iPhone 6s Plus Opens Apps Slightly Faster Than iPhone 6 Plus
As customers begin receiving the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus around the world, the smartphones have quickly been subjected to unboxings, drop tests, teardowns, bend tests and camera comparisons. The latest is a speed test between the iPhone 6s Plus and iPhone 6 Plus that confirms the former is faster than its predecessor.
YouTube channel Mad Matt TV tested the speed of the iPhone 6s Plus and iPhone 6 Plus side by side based on opening apps and loading websites in Safari on each device at the same time. The results show the iPhone 6s Plus is faster than the iPhone 6 Plus, but the difference was minimal for most tasks and equal for others.
iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are powered by a 64-bit Apple A9 chip and embedded M9 motion coprocessor that deliver up to 70% faster CPU performance and up to 90% faster graphics compared to the A8 chip inside the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The new iPhones also have 2GB of RAM, compared to 1GB for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
While this video provides an early speed comparison between the iPhone 6s Plus and iPhone 6 Plus, more in-depth testing should provide more conclusive results. Geekbench processor benchmarks show the iPhone 6s has approximately 1.5x to 1.6x faster single-core and multi-core performance over the iPhone 6.
iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are now available at Apple Stores and authorized resellers.
Samsung crashes the iPhone 6S launch in London with the Galaxy S6 Edge and S6 Edge+
Consumers flocked to Apple’s Regent Street store in London to be some of the first to get their hands on the new iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus. However, Samsung was there ready to hand out information packages on the Galaxy S6 Edge and S6 Edge+.
One thing’s for sure, Samsung worked hard to announce and release the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge+ ahead of Apple’s year iPhone release. As the old maxim goes, “the early bird gets the worm!” And in this case, Samsung’s doing everything it can to take advantage of that.
Android Central was able to get some stills of Samsung’s aggressive marketing tactics on the streets. Just head over to the link below to see Samsung in action!
via: Android Central
Come comment on this article: Samsung crashes the iPhone 6S launch in London with the Galaxy S6 Edge and S6 Edge+
Netflix now lets iPhone and iPad users sign up via its app
If you want to watch Netflix without setting down your iPhone or iPad, you can now purchase a subscription directly from the app and pay using iTunes. The streaming company amusingly revealed the news using via a clip from Orange is the New Black (below) that shows inmates Crazy Eyes and Taystee trying to figure out Siri. Netflix has had iOS apps for over five years, but until now, you’ve needed to purchase a subscription over the web or on an Apple TV device. As Variety points out, Netflix may have avoided in-app buys due to the steep 30 percent fee charged by Apple.
The time was ripe for Netflix to jump in, however, as rivals like Hulu and HBO Now let users make such purchases on iOS. Reports suggest that Apple reduced its take from 30 percent to 15 percent for those companies, provided users sign up on Apple TV. It won’t matter to you, however, as you’ll still pay $9.99 (£5.99 in the UK) whether you purchase a subscription on the iOS app or the web. Other services, like Spotify actually cost more ($12.99 versus $9.99 for Spotify Premium) over iTunes. In fact, the FTC launched an inquiry to ensure that Apple’s not breaking any anti-trust laws by making it difficult to for rivals to compete against its $9.99 Music service.
Microsoft Office on iPad Pro Requires Office 365 Subscription
Microsoft will require an Office 365 subscription to use Office apps on an iPad Pro, reports Ars Technica. The reason is because the tablet’s 12.9-inch screen size exceeds Microsoft’s 10.1-inch threshold for free access to viewing and editing features.
Comparatively, the Office suite of apps on the iPad Air and iPad mini allow viewing and editing documents for free, since their screen sizes are 9.7″ and 7.9″ respectively. iPhones also have access to viewing and editing features at no cost.
The Office apps on the current iPads offer both viewing and editing documents for free. A handful of features require Office 365 subscriptions, available as in-app purchases, but the core editing capabilities are all zero cost.
Install those same apps on the iPad Pro once it arrives in November, however, and all those editing features will go away. Office on the iPad Pro will require an Office 365 subscription for any and all editing.
Office 365 Home costs $99.99 per year, or $9.99 per month, and includes access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access on 5 PCs or Macs, 5 tablets and 5 smartphones. Up to five subscribers also get 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage and 60 Skype minutes of calling per month to mobile phones and landlines.
