The 7 Most Important Things You Should Know About the iPhone 6S (and which Apple won’t tell you)

Before you go laying out your hard-earned money on the new iPhone 6S (and a lot of money it will need

to be), there are some things that you should know. Things that the presentations did a better job of

selling than the designers did of designing.

7. “Rose Gold” isn’t gold at all.

Apple claim that the new colour really is gold but that “in certain light” it can “take on a pinkish hue”. By

“certain light”, they must mean daylight, moonlight, fluorescent light or even Miller Lite and by “take on

a pinkish hue” they must mean “looks really pink”. There’s actually nothing wrong with the colour, it

looks really nice, but if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, put your money on it

being a duck. A marketing meeting too far, that one, even for Apple

6. 3D Touch isn’t 3D at all.

It’s basically right-click for mobile. Yes it goes a pretty useful step further by being able to access

features of the individual app, but even Desktop Windows already does that with the context menu.

That’s Microsoft Windows, long since derided by Apple fans as prehistoric and long past its sell by date,

buy the way. Again, like the Pink, it’s a really decent feature and a step forward for mobile phones, but

let’s not pretend it’s something it isn’t.

5. 4K Video and a 12MP Camera Aren’t really Cutting Edge.

Okay, they are pretty cutting edge for mobile phones, but to hear Apple speak, you’d swear they

invented them yesterday. The one great thing they have added to the imaging arsenal, though, is a flash

on the front lens. Oh no, wait, they haven’t, despite a million reports saying they have. It turns out the

screen just light sup, creating a fairly weak sort-of-glow. The same light you use when you’ve dropped

your keys in the dark and know that the great “Torch” app you have uses 20% of the battery life for each

second it’s turned on.

Phones have long lacked a flash on the front, meaning selfies in the dark have basically looked like

pictures taken in a cupboard, with the door closed and a thick blanket over your head. This doesn’t

really improve things, in all honesty. Oh, and you still can’t lie the phone flat due to it’s “nipple-lens” on

the back.

4. Live Photos and how they’ll make you wish you’d gone for the 64GB option.

By default, every time you take a picture with the iPhone 6S, the phone records 3 seconds of video – 1 ½

seconds either side of the still frame. If you’re an avid selfie fan, or use your phone in lieu of a real

camera on holiday, get ready to run out of space really, really quickly. The feature can be turned off, but

is on by default. Expect Google Trends to show a sharp increase in “why is my iPhone 6S out already of

storage” searches in about 3 weeks’ time.

Oh, and HTC started this in 2013 so, again, not the groundbreaking feature the Apple Event is telling us it

is.

3. You could buy a car for the same price

We know iPhones are expensive, but pricing the 128GB option at a whopping £700 is enough to make

even the most rabid Apple fan choke on his muesli (another thing oversold and overpriced). Okay, for

£700 you wouldn’t get a great car, granted, but you see our point. And you can’t live in an iPhone if the

worst comes to the worst.

2. The battery is smaller than the iPhone 6

Wait, that can’t be right, surely? Well, it is. Not by much, 1715mAh compared to 1810mAH in the

original, but it’s enough to make a difference. Apple claim that new battery-saving measures in the

upcoming iOS9 will mean the same battery life for the 6S, but who’s to say? After all, experience tells us

that all that 4K video you get with your selfies will eat through the charge faster than a Squirrel through

a Peanut. Yes, like we said, you can turn off the Live Photo option, but you won’t. At least not until

you’ve Googled the awful battery life of your iPhone 6S.

1. It’s an iPhone

It’s not going to save – or even change – the world. It doesn’t even change the mobile phone world, it

just enhances it a bit, and not always for the better.

You may think this article is anti-iPhone or even anti-Apple, but it really isn’t. It is, though, anti-Apple

Marketing.

Don’t worry, we’ll probably have a go at Samsung and Google at some point.