £35+ a month for a similar deal for two years, I know who's got the better deal.
Yes but after 2 years my phone holds 63% of its value
So what? I took a shit 20 years ago that still retains 100% of it's value!
It's also exactly as valuable as the one I took this morning. Want to buy it? I promise that in 10 years it'll not have lost any value!
Just because IQ-challenged will pay over-the-odds for old crap doesn't mean old crap is really worth anything.
But they also make a decent smartphone that does all yours does, love, for less than half the price.
=======
Same argument as Macs vs PCs, your LG2 will be landfill in a couple of years, the 6 will sell for half what you paid for it. Net cost, about the same.
Or if you want to keep your phone longer, good luck putting the latest Android OS on it, so forget all the new software goodies (or even just the security fixes that probably will never be released for your phone on your network anyway)
Apples margins are 70%, Lg are a lot less at that range... But nothing is as fast as Apple, nit even the flagship android comes close.. Galaxy s5 has a much faster processor double speed ram etc, EVEN in this review triple frame rate compared to galaxy S5, faster in almost every respect . Thats why I put up with crap battery life limited expansion etc, the iphone is faster than my i7 laptop in day yo day tasks. I no longer open my comp but use ipad or phone and dictate reply
"But is it really any better - really - than a top-end Android phone? Both make calls, send texts and emails; both run the same batch of common apps; both attract desperate fandom; and both are now mature products."
Yes, it really is. I had a Galaxy phone for 14 months - a decision I truly regretted for every hateful minute I had to use it. Eventually I got an opportunity to buy an iPhone 4S and have been married to it ever since (it's far more faithful and cooperative and user-friendly than my actual wife ever was).
Android was so full of stupid, unnecessary, and counter-intuitive options I was constantly frustrated at trying to set anything, the predictive text came up with the *THE* stupidest choices, and as for that unblievably kludged mess of garbage they call "Kies", the less said the better (I see it's now even bigger and slower than it was two years ago). About half my contacts were duplicated, some of them triplicated and quadrupled, while others were wiped and lost forever (from phone and PC). Yes I know there are a lot of ways of "personalising" the phone interface to "improve" it - all way too hard to install and set up (back to the plethora of options thing). Who's got time to sit messing with their phone when all they want to do is get it working? In fact at a breakfast seminar one day I was bitching about how crap the phone was when some Android convert started preaching "yes but that's because you haven't got {insert name here} installed". I gave him the thing and told him to go mad - well quite frankly the change was minimal and if anything the predictive text and typing experiences were slightly worse.
Got the iPhone, connected it to my PC, synchronised calendar and contacts, sold the Galaxy, and have never looked back.
... as for that unblievably kludged mess of garbage they call "Kies", the less said the better ...
The only thing to be said for Kies, as far as I can see, is that it's very slightly less unpleasant to use than iTunes on a PC. Fortunately you can use a Samsung phone without ever having to touch Kies, and once I discovered that I got rid of it (Kies, not the phone) as quickly as possible!
"The only thing to be said for Kies, as far as I can see, is that it's very slightly less unpleasant to use than iTunes on a PC. Fortunately you can use a Samsung phone without ever having to touch Kies, and once I discovered that I got rid of it (Kies, not the phone) as quickly as possible!"
alternatively
The only thing to be said for iTunes, as far as I can see, is that it's very slightly less unpleasant to use than Kies on a PC. Fortunately you can use an Apple phone without ever having to touch iTunes, and once I discovered that I got rid of it (iTunes, not the phone) as quickly as possible!
i dont care if my galaxy note 2 (or insert your favorite phablet here) is a bit thicker... its already huge. make it a bit thicker. this will do several things:
1) enable you to put a bigger battery in
2) make it less prone to snapping or being damaged
3) make it easier to hold.
thanks
although, to be fair, the note 2 goes all day with everything on and constant usage...
Indeed, poor after spending double what they could, in particular on the Z3 Compact, and getting a worse phone as a result.
I see the Z3 Compact, in particular, is showing some amazing battery life stats that seems to out-class all other phones on the market:
http://www.gsmarena.com/battery-test.php3
The Z3 Compact has also quite a bit smaller dimensions than the iPhone 6, yet with similarly-sized screen:
http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size#/phones/size/Apple-iPhone-6,Sony-Xperia-Z3-Compact,Apple-iPhone-5s,Apple-iPhone-4s/phones/8346,8744,7710,5257
As well as waterproofing, 20MP camera with 1/2.3" sensor, SD expandable storage, double the RAM, stereo speakers, active noise cancellation headset, FM radio, MHL, more interoperable OS.
I wish, wish people would stop comparing silicon between Android mobes and iPhones, kudos to The Reg for using benchmarks to make a comparison instead. God, the number of times I've heard someone say "My phone has quad-core but your laptop is only dual-core (i7), why would you buy something half as powerful?"
Check out the battery-life results in comparative testing conducted by AnandTech.
Not too shabby, IMHO.
Old phones.
Why are they comparing the new Iphone 6, to 2 year old + android devices?
