The Apple iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus Review

To be perfectly honest, this past year has been remarkably boring in the mobile segment. For whatever reason, phones have either stood still or regressed when it comes to overall quality. There are a few stand-outs that have been worth talking about like the Galaxy S6 lineup and the Galaxy Note5 lineup, but for the most part every phone I’ve reviewed this year has been disappointing in some way. I carry an iPhone 6 to make sure I stay current on changes in iOS, but my primary phone continues to be an HTC One M7. I was hoping to get a new Android phone this year, but so far nothing has really piqued my interest.

Part of the problem this year is that performance and battery life haven’t been the most impressive in a lot of cases. By this point, it’s really not a surprise that Snapdragon 810 doesn’t deliver as much performance as it needs to for the amount of power that it draws. However, even independent of SoC it seems a lot of OEMs haven’t really pushed the bar in design or attention to detail. Some phones have cameras with almost unacceptable post-processing quality, others continue to have poorly calibrated displays, and the ones that have none of those have problems with software experience or something else. In general, no Android phone I’ve seen this year really delivers everything that I’d want in a single package. There are phones that are clearly better than others, but nothing that rises to the level that I’d want before putting down a few hundred dollars.

In light of this lack of competition in the market, it’s arguable that Apple is facing less competition than before. The iPhone 6s would continue to sell quite strongly even if this year’s refresh was relatively minor as they would still end up quite strong competitively as they would be able to capitalize on momentum from previous years. If you were unfamiliar with the iPhone 6s and Apple’s iPhone launch cycle, at first you might be convinced that Apple has done exactly that. However, in general the iPhone release cycle is such that industrial design is constant for two years at a time, so every other year sees a design refresh. When the design isn’t refreshed, the phone often carries significant internal changes. In the past, the iPhone 3GS brought a better SoC, a faster modem, and a better camera. The iPhone 4S brought a new SoC, camera, and Siri. The iPhone 5s brought a new SoC, camera, and TouchID. In general, we can see a pretty clear pattern of evolution but it seems that with the 5s the refresh launches have generally brought new features as it has become insufficient to simply ship a faster SoC and possibly a modem and camera refresh to justify a new smartphone. To find out whether the iPhone 6s is justified, read on for the full review.

OnePlus Launches the OnePlus X

When OnePlus launched the OnePlus Two earlier this year the company also mentioned that they would be launching a second smartphone in 2015, and that the new phone would be announced closer toward the end of the year. With November and the holiday season approaching the phone needed to launch fairly soon to meet that deadline, and today OnePlus has made the new device official. It’s the OnePlus X, and it’s a smaller addition to the OnePlus family, with a 5.0″ display and a completely revamped physical design. You can get all the relevant specifications for the OnePlus X from the chart below.

On paper, the OnePlus X does look very similar to the original OnePlus One, but in a smaller form factor. What is probably the most intriguing aspect is the SoC, which is Qualcomm’s MSM8974AB. This appears to be a confirmation that Snapdragon 801 can still be sourced, and it’s interesting that only OnePlus has decided to utilize it despite the issues with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 808 and 810 SoCs. The OnePlus X uses the 2.3GHz version of Snapdragon 801 rather than the 2.45GHz MSM8974AC used in the OnePlus one, which likely won’t have any significant impact in most cases but it’s worth pointing out as one of the tiny differences between the two phones

The display is the same resolution as the OnePlus One and OnePlus Two, but with the OnePlus X it has gone down to a 5.0″ size. With that also comes a switch from IPS LCD panels to a 1080p AMOLED panel, and it’ll be interesting to see if the display has the same level of calibration as the OnePlus One did. The WiFi is strange in that it’s advertised as WCN3680, which should be a single spatial stream 802.11ac implementation, but OnePlus only advertises support for 2.4GHz 802.11b/g/n.

While the rear-facing camera is the same resolution as the OnePlus One, it’s explicitly stated to be an ISOCELL sensor which confirms that OnePlus has sourced their camera module from Samsung this time around rather than using Sony’s IMX214 which was used in the OnePlus One. The front-facing camera gets a bump in resolution from 5MP to 8MP, and uses an Omnivision OV8858 sensor. The lens apertures aren’t as wide as the f/2 apertures on the OnePlus One, which will have an impact on low-light shooting performance.

Beyond those changes the OnePlus X looks pretty much like a small OnePlus One as far as the specifications go. Obviously the chassis and display needed to scale down, as did the battery, but these are obvious changes going from a big phone to a smaller one.

