Apple launches new iPhone 6s, 6s Plus with 3D Touch, 12MP iSight camera and more

Apple has announced its latest iPhones – the iPhone 6S and the iPhone 6S Plus which will start selling from 25 September across 130 countries with pre-orders starting from 12 September. The iPhone 6S will be selling from $299 for the 16GB variant, and iPhone 6S Plus will be selling from $399 for the 16GB variant. These prices of course come with the 2 year contract. The non-contract prices are yet to be out. But considering Apple has kept last year’s price structure, it would be safe to assume that the iPhone 6S should cost $649 for the 16GB variant (approx Rs 43,500) and $749 for the 16GB iPhone 6S Plus (approx Rs 50,000).

Apple has reworked the way we interact with the phone’s touchscreen by adding in the force dimension to the touch screen. This is a variant of the force touch technology that is already there on the Apple Watch. Called 3D Touch, this new feature lets you reduce on the number of clicks required to get work done, by using force touch along with swiping gestures. Apple has also integrated the Taptic Engine inside the phone to provide feedback.

Craig Federighi demoed the force touch by showing off how one can interact with emails with a single touch, varying the touch pressure to ‘peep’ to hover over things and ‘pop’ to go deep into things.You can press lightly to ‘Peek’ at a photo, email, web page or other content, and press a little deeper to ‘Pop’ into the content itself. With Quick Actions, 3D Touch provides shortcuts to the things you do most, so you can send a message or take a selfie with just a simple press from the Home screen.

The next major upgrade with the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus is the 12MP iSight camera with a 5MP front-facing camera. Apple has introduced a feature called Live Photos that is on by default and lets you record a 1.5 second long video, before and after you have taken a shot. The rear camera is now capable of recording 4K videos. Another interesting addition is the Retina flash mechanism, where the display of the Apple iPhone 6S or 6S Plus lights up three times over its regular brightness and with regards to ambient lighting conditions so that you can click selfies in low light conditions.

The iPhone 6S comes with a 4.7-inch with a 1334 x 750 pixel Retina Display whereas the iPhone 6S Plus comes with a 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 pixel Retina display. The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus are 0.2mm thicker than the last generation iPhones with the iPhone 6S at 7.3mm and iPhone 6S Plus at 7.1mm.

Both the phones come with the Apple A9 chipset with the M9 co-processor embedded into the A9 chipset. According to Apple, A9 offers a 70% speed bump with CPU heavy tasks and a 90% speed bump in GPU intensive tasks as compared to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus phones which sported the A8 chipset. The new phones will get iOS 9.

Thanks to the additional heft due to the 3D Touch display the iPhone 6S Plus is 20 grams heavier at 192 grams, and iPhone 6S is 14 grams heavier at 143 grams as compared to its predecessors. On the connectivity front, you will get LTE Advanced, 802.11ac Wifi, Bluetooth 4.2, NFC, Wi-fi calling, GPS and GLONASS. Other features such as TouchID has become two times faster, Apple Pay will be supported as well.