Where is the comparision to the Sony Z3, HTC One M8, Samsung S5 (lets turn on stamina mode, on all three, and on the iphone 6, see how long they last)
The subhead suckered me in (Reg has the most intelligent clickbait writers in the biz) but I ended up reading the whole thing despite having no interest in upgrading my aging Nexus 5. In a world full of reviews ranging from "this is the phone god would have designed" to "this phone is the work of the devil and it's still two years behind the times", I found this review to be refreshing in its honesty, highlighting both the good and the bad. Reg comes through again.
Yep, the Reg reviews of new iThings are usually very even-handed, and so are at odds with the dozen or so snarky articles that precede them.
Irrelevant to me as an actual phone user though - I'm more mid-range. The year old LG G2 still holds it own (not the best in any one category, but in the top three in a few areas such as battery, audio and camera) but I'm not sure I want a 5" phone, so very tempted by an Xperia Z1 Compact or Z3 Compact (there is no Z2 compact, and the Z3 C just refines the Z1 - e.g Sapdragon 801 instead of 800, improved viewing angles on the screen etc)
While I find some of the larger phones rather amusing these days, I have a Lumia 1020 which I assume is comparable or maybe even bigger than the iPhone 6(?). I also have decidedly below-average sized hands - I can stretch a single octave on a piano (can't think how else to measure it). I have no issues using the big phone with my diminutive digits, but then I'd never have thought the right way to use the phone was single-handedly. I rather thought the point of a multi-touch wonder-phone was you held it in one hand and fondled it with the other.
Which is the most prevalent technique?
All the manufacturers are looking for the next big thing for phones and tablets.
It's fucking all day battery life, no matter who hard you ride your device on WiFi, 3G/4G, Music, Video, Internet, Mail, GPS.Samsung are making better efforts than Apple with their battery Miser tech on the latest Galaxy 5's, but FFS, add a few MM to the phones to get some more battery capacity in them as they all have more range uncertainty than a Tesla-S/Nissan Leaf/BMW i3. Almost all phones go in a case anyway, so no-one will notice.
Slimmer, sleeker, lighter is no use to anyone when the thing is dead, as the battery is empty. I have added a MyMemory.co.uk Every Day Basic's 20,000 Mah battery pack into my backpack standard toolset of cables and chargers, for when I'm away from the mains.
This is the game changer, taking us back to a simpler life almost 20 years back, when your Nokia banana-phone used to last almost a week.
I'm not convinced by the new iPhone designs personally. Whilst the screen and metalwork feel solid enough, those plastic strips feel very cheep and not in keeping with a £500+ device. Also the new keyboards whether they be stock IOS, Swype or Swiftkey have made the draconian autocorrect even more punishing. Even manually typing the words rather than drawing them was a frustrating experience (Mary became Mark for some reason) and there doesn't seem to be any sense to the predictions of next words, unlike the excellent keyboard on the much maligned Windows Phone OS.
Plus I'm still mighty dischuffed that they're are yet more apps that can't be uninstalled. Stocks is annoying enough, but now I've got Tips and iBooks to clutter my paltry internal storage up as well.
Batteries are funny things. One thing I do with a new device is charge it all day and then discharge it completely. Thereafter I use it normally. Not sure if that is still advisable with the current generation of battery but it used to be good practice.
Personally, I'd like to see a hydrogen fuel cell in my phone. Re-fill it like a lighter and run it all week. Icon for obvious reasons.
Like a lot of people now I'm on the 2 year cycle - there's simply not enough benefit in switching every year. I'll just wait to see what else is out there next year. If all else fails, and if WP doesn't magically gain all the apps I use daily, then I'll get next years iPhone 6S Mini which no doubt will be the same size as the 5S.
If I was to identify a strategy it would be 'SIM only Handset -1" i.e. wait till the fanbois and girls upgrade then buy up their 1 year old rejects off fleabay. Currently I can get an unlocked 64gb for £400 which I can couple with a £15/month 3g sim only deal from Virgin (250 mins/unlimited texts+data) used on my 4s.
I really can't see a compelling case, other than 'I've got a new shiny shiny', in upgrading every year either just to fill Apple's and the network providers coffers. OK I don't get tethering or 4g with Virgin but the comparative 1 year costs for a the same handset and 4gb data are not far off a grand for the first year (VF is £971 for 3g). If I really felt I needed 4g or another provider I can easily get 4g 4Gb sim only for <£25/month.
Why does the review compare the new iPhone to the previous iPhone when it is a feature that has been on android phones for ages or is in fact better on many android phones, and then compare the new iPhone to an Android phone when it is a new or better feature than found on the Android phone?
Either make this a phone review and compare to ALL existing phones out there, or make it explicitly an Apple upgrade review.
I have been using the iPhone 6 now for nearly a month and have calibrated the battery, which despite any information about modern batteries not needing to be calibrated seems to be incorrect.
To begin with the phone was lasting no more than a day (18hrs approx) before requiring a charge. I have now run the battery flat (turns itself off) and fully recharged every time it needed it for a week. To start with the phone lasted 12 hours with 1% battery left.
The phone is under normal smartphone use with screen brightness at 50% which is lasting according to the battery usage stats of my last full charge:
Usage: 8 hours
Standby: 3 Days
With this in mind heavy phone use will result in shorter battery life obviously but the fact i don't actually need to charge the phone everyday is much better than most people are assuming the phone can do, due to the short amount of testing the press have time to do. Comments please...
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