Raw hardware specs aren’t everything. What’s far more important is how well a phone’s software works with its hardware, as AnTuTu’s new hardware performance rankings demonstrate. The popular benchmarking site has posted its list of the ten best performing smartphones of 2015 and the iPhone 6s absolutely crushes everything in its path despite “only” having a dual-core processor and 2GB of RAM.
Just look at this chart:
As you can see, the iPhone 6s destroys devices that have octacore processors and 4GB of RAM in AnTuTu’s performance benchmarks. All told, the iPhone 6s’s score is 59% higher than the Galaxy Note 5 and 69% higher than the Nexus 6P. The Huawei Mate 8 comes the closest to matching the iPhone 6s’s performance but even that device is a long way off from Apple’s 2015 flagship phone. In fact, the rankings show that even 2014’s iPhone 6 still performs better than some 2015 Android devices including the OnePlus 2 and the Nexus 6P.
What’s particularly intriguing here is the comparatively poor performance of the Nexus 6P. Unlike other Android devices on the market, the Nexus 6P uses the stock version of Android and features hardware that was designed with Google’s input. It seems strange that it would perform worse than devices that are encumbered by carrier and OEM bloatware like the Galaxy Note 5.
Apple on Tuesday posted its [fiscal] fourth quarter earnings for 2015, offering a look at its performance over the past 3 months. The company shattered most of its sales figures from the same year-ago quarter, but came in under Wall Street expectations in the most important category: iPhone sales.
Analysts were expecting Apple to sell 48.5 million smartphones during Q4, but it fell a bit short at 48.05 million. And although market watchers anticipated lower-than-last-year iPad numbers, the firm came in under tablet sales projections as well. Keep reading for a full breakdown of the numbers.
Q4 2015 numbers compared to figures from the same quarter in 2014.
Revenue: $51.5 billion versus $42.12 billion
iPhones: 48.05 million versus 39.3 million
iPads: 9.88 million versus 12.3 million
Macs: 5.71 million versus 5.5 million
And here are some comments on the earnings from Tim Cook and Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO:
“Fiscal 2015 was Apple’s most successful year ever, with revenue growing 28% to nearly $234 billion. This continued success is the result of our commitment to making the best, most innovative products on earth, and it’s a testament to the tremendous execution by our teams,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We are heading into the holidays with our strongest product lineup yet, including iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, Apple Watch with an expanded lineup of cases and bands, the new iPad Pro and the all-new Apple TV which begins shipping this week.”
“Apple’s record September quarter results drove earnings per share growth of 38% and operating cash flow of $13.5 billion,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO. “We returned $17 billion to our investors during the quarter through share repurchases and dividends, and we have now completed over $143 billion of our $200 billion capital return program.”
Although Apple may not have impressed Wall Street in Q4, it put up some staggering numbers, and once again set itself up for a monster holiday quarter. With two new iPhones, Macs, the Apple Watch, an all-new iPad and Apple TV, the company is going to have some great options for gifts this year.
Apple has announced that it has set a new sales record for the new iPhone 6s and the 6s Plus during the opening weekend. The two phones combined have sold more than 13 million units in the first three days of launch in the 12 countries they were available in, including Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Singapore, the UK and the US.
To put the number into perspective, the previous iPhone 6 and 6 Plus sold 10 million units combined, the the 5s and 5c before that sold 9 million units combined.
Apple has reiterated that it will be bringing the 6s and 6s Plus to additional 40 additional countries worldwide.
Starting October 9, the phones will be available in Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Greenland, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Maldives, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Taiwan.
Starting October 10, the phones will be available in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.
Starting October 16, the phones will be available in India, Malaysia and Turkey on Friday, October 16 and in over 130 countries by the end of the year.
The new iPhones 6s and 6s Plus are selling like crazy even before they are officially available. This hardly comes as a surprise, but a new company statement offers a little perspective as to how well preorders are actually going and states that at this rate last-year’s records will be broken.
To put that in numbers, Cupertino is anticipating that it will exceed the 10 million opening week sales that it reeled in with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Apparently, interest for the preorder campaign this year was overwhelming with stocks already sold worldwide.
Customer response to iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus has been extremely positive and preorders this weekend were very strong around the world, … , any said in a statement. “We are on pace to beat last year’s 10 million unit first-weekend record when the new iPhones go on sale September 25.
Apple hasn’t given any exact preorder statistics yet, but last year over 4 million iPhones were sold in the first 24 hours of the preorder. Only one thing is clear, all the stocks that the OEM put up are now depleted and considering this year the initial rollout includes China as well, it is more than likely that first week sales will be record-breaking yet again.
The only other piece of info we have states that apparently customers showed more interest to the Plus model this year, with supplies going faster. We should get a clearer picture of how successful the preorder session actually was as the September 25 availability date nears.
Building even further on these predictions of whopping success, analysts from BTIG Research claim that Apple can actually sell 80 million phones by the end of the year alone. The number was around 74 million for the same period last year and considering the above information that definitely sounds plausible. Furthermore, market analysis shows that 70% of current iPhone owners are still using units from 2013 or older and that the addition of 3D Touch technology will be a major upgrade incentive for a lot of them.
Apple’s new iPhone Upgrade Program, probably launched in anticipation of the elevated interest, might contribute to overall sales success as well. Another interesting prediction that could be made is that Cupertino might hold off as long as it can on supplying third-party retailers and carriers in particular with large quantities of the iPhone 6s duo in an effort to try and hook users to its own subscription service.
