The Future of Apple: iPhone 6.

Apple’s Fall Event venue choice — the Flint Centre — had already startled the entire technology and business industry. The Flint Centre is the place where Steve Jobs had established the future of Apple as a consumer technology company when he had unveiled the Macintosh and the iMac in 1984 and 1998 respectively. The sheer significance of this venue signalled to the world that something big was coming from Apple’s R&D and Product departments. The recent acquisition of Beats and hiring of Marc Newson also pointed in the direction of some great product design and a music department revamp. Keeping everyone’s expectations in check, Apple unveiled its new iPhone series and also managed to surprise the entire world by announcing its entry in an all new market segment of smart watches with the curved-display bearing iWatch at its Fall Annual Event. But will these changes that Apple made to the hardware of the iPhone, iOS and OS X pay off this year? Will the iWatch be able to conquer the wearable market and redefine it? Did Apple do justice to its event location? Lets find out.

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The Flint Centre.[/caption]

This year Apple took the phone game a notch forward and announced not one but two iPhones, the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus. It brands the iPhone 6 as ‘bigger than bigger’ on its website. Both the iPhones have bigger and better displays along with some other hardware changes. They are also thinner at 6.9mm and 7.1mm for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus respectively. The exact dimensions are given below, just in case you were interested.

iPhone 6 Plus has a 5.5” inch screen with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 with 401 pixels per inch.

iPhone 6 has a 4.7” inch screen with a resolution of 1334 by 750 with 326 pixels per inch.

The 5.5" of the iPhone 6 Plus has enabled Apple to add a new landscape mode as well as split screen threading in some apps such messaging and the email app.

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The new landscape mode for the home screen of the iPhone 6 Plus.[/caption]

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Split screen email view on the iPhone 6 Plus.[/caption]

Both of the new iPhones are powered by Apple’s latest and greatest in Silicon technology, the Apple A8 chip. It has 25% faster processing power and 50% faster graphics when compared to the A7 chip.

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Graphing the A8’s processing power.[/caption]

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Graphing the A8’s graphics power.[/caption]

The camera resolution remains the same on both models, the same old 8MP iSight sensor albeit with a lot of under-the-hood changes. There is an al new sensor and some all new optics. The new Panorama mode allows users to take 43MP Panoramas which will include a whole lot of detail. The new camera module also packs OIS, Optical Image Stabilisation. However, OIS is for the iPhone 6 Plus only. In terms of video recording, you can record 1080P at 60fps as well as slow motion 720p video at a staggering 240fps. There is also a new lapse video mode that has been added.

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A picture taken with the iPhone 6.[/caption]

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A picture taken with the iPhone 6.[/caption]

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A picture taken with the iPhone 6.[/caption]

To accommodate the new screen sizes and resolutions, there is a new desktop class scaler that has been built into iOS 8 which allows native applications scale on larger screens of the new iPhones, even when the apps haven’t been updated to support the iPhones yet.

Apple Pay was also introduced. Apple Pay is Apple’s take at processing money transactions. It is being branded as the easiest way to make purchases. Apple states that it’s completely private as well. This means that when you make a purchase using Apple Pay, Apple wouldn’t know what you bought, where you bought it or how much did you pay for what you bought. Apple Pay conducts transactions using the new inbuilt NFC chips in the new iPhones. The payment is confirmed using Touch ID. Apple has signed up with many retail partners to advance the usability of Apple Pay and provide Google (Google Wallet) some competition.

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Touch ID being used as a security measure when conducting transactions using Apple Pay.[/caption]

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Some of the new partners that Apple has worked with for Apple Pay.[/caption]

These were some of the hardware additions made by Apple in the new iPhones; however, I feel that the new iPhones are not worthy of the number upgrade. Apple has simply played catch up once again to maintain parity with the Droid and Windows powerhouses. The addition of a new slow motion mode, a slightly stronger processing unit and NFC will surely lure in the people who own an iPhone 4S to buy either of the new iPhones, but the people with an iPhone 5, 5C or 5S should be better off waiting for the iPhone 6S. In terms of any new substantial ‘hardware’ change, I was disappointed. Apple has stuck to the 2-year-old 8MP resolution — which although produces good images — and has used a silicon chip which doesn’t blow the A7 away. The only thing that is exciting in the iPhone is its software. iOS 8 is finally a step in making iOS developer friendly and adds a lot to the table. It is a really strong operating system when compared to iOS 7 or even Android 4.4. But, it is going to be available for iPhone 5 series as well. A person, whose main intention is to experience Apple’s new OS, would be better off saving a few hundred dollars and getting the iPhone 5S instead.

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The iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus are powered by iOS 8.[/caption]

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Extensions — One of the new core features of iOS 8.[/caption]

In a poll held by GSMArena.com, almost 60% of the people found the new iPhone to be ‘not hot’. Is this an indication of falling iPhone sales over the next year or will Apple’s bigger than ever fan base make the new iPhones a hit as well? Only time will tell.