The actual design and construction of the phone is a departure from OnePlus’s existing industrial design. The OnePlus X drops the exposed plastic and textured back of the OnePlus One and Two, and instead aims for a design made of aluminum and glass. The standard version of the phone has flat metal edges that meet slightly curved glass on both sides, and to me the design looks much more impressive than OnePlus’s previous offerings. The phone will also come in two versions, Onyx and Ceramic. The former simply means the black version, while the latter is actually made of ceramic, and also ends up being 22g heavier because of that. The ceramic model will only be sold in limited quantities, with 10,000 being made and sold in Europe and India.

The OnePlus X starts at 249 USD, which is significantly less than the 16GB model of the OnePlus 2 which costs 329 USD. While you definitely do lose a bit as far as specs goes, I actually find the smaller size and new design of the OnePlus X to be much more appealing than the OnePlus Two, and the lower price just makes that look like an even better deal. For anyone interested in buying the OnePlus X you’ll still need to get an invite, and it’ll be launching in Europe on November 5th for 269 EUR, or 369 EUR if you want the ceramic chassis. In the US the phone will be available on November 11th for 249 USD.

Apple FY 2015 Q4 Results: Record Fourth Quarter With 48 Million iPhones Sold

Today Apple released their Q4 results from fiscal year 2015, and in what seems like an almost unending cycle, the company has once again set a new record for the quarter with $51.5 billion in revenue. That is a 22% increase over the same period last year, where the company only had $42 billion in revenue. Apple’s strong margins continue, with 39.9% margin for the quarter. Operating income came in at $14.6 billion, up from $11.2 billion last year, and net income rose $2.6 billion year-over-year, coming in at $11.1 billion for the quarter. Earnings per share was $1.96, up from $1.42 last year.

The large gains can be mostly attributed to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, released last year to record sales. The recently launched models were only available for a short time this quarter, but of course contributed their initial sales to Q4. The full impact of the latest models should be even more felt in Q1 FY 2016. Despite the iPhone being far and away the largest product for Apple, Mac sales have also contributed, along with services and Apple Watch.

The iPhone is king at Apple. It contributes the largest portion to their overall revenues, and with the excellent margins Apple enjoys, it is very profitable. Apple sold just over 48 million iPhones last quarter – a quarter where the new model was known to be incoming. Yes, the 6s and 6s Plus were released in Q4, but only at the tail end of the quarter. This is a 22% increase in phones sold year-over-year. Revenue for the iPhone alone was $32.2 billion for Q4, which is up 36% year-over-year and up 3% from last quarter. Q1 2016 (Oct-Dec 2015) will be the holiday quarter, and this is traditionally the strongest quarter for iPhone sales.

Mac sales increased 3% year-over-year, which means that the Mac is still showing slow growth at a time when the rest of the PC market is in decline. Apple sold 5.7 million Macs last quarter, which resulted in $6.9 billion in revenue.

The iPad continues to decline, with sales falling 20% year-over-year. For the quarter, Apple sold 9.9 million iPads, for revenues of $4.3 billion. This one segment is really the only chink in Apple’s armor, and iPhone sales are likely part of the problem, with people turning to larger phones rather than tablets.

Apple has also steadily increased its services, with the segment achieving 10% growth to $5.086 billion. This includes iTunes, AppleCare, Apple Pay, licensing, and other services.

Finally, we have Other Products, which is Apple TV, Apple Watch, Beats, iPod, and accessories. This segment outperformed all other Apple segments in terms of growth, with a 67% increase in revenue year-over-year. With the acquisition of Beats, as well as the launch of the Apple Watch earlier this year, revenue grew from $2.641 billion in Q4 2014 to $3.048 billion this quarter. Unfortunately, Apple does not break out unit numbers for anything in “Other Products” but you can bet this gain was not due to iPod sales.

I tend to think of Apple as iPhone and other stuff, because the iPhone sales are such a huge part of their revenue stream. iPhone sales now account for 62.5% of revenue, up from 56.2% a year ago. It’s hard to fault them on this though, because clearly the larger displays on the latest iPhones have done very well for the company. But they did show good growth in Macs at a time when other PC vendors have seen a reduction in overall sales. Apple Watch is also off to a good start, but without unit sales its difficult to see any sort of pattern there yet, since it was just launched this year.

Looking ahead for Q1 2016, Apple is expecting revenues of $75.5 billion to $77.5 billion, and gross margins staying between 39% and 40%.

Source: Apple