iPhone 6 Plus

Kantar: iPhone 6 helps Apple gain share over Android, iPhone 5c outselling iPhone 6 Plus in US

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 3, 2014

In the last three months up to October 31, Apple's misunderstood iPhone 5c outsold the iPhone 6 Plus in the United States.

Moreover, overall sales of both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus handsets has bumped up Apple's market share against Android around the world, according to the latest smartphone survey by Kantar Worldpanel, the WPP-owned market researcher.

The research firm reported Wednesday that Apple is poised for a record quarter amid “a huge jump in sales share across almost all major markets” thanks to the new iPhones.

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T-Mobile’s Cyber Monday: $100 off 64GB iPhone 6, more iPhone discounts

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 19, 2018

T-Mobile, the nation's fourth-largest carrier, is taking a cool hundred bucks off the iPhone 6 model with sixty-four gigabytes of storage. That's basically giving you the 64GB iPhone 6 for the price of the 16GB version, a savings of $100 dollars.

The Deutsche Telekom-owned company normally sells the 64GB iPhone 6 model for the full price of $749 (or $99 down plus monthly installments).

And as part of its Cyber Monday deal, T-Mobile is also discounting other iPhone models, including the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c.

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Rumor: Apple switching to Samsung-made Apple Watch chips, iPhone 6 battery and flash storage

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated September 26, 2016

The latest scuttlebutt fresh out of Korea has it that Apple is considering switching to Samsung-made components for the new iPhones and Apple Watch, including iPhone 6 batteries manufactured by Samsung SDI and NAND flash manufactured by Samsung's component making arm.

The story matches up nicely with a BusinessKorea report earlier this month which claimed Apple was considering changing its flash storage provider due to alleged issues with some 128GB iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus units.

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Five reasons the iPhone 6’s ability to handle 4K video is a big deal

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 24, 2014

While some photography apps in the App Store — such as the $49.99 Vizzywig 8xHD — make shooting film-like 4K footage on an iPhone a reality by taking a series of individual eight-megapixel images in rapid succession, the general public and techies alike are totally unaware that the latest iPhones are actually capable of rendering 4K 3,840-by-2,160 pixel video.

And who could blame them? After all, Apple's been conspicuously mum about it. But as it turns out, the A8 chip ticking inside the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus provides enough oomph to seamlessly handle 4K content playback.

The surprising discovery was made public last week by Softorino (via TUAW), the developers of WALTR, a new Mac app which makes it easy to upload and convert any video or audio file to an iOS-friendly format for native playback on iPhones, iPads, iPods and Apple TVs.

While it makes little sense to render massive 4K videos on the 1,334-by-750 and 1,920-by-1,080 pixel resolution screens of the respective iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones due to inevitable downsampling, the very fact that the A8 processor can handle 4K content is important on many levels.

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$99 iPhone 6 case with VR headset announced

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated June 16, 2016

Toronto-based Cordon Development Labs is making rounds Monday with the Pinć, a $99 iPhone case which doubles as a Minority Report style virtual headset with spatial interaction, multi-touch hand gestures via a pair of finger tacks and more, effectively expanding your device into an immersive computing experience.

Data from the wireless rings on each hand is combined with camera input from your iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus to track hand motion. Cordon Development Labs is working on a software development kit built on the Unity engine so third-party developers will be able to customize and create various types of experiences for the Pinć.

What's it like to interact with the Pinć? Check out promo vids included after the break.

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New Microsoft ad says iPhone 6 Plus only makes Siri bigger, not smarter

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated September 6, 2017

Friday, Windows giant Microsoft published a new Apple-bashing ad on its YouTube channel.

The 30-second television commercial shows off the latest version of Cortana, Microsoft's Siri-like personal assistant, running on the Lumia 830 and interacting with a bunch of built-in applications.

Cortana amusingly brags to Siri about being able to perform functions Apple's personal assistant can't, like alert users to leave early for an appointment using traffic alerts, remind them of things based on who calls or texts and more.

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iPhone 6 Plus downsampling artifacts explained

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 4, 2017

With the iPhone 6 Plus, Apple took the unusual route of rendering apps at 3× scale into a backing store of 1,242-by-2,208 “logical” pixels which the GPU then scales down to the device's native full HD screen resolution of 1,920-by-1,080 pixels.

This is different from every other iOS device to date and required to simplify app development as developers must simply create two times crisper graphics assets for standard Retina screens and three times denser images to account for the new “Retina HD” screens of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

On the downside, the system down samples everything by approximately 13 percent to the native resolution so some unwanted artifacts do appear which degrade image quality slightly in certain situations.

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Showcase iPhone 6 game Vainglory now available

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 30, 2018

Vainglory, a much anticipated multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game that Apple featured during the September 2014 iPhone 6 keynote, launched unexpectedly early and is now available for download in select App Stores, developers announced Tuesday. Created by a team with a rather interesting name, Super Evil Megacorp, Vainglory for the iPhone and iPad is their first game ever but Apple was so impressed they decided to feature the game as a showcase of the graphics power provided by the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

Driven by the E.V.I.L. engine, Vainglory renders action in a silky smooth sixty frames per second with as many as 1.3 million polygons in the game map. The game is powered by Metal, Apple's new low-latency graphics framework in iOS 8.

Due to Metal's requirements, Vainglory needs iOS 8.0 or later and runs on iOS devices outfitted with Apple's A7, A8 or A8X mobile processor variants found inside the iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air, iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3.

Both the iPhone and iPad editions of Vainglory are free in the App Store.

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Twelve South launches Deluxe edition of HiRise stand for latest iPhones and iPads with gold finish

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 18, 2014

Premium accessory vendor Twelve South today took the wraps off a Deluxe edition of its famed iPhone and iPad dock for charging and hands-free use.

The high-end HiRise Deluxe versatile stand ships with color-matched 'Made for iPhone' Lightning and micro-USB cables to charge iPads and iPhones.

The stand can dock your devices in battery cases, such as the Mophie Juice Pack, thanks to its height-adjustable clips, with one-handed adjustment for cases. The HiRise Deluxe is available in three color options, including an all-new gold finish to complement your gold iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air 2 or iPad mini 3.

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VSCO Cam 4.0 drops with iOS 8 and iPhone 6 support, iPad UI, Sync, Journal and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

If you needed an excuse to make VSCO Cam part of your iPhone photographer's toolkit, here's one. On Thursday, developers issued a substantial update to the free iOS app which brings a thoroughly redesigned user interface.

Now a universal app for all form factor iOS devices, VSCO Cam runs natively on iPads and brings out full support for iOS 8 and the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus resolutions.

This release is packed with half a dozen interesting new features, among them integration with VSCO' new mobile publishing platform dubbed Journal.

Download VSCO Cam free in the App Store.

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Sunrise gets iOS 8 widget, Google Tasks and Eventbrite apps and iPhone 6 support

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 5, 2018

After gaining push support for Google Calendar, enhanced search and Todoist integration back in September and issuing a few maintenance updates since, Sunrise, the popular cross-platform calendar and to-do application, on Thursday launched a major new version in the App Store.

Sunrise now features native display support for the new 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus resolutions so it will no longer run enlarged on the new iPhones.

You can now authorize both Google Tasks and Eventbrite services for use in Sunrise and there's a brand new widget for the Today view of the Notification Center on iOS 8.

Respective iOS and OS X edition of Sunrise are available free in the App Store and Mac App Store.

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