Office 365 Personal is also available for $69.99 per year, or $6.99 per month, and includes access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access on 1 PC or Mac, 1 tablet and 1 smartphone. One subscriber also gets 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage and 60 Skype minutes of calling per month to mobile phones and landlines.
iPad Pro launches in November starting at $799 in the United States.
iPhone 6s Launch in U.S. and Canada Begins as Apple Stores Open
iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus launch day has officially arrived in the United States and Canada as Apple Stores in eastern cities such as New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Toronto and Washington D.C. have now opened at 8:00 am local time. The launch will continue westward across the U.S. and Canada over the next three hours.
Apple Stores will now begin fulfilling in-store reservations for the new iPhones and accepting walk-in purchases from the long queues that have formed at some locations. UPS and FedEx will also be making pre-order deliveries generally between the hours of 9:00 am and 8:00 pm to residential addresses.
Guess where I'm at?! #AppleStore #JaxNYC #iPhone6S #iwaiting http://t.co/hngl6YPM49 pic.twitter.com/WwVOzedNGm
— Jacqui (@Jacquies) September 25, 2015
http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Hmph. Must be something going on today. #applestore #torontoeatoncentre pic.twitter.com/1aA9TyCnVm
— Eustace James (@mr_e_james) September 25, 2015
http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsiPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus first arrived in New Zealand last night, and the new devices were quickly subjected to an early unboxing, drop test, teardown, bend test and camera comparison. The devices have now launched in all first wave countries, including the U.S., Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the U.K.
BlackBerry Confirms Android Smartphone Plans on iPhone Launch Day
BlackBerry today confirmed that the company will be making an Android-based smartphone, with a launch date aimed for the end of 2015, even as it reported a lower-than-expected annual loss (via Re/code).
The company reported that its latest quarterly loss was 13 cents per share on revenue of approximately $490 million, with analysts expecting 9 cents per share loss on revenue reaching closer to $600 million. Still, BlackBerry believes that its new handset, called the Priv, will boost its quarterly earnings as it heads into 2016.
“We are focused on making faster progress to achieve profitability in our handset business,” Chen said. The company also announced plans earlier this month to acquire rival Good Technology for $425 million. “From these initiatives, we anticipate modest sequential revenue growth in each of the remaining quarters of fiscal 2016.”
Confirming a previous rumor from June, the smartphone will have a slide-out keyboard and will combine “the best of BlackBerry security and productivity” with Android’s robust mobile platform applications, according to BlackBerry CEO John Chen. The company confirmed Priv will launch by the end of 2015, and that the BlackBerry 10 OS will still be supported, getting a software update around March.
Chen also mentioned that he has been aware of the company’s steady decline, and that he’ll stay in the business as long as there’s money to be made. “If I can’t make money on the phone, I will be out of that telephone handset business,” Chen said. “There is a timeline; I won’t tell you when.” BlackBerry hopes Priv will fill a niche in the smartphone market with a device that can work as an enterprise-ready work machine, but be fueled by Android’s “expansive mobile application ecosystem.”
Apple Watch Launches in Belgium, Finland, Norway and Poland on October 9
Apple has updated its regional websites for Belgium, Finland, Norway and Poland to announce the Apple Watch will be available on October 9.
Belgium, Finland, Norway and Poland will be part of the sixth Apple Watch launch wave:
Apple Watch sales have also expanded to dozens of Apple Premium Resellers this month.
iOS 9’s space-saving ‘app slicing’ feature gets delayed
The “app slicing” or “app thinning” feature Apple promised to launch with iOS 9 can help 16GB and 32GB iPhone owners save some precious storage space. Unfortunately, Cupertino can’t release it to the general public yet (even though its beta testing app has been supporting the feature for quite some time), “due to an issue affecting iCloud backup.” See, Apple gave developers the power to mark parts of their applications meant for specific devices. That means folks with an iPhone 6s will only end up downloading app components meant for the 6s and not the ones meant for iPads or other iPhone variants — hence, the term app slicing/thinning.
Unfortunately, due to the iCloud bug, iOS 9 users are still getting universal versions of apps instead of optimized ones. The note posted on Apple’s developer website says the company will roll out app slicing with a future software update, though — hopefully sometime soon, for the sake of everyone quickly running out of storage.
App slicing is currently unavailable for iOS 9 apps due to an issue affecting iCloud backups created from iOS 9 where some apps from the App Store would only restore to the same model of iOS device.
When a customer downloads your iOS 9 app, they will get the Universal version of your app, rather than the variant specific for their device type. TestFlight will continue to deliver variants for your internal testers. App slicing will be reenabled with a future software update. No action is needed by you at this time.
