The first of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus preorders are being fulfilled right now. Although it will be a while before the court of opinion returns a verdict on Apple's latest pair of smartphones, rave reviews are indicating that the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are as advertised.
It's an "S" year. Maybe "S" stands for "speed," "sensitivity" or "sight." Apple hasn't revealed what the "S" in the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus stands for, but what's clear is the latest additions to its smartphone family are significantly stronger, speedier and more sensitive to users' needs.
Sensitivity
After last year's introduction of significantly larger screen sizes, displays are again the talk of this latest iPhone refresh. This time, it's what's behind them that has been drawing headlines.
3D Touch has migrated from the Apple Watch and MacBook to the iPhone, making the pressure sensing system an even more compelling feature for developers to target. It's the apps that show us how to love the hardware.
3D Touch senses the force behind touch input, which opens up a world of new ways to interact with apps. A soft press of an icon or other app element gives users a peek at what's on the other side and a hard push pops it open, the pair forming what Apple calls "peek and pop."
The Verge says 3D Touch is the most significant step in the journey Apple set off on with the release of iOS 7. That path is the evolution of interface toward "abstract layers of information," moving away from layouts that represent data as objects.
"Apple won't say exactly how many levels of pressure-sensitivity there are, but it's definitely so many as to feel almost analog, like the interface is reacting in real time to physical pressure—the homescreen blurs in and out in response to how hard you press on an icon, for instance," writes The Verge's Nilay Patel.
iSight
Apple has bumped up the pixel count from 8MP on the iPhone 6 to 12MP, but that sizable jump in resolution doesn't translate into a proportional boost in quality, TechRadar noticed.
"In practice I really couldn't see a great deal of difference between the iPhone 6 and the 6s in terms of picture quality," writes TechRadar's Gareth Beavis. "There were some differences, obviously, and that was mostly seen when zooming in on the pictures—but the brightness levels or color reproduction seemed pretty similar."
Speed
Armed with Apple's new A9 processor and 2GB of RAM, the iPhone 6s is noticeably speedier than last year's duo, the Wall Street Journal found.
"Unlocking your phone is also much speedier," WSJ's Joanna Stern writes. "The new Touch ID fingerprint sensor is at least twice as fast. You barely place your finger on the button and you're in."
