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iPhone 6 Plus has ‘top performing smartphone LCD,’ DisplayMate finds

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 22, 2014

It's official: the iPhone 6 Plus has raised the bar for LCD display performance up by a notch and earned itself the title of the Best Performing Smartphone LCD display “that we have ever tested”, as per a detailed display shootout conducted by DisplayMate Technologies, a professional video calibration equipment producer.

Note that the benchmark did not take into account OLED screens from Samsung, which use a different display technology from the Retina HD screen on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

In terms of the best overall smartphone display, which includes both LCD and OLED technologies, Samsung's Galaxy Note 4 with its Super AMOLED display still comes on top, leaving the iPhone 6 Plus with the “Best Performing Smartphone LCD display” designation.

The iPhone 6 also has “a very good display” which is somewhat held back by its lower resolution and pixel count compared to the iPhone 6 Plus.

iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smoke competition in benchmarks

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 22, 2014

The new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus powered by the Apple-designed A8 processor leave the vast majority of Android competition in the dust in terms of CPU performance and battery life, according to a series of performance benchmarks conducted by the reputable hardware review website AnandTech.

The website's founder Anand Lal Shimpi recently joined Apple for an undisclosed role.

Speaking of the handsets' graphics performance, the site has found the iPhone 6 Plus performing a hair slower versus the iPhone 5s due to the increased screen resolution. It's also approximately fifteen percent slower in GPU performance than the Nvidia Shield-based tablets. Despite this minor setback, performance gains across the board translate into “a pretty solid lead over the competition for the iPhone 6/A8,” wrote the site.

According to Apple, the A8 processor has two billion transistors, twice as much as the previous A7 chip. The piece of silicon incorporates twenty percent faster CPU and a cool fifty percent faster graphics while enabling up to 50 percent more energy efficiency than its A7 counterpart, as per Apple's official numbers.

Google updates Chrome for iOS with support for App Extensions in Share menu

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 22, 2014

The Internet giant Google on Monday issued a minor update to its Chrome browser for the iPhone and iPad adding support for the new third-party App Extensions in iOS 8 using the multi-purpose Share sheet.

This allows you to download apps which advertise their own extensions and actions to the system, making them available in any app that makes use of the standard Share menu, Chrome included.

This edition of Google's web browser also includes iOS 8 compatibility as well as stability improvements and bug fixes.

Apple announces record-smashing ten million iPhone 6/Plus opening weekend sales

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 22, 2014

After announcing record pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus topping four million units in the first 24 hours, the Cupertino firm on Monday said it sold ten million units of both the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 during the opening weekend, including the four million units sold in the first 24 hours of preorder sales.

The figure breaks the previous record of nine million units in the first three days of availability held by the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c last year (the iPhone 5 sold five million unit during its opening weekend).

It must be noted that the iPhone 5s was not available for pre-order. On the other hand, unlike last year's iPhone launch, this time around the iPhone 6 has not launched immediately in China, Apple's second-largest market by revenue.

The new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus were announced on September 9 and Apple started accepting pre-orders on Friday, September 12. This past Friday, September 19, the handset hit Apple and carrier stores across the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the United Kingdom.

Skype gains iOS 8’s interactive notifications

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 11, 2016

Microsoft on Monday refreshed its Skype software for the iPhone with support for the enhanced notifications on iOS 8 that can be interacted with on the Lock screen, within the Notification Center and from the banners.

Now available in the App Store, Skype for iPhone 5.5 brings iOS 8 interactive notification support for audio and video calls and messages, in addition to general improvements, compatibility enhancements and bug fixes.

Video shows side by side speed comparison of all 10 iPhone models

Cody Lee ∙ September 22, 2014

YouTube channel EverythingApplePro posted an interesting video this weekend, showing multiple side by side speed comparison tests of all 10 iPhone models. This includes the iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5, iPhone 4s, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G and the original iPhone.