Via: 9to5mac
Source: Apple
Where to buy Apple’s iPhone 6s and 6s Plus in the UK
If you hadn’t made a note in you diary, then let us remind you: new iPhone day is upon us. Apple’s iPhone 6s and 6s Plus launch in 12 countries today, and one of those just happens to be the sunny UK. As the “s” qualifier denotes, the flagships are iterative improvements over last year’s models, with more powerful innards, better cameras and pressure-sensitive “3D Touch” displays. But let’s be frank, any new product bearing an Apple logo has an army of consumers waiting with bated breath. Some will have queued outside their nearest Apple Store for the past 24 hours, and others will have pre-ordered their devices from the comfort of their sofas, but if you’ve taken a more measured approach to iPhone procurement, then let us walk you through your options.
iPhone 6s
| O2 | Three | Vodafone | EE | Carphone Warehouse | Buymobiles | Mobiles .co.uk | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cheapest contract (with upfront) | £17.50 (£630) | £38 (£99) | £36 (£149) | £40 (£140) | £32 (£169) on Voda | £22 (£360) on EE | £25 (£200) on EE |
| Cheapest contract (lowest upfront) | £54 (£10) | £61 (£9) | £54 (£9) | £55 (£29) | £44 (£0) on Voda | £45 (£0) on EE | £44 (£0) on Voda |
| Pay-as-you-go | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Unlocked (SIM-free) | — | — | — | — | £539 | — | — |
| Pricing based on 16GB model. Higher storage capacities will be more expensive. | |||||||
Given the popularity of the iPhone brand, it’s not surprising to see your contract options are numerous, and relatively expensive. If you’re after the best possible iPhone 6s deal, though, then we’d advise you check out the contract resellers before any of the big four carriers. At odds with the major providers, they’re offering the 6s with no upfront payment, and some of the cheaper monthly contracts give you quite respectable voice/text/data allowances to work with.
A handful of MVNOs have the iPhone 6s available on day one, too. You can buy a 16GB model from giffgaff outright for £539, or pay as little as £28.54 per month with a £30 upfront payment. Virgin’s contract options start at £34 per month with no upfront, and Carphone Warehouse’s iD network is also in the mix, with upfront payments from £30 to £200 determining your monthly spend and allowances.
If you’d rather just shell out for an unlocked model and be done with it, you won’t find anywhere selling the 6s cheaper than Apple’s online store or preferred retailers like John Lewis, where prices start at £539 for 16GB of storage.
iPhone 6s Plus
| O2 | Three | Vodafone | EE | Carphone Warehouse | Buymobiles | Mobiles .co.uk | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cheapest contract (with upfront) | £17.50 (£730) | £43 (£99) | £41 (£169) | £45 (£180) | £33.50 (£220) on iD | £27 (£330) on EE | £32 (£229) on Voda |
| Cheapest contract (lowest upfront) | £47.50 (£10) | £66 (£9) | £64 (£9) | £60 (£50) | £64 (£0) on Voda/O2 | £55 (£9) on EE | £64 (£0) on Voda |
| Pay-as-you-go | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Unlocked (SIM-free) | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Pricing based on 16GB model. Higher storage capacities will be more expensive. | |||||||
Again, you’ve got your pick of carriers and contract resellers, but the iPhone 6s Plus’ bigger screen commands a higher price. There are still a few options, however, that only require a small down-payment, or none at all.
All the MVNOs ranging the smaller 6s are also offering the 6s Plus, though both Virgin and giffgaff have no stock currently. It’s worth noting that stock levels for the 6s Plus don’t seem particularly healthy anywhere, with alerts and delivery delay notices appearing on several of the websites we’ve visited to pull all this together. Carphone Warehouse has a couple of contract options on its iD network, however, with upfront payments ranging from £60 to £220.
Like the iPhone 6s, you won’t find an unlocked 6s Plus for less than Apple is willing to sell you one for. Pricing starts at £619 for the 16GB model, but whether you’re looking at Apple’s website or John Lewis’, stock levels are a common problem.
Six-pack of tablets and the iPad Pro: the tablet market is polarizing
It’s no secret that tablets aren’t selling quite as well as they once did. Compared with last year, the worldwide tablet market declined 7% in the last quarter, and 3.9% the quarter before that, according to IDC. It looks as though tablets may have peeked around the end of 2013.
As sales dwindle, we can see two very clear strategies emerging. Manufacturers are slashing prices further and further, or they’re going the other way and offering seriously premium, expensive devices. These opposing approaches are nicely highlighted by the most recent releases from tech giants Apple and Amazon.