Judging by past experience, Apple will likely shine some light on initial sales around September 28, so we will be sure to revisit the matter then.
Just like the rumor-mill has predicted, Apple at its media event in San Francisco this morning announced a pair of new iPhones: the 4.7-inch iPhone 6s and 5.5-inch iPhone 6s Plus.
“What we have to show you today is really awesome,” said Tim Cook.
Although the design hasn’t changed over the present-generation iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, as is the norm for S-upgrades, the new devices pack in some major hardware improvements.…
There is a brand new rose gold finish and the devices use a stronger Series 7000 aluminum alloy. And yes, there is a pressure-sensing screen that they’re calling 3D Touch, not Force Touch as previously thought.
3D Touch
3D Touch works on both the Home screen and inside applications themselves, providing user interface shortcuts and making possible all-new gestures such as peek, pop, mini tap and full tap. You also get distinct tactile feedback.
3D Touch users capacitive sensors that are not integrated in the backlight. The sensors pick up the force between the cover glass and the backlight. That data is combined with input from the accelerometer and gyroscope sensors to increases the accuracy and precision.
3D Touch shortcuts are implemented across all stock apps, including Messages, Maps, Safari, Phone, Music and more. Actually, you can just press firmly on the Phone icon and a brand new menu pops up right on the Home screen with shortcuts to your favorite contacts.
Or, you can press firmly on the Facebook app icon on the Home screen to update your status. 3D Touch can be also used to navigate between apps. If you apply just a little bit of force to screen sides, you can flip between active apps, which looks similar to iOS 9’s new app switcher.
And of course, games developers have shown a few games that take advantage of 3D Touch. As for tactile feedback, they have actually built a new version of the Apple Watch’s Taptic Engine that achieves even richer tactile feedback while consuming less energy.
A9 chip
The new iPhones are powered by the all-new Apple-designed A9 processor, the company’s third-generation 64-bit mobile processor. The A9 sports a new transistor architecture and consumes less energy than the A8 processor inside the current iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones.
The A9 is up to seventy percent faster in CPU tasks and approximately ninety percent faster in graphics tasks, providing “console-level performance” in graphics-rich apps and games. And for the first time, the A9 chip embeds a new motion coprocessor dubbed ‘M9′ with always-on performance. The new A9 with M9 allows for new features like the always-listening ‘Hey Siri’ feature.
12MP iSight camera
The back shooter has finally been upgraded in terms of the number of pixels.
Now with a twelve-megapixel sensor that has fifty percent more pixels than the previous-generation iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, the new iPhones can capture more detail so you can crop out and zoom into them without quality degradation.
The higher-resolution camera takes 63-megapixel panorama photos, up from 42-megapixel panoramas on the previous generation. In terms of video capture, the camera can now capture video in 4K resolution, up from full HD 1080p video capture on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
5MP FaceTime HD camera
The front-facing camera, which Apple refers to as FaceTime HD, has received a major resolution upgrade so it’s now five megapixels instead of a paltry 1.3-megapixel shooter on the previous generation.
The FaceTime camera lacks LED flash, but uses a software trickery to achieve the same effect. If you turn on the flash feature in the stock Camera app, the new iPhone takes advantage of a custom display chip to flash the screen with three times the intensity to illuminate your face in low-light situations.
Live Photos
The new iPhones support motion wallpapers via a new feature called Live Photos.
You just pick one of Apple-designed Live Photos and set it as your background. Additionally, you can take your own Live Photos. You don’t have to do anything different than you would in order to take a Live Photo.
As you take pictures, the iPhone does that automatically provided you have flipped a new switch in the Camera app. Doing so extends the capture moment just before and after you took them. Live Photos are not animations, they are still twelve-megapixel still images each animated to look great.
Faster wireless, new accessories
The new phones feature faster LTE with an additional 23 bands and with support for upcoming 300Mbps cellular networks. Wi-Fi on the new iPhones has been upgraded, too, and now supports data transfer speeds at up to 866Mbps.
To go along with the new iPhones, Apple has designed brand new charging docks. There are also new leather covers in five finishes and new silicon covers in eleven colors, including Product(RED).
Availability
The iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are available in Silver, Gold, Space Grey and Rose Gold at $199/$299/$399 for 16GB/64GB/128GB versions after a contract with your carrier. The previous-generation iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have been discounted by a hundred bucks and now cost $99/$199/$299 for the same 16GB/64GB/128GB models and after a contract with your carrier.
The iPhone 5s has become Apple’s new entry-level iPhone. The device, which has replaced the iPhone 4s, will be available free on most carriers with a contract.
You can pre-order new iPhones starting Saturday, September 12, ahead of their release on September 25 in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China, Greece, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Italy and Puerto Rico.
The iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus will be available in more than 130 countries and over 400 carrier partners by the end of this year. As for iOS 9, it will release next week on September 16.
New iCloud storage pricing
In a surprise announcement, Apple said it’s cutting iCloud storage upgrades in half. So starting today, you can upgrade your entry-level iCloud account with just five gigabytes of free storage to fifty gigabytes for a monthly fee of 99 cents.
If you need more than 50 gigs, $2.99 per month will upgrade your iCloud storage to 200 gigabytes. The flagship tier with one terabyte of storage is now $9.99 per month.
Elie Chahine 