The clip, which is about 4 minutes long, shows a wide range of speed tests such as shutdown, startup, webpage loading, and even a GeekBench benchmark test. For the most part everything works out like you'd expect, with the newer devices outpacing their predecessors, but there are a few surprises.

Photographer tests iPhone 6/Plus cameras, Focus Pixels, Exposure Control, OIS and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 19, 2014

As Apple's iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus hit store shelves in the United States and a few major markets around the world, first hands-on videos are appearing online (and let's not forget about torture tests, too).

Teaming up with The Verge, professional photographer Austin Mann put the handsets' enhanced cameras through the paces on beautiful locations in Iceland.

He took a series of photographs and videos that do an excellent job showing off improvements such as the new Focus Pixels, manual Exposure Control, higher-resolution Panorama photography, Slo-Mo video enhancements and Optical Image Stabilization.

The results are quite impressive: the more accurate sensor, Apple's enhanced signal image processor inside the A8 chip and iOS 8's software improvements enable noticeably sharper images, despite the same eight-megapixel camera resolution.

Google’s Search for iOS app gains Google Now traffic info and TV recommendations, more

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 19, 2014

The Internet giant Google on Friday refreshed its native Google Search application for the iPhone and iPad with enhancements to the built-in Google Now feature in the form of new cards for personalized TV recommendations and traffic information.

Furthermore, version 4.2 of Google Search for iOS now includes better Chromecast integration allowing owners of the $35 HDMI dongle to ask Google “what’s on Chromecast?” to open the Chromecast for iPhone app and start casting.

First iPhone 6 drop-test videos surface

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 11, 2016

As Apple Stores around the world opened this morning to the legions of fans and early adopters eager to get their hands on the company's new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus handsets, enthusiasts have already recorded first drop-test videos that provide non-scientific evidence as to whether the new phones are more easily damaged versus the previous models. I've included a nice drop-test video by YouTube users PhoneBuff who was among the first customers at Apple's retail store in Australia.

I've also put in another clip of a brand spanking new iPhone 6 slipping out of its packaging and slamming onto the concrete — as the cameras were rolling — much to the horror of its proud owner.

TeeVee 3 updated with iOS 8 Today widget, interactive alerts and now free

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 13, 2018

TeeVee 3, a TV show-tracking app that I reviewed in May by Tomas Perzl of the Czech Republic and Slovakia-based CrazyApps Team, now lets you tweet out upcoming episodes or mark the ones you've seen as watched, directly from the notification itself, and also see which shows are coming next in the Today view of the iOS Notification Center, thanks to its iOS 8-focused update released yesterday.

Other new features available in this excellent iPhone and iPad app include new sorting options (Alphabetically, Reverse, AirDate and Unwatched), the ability to delete a show by long-pressing it in the list and several bug fixes.

As a cherry on top, the team has decided to discount the $2.99 app to zero bucks, for a limited time, in an effort to bring in new customers. If you're going to grab the latest TeeVee 3.1 update, please keep in mind that the app now requires iOS 8.

New App Store section highlights apps updated for iPhone 6

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

You may have noticed over the past 24 hours that a new section has appeared in the App Store entitled "Apps & Games for iPhone 6." As you'd expect, the section is meant to highlight apps and games that have been updated for the larger displays on the two new iPhones.

There are likely thousands of apps that are compatible with the handsets, with many more to come. Apple rounded up about 65 of them, and we thought we'd share 10 of our favorites, so you know what apps we'll be downloading when we get our new iPhones tomorrow.

iPhone 6 Plus teardown reveals 1GB of RAM, high-capacity battery

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

We've still got a good 8 hours or so before the iPhone goes on sale here in the US, but it's already begun flying off the shelves in Australia. And as usual, the folks over at iFixit were on hand at the launch to grab one of the new iPhone 6 Plus models for their customary teardown.

After popping the handset open, the team discovers what it says is a very similar layout to the iPhone 5s, albeit a much bigger battery. In line with the rumors, the battery is rated at 3.82 V and 11.1 Wh of energy, for a total of 2915 mAh—nearly double the capacity of last year's 5s.