Apple asks for more
The new iPad Pro starts at $800, but you’ll pay over a grand ($1,079 to be exact) if you want the 128GB with 4G version. That’s enough to snag a really decent laptop or a desktop computer, both of which are going to be superior to a tablet in most respects, apart from portability.
You can buy a nice laptop for the price of the new iPad Pro, keyboard not included
If anyone else did it, they’d be dismissed as mad. In fact, when Microsoft first hit this kind of pricing with the Surface Pro it was roundly criticized. No one has had any real success with bigger tablets yet. Maybe the Pro 3, with its 12-inch display has come closest so far, but it’s taken Microsoft a few attempts to convince people.
Microsoft has made inroads with its Surface Pro line, but it hasn’t been easy
The iPad Pro stretches things a little further, with a 12.9-inch display, but both of these devices are being sold as laptop replacements. The “Pro” tag speaks to their business credentials, where there’s plenty of demand for that sweet spot combo of power and portability. If you can’t justify a bigger screen that does some of the stuff your phone already does, but nothing it can’t, then perhaps you’ll spring for one that does what your laptop can do as well.
Are they going to seep into the wider mass market? Only time will tell. But if they do, it will surely be by cannibalizing sales of ultra-books and other laptops.
Amazon practically gives it away
At the other end of the spectrum, we have Amazon offering the entry-level Fire tablet for $50. This 7-inch forked Android device is hardly the belle of the ball, but damn it’s cheap. You can even buy a six pack and you’ll get one of them free. That’s $250 for six Fire tablets. You could buy 25 of them for less than the top end iPad Pro.
The key selling point is obvious
Amazon doesn’t really care about making money on the hardware because it has a huge content ecosystem. The Fire tablet range are really designed to be windows to Amazon’s world, where it wants to tempt you into a Prime membership, and get you buying books through Kindle. As it adds in music and other content sources, the prospect for a typical family is actually really compelling. You get quite a lot for your money.
Why aren’t people buying tablets?
We know that people are still using tablets, they just aren’t buying them as often. So, why have tablet sales fallen off? A number of different reasons have been thrown up, but there’s no real consensus.
This argument that we don’t need tablets anymore because our phones are getting bigger sounds really convincing, but it also seems at odds with some of the evidence. If you take a look at this Flurry data, small tablets seem to be holding their own; it’s full-size tablets that are falling away. You’d think the small tablet category would be the most impacted by the rise of phablets.
Phablets have been taking away market share from medium sized phones, not tablets
Could it be because tablets continue to receive updates and run adequately well for longer? Anecdotally, my Nexus 7 (2013) is still going strong after more than two years, and it has the latest version of Android. Why bother buying a new tablet if the old one still works just as well? New tablets also (mostly) haven’t ushered in sexy new designs or a raft of new features. At least, not in the same way that new smartphones have. Though, it’s interesting to note that Apple’s only offering split screen on the latest iPad models and not retrofitting it through iOS 9.
See also: Best cheap Android tablets (June 2015)
Can they drop further?
That 7-inch tablet category has always been the most competitive segment of the tablet market, but you have to wonder how much lower prices can go. You could always buy a sub-standard 7-inch tablet for under $100, but being able to get one from a big name like Amazon for just $50 is surely going to blow a lot of the other budget manufacturers out of the water. These are aimed at people who look to price first, so they’re not going to care about the limitations of Amazon’s flavor of Android.
Amazon wants to secure people and get them building a library of content with Amazon, which, alongside subscriptions, is liable to tie them in for the long haul. It has the long term vision and the deep pockets to sell hardware at a loss if it has to. Maybe we’ll see a $20 tablet in a couple of years, or Amazon will start to give them away for free with every Prime membership.
Can other manufacturers compete with this strategy? Without the prospect of a long term revenue stream from content consumption, you’d have to guess that they can’t. That could seriously narrow the field in the next few years.
See also: Cheap tablets: what to avoid, what to look for
No more middle
As for everything in between the cheap and expensive extremes, will they settle into a comfortable niche or gradually fade away? Do you see a good reason to drop a few hundred on a tablet in the 8 to 10-inch range? What’s the purpose of a 10-inch tablet if you have a TV at home and a phablet when you’re out and about?
The future of the tablet is still uncertain. We may well be headed for more polarization. Cheap tablets will become impulse purchase items, and a new class of super-tablet that does everything will emerge at the other end of the market. Of course, if someone works out how to create a phone with a fold-out screen that can expand to tablet-size, we may see the end of the tablet category altogether.
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