Editor’s Note: This article was originally posted in September 2016
Ahh, Autumn. The September sun is plentiful, the air is crisp and the leaves are just starting to fall. There is no better time to go Apple picking – and I’m not talking about the forbidden fruit that grows on trees. No, I am talking about the kind that’s sold in large, sterile white retail stores in small, sterile white boxes.
Tomorrow, Apple will release the long-awaited newest version of its popular smartphone, the iPhone 6. Millions of people around the globe started getting in line weeks ago in order to buy the coveted phone when it goes on sale September 19, because apparently on September 20 anyone without an iPhone 6 will violently implode. Or at least that’s what my teenager tells me.
The new generation of iPhone has many important new features. If you want to learn how impressive these upgrades are, just go on the Apple website. There you will see a lot of big words (“microprocessor”), words you never knew were words (“accelerometer”), and words that definitely aren’t words (“1080p HD at 60 fps, 240-fps slo-mo”). Me thinks they bullshit too much.
But you’re lucky, because I am fluent in Bullshit. To make it easier for you to decide whether the iPhone 6 is right for you, I researched the new features and will break them down for you here in simple, easy-to-understand terms.
It’s bigger. Apple was once relatively smug with the diminutive size of previous iPhone versions, back when having a tiny phone meant you must have a huge bank account and even larger – ahem – other things. That is, until android lovers started whipping out their impressively-sized Samsungs and stroking their massive screens in public. Suddenly iPhone users the world over suffered incurable phone envy. As the website boasts, the iPhone 6 is “bigger than bigger” which is vaguer than vague so let me break it down for you further. To keep up with the growing supersize-me smartphone trend, the new iPhone now comes in two sizes – a larger-than-standard 4.7 inch version, and the gargantuan iPhone 6 Plus model. Since the latter is roughly the size of an inflatable outdoor movie screen, it comes outfitted with a Sherpa to help you lug it around.
On it’s website, Apple promises that the new phone is “Hugely powerful. Enormously efficient.” Proving once again that, yeah, size does matter.
It lasts longer. Apple is proud to announce that the iPhone 6 has a new A8 chip, something that is supposed to impress us all. I’m pretty impressed – I had no idea iPhones came with snacks. This new system supposedly will allow users to “do more, for longer periods of time”. What exactly you can do more of is entirely unclear, but one hopes it is not doing more of what iPhone users already do, like searching for outlets or borrowing friends’ chargers half-way through the day. The good news is that the iPhone 6 battery life will now get you all the way through happy hour and almost to dinnertime. That is, as long as you eat before 7:00 p.m., are in the Eastern Standard Time Zone and haven’t made any phone calls. Otherwise, count on hooking up with an outlet sometime right after lunch.
It takes better selfies. The iPhone 6 camera boasts of higher contrast, dual-domain pixels and an improved polarizer, however this is not quite as impressive as Samsung’s dual action carbine Galaxy with a compass in the stock and this thingy that tells time. The new iPhone has a special Selfie mode with an extendable arm, thereby freeing up the arms of selfie-takers for more important things like primping. This is an important evolutionary feature for humans because scientists recently noted that our right arms are starting to grow longer than our left arms as a direct result of repeated selfie-taking. The camera function also contains a video encoder and image signal processor allowing for better face detection and continuous autofocus, because there is nothing more important than being able to see all of one’s flaws with all the glaring imagery of a telescope. But don’t worry – an auto-enhancing feature will smooth out your imperfections, add a flank of impressive-looking friends and change your ho-hum background into that of an enviable destination of your choice, like a popular new restaurant or a Caribbean resort. Which is a good feature to have, since owning this new iPhone means you’ll no longer be able to afford either.
It saves you gobs of time paying for things. Apple Pay is the new technology that is going to set traditional shopping on its ear. Now, instead of swiping a credit card, you can simply touch your phone. Apple explains:
“Gone are the days of searching for your wallet. The wasted moments finding the right card. The swiping … and waiting. Now payments happen with a single touch.”
Mind you, it probably took you longer to read that paragraph than it does in real life to pay for things with good old-fashioned credit cards. But let’s think about this. If all I have to do is touch a button instead of take out a credit card and swipe, think of all the things I could do with those nanoseconds I’m saving. Like, blink! Or scratch my nose! I have to admit, at the risk of developing arm muscle atrophy I have actually been looking for ways to expend less energy paying for items with credit. With all that extra time, I would, in fact, be able to squeeze a few extra eye blinks into a day. Apple knows its customers and what matters to them, and clearly what matters is alleviating the waiting – oh my gosh, the waiting – for those 1-2 seconds that it takes for the screen to flash the signature line. And then – cripes! I forgot about having to sign. Another 2 seconds of my life gone – GONE, I SAY! Clearly there needs to be an easier and shorter way to pay for things with credit than having to waste upwards of 3 extra seconds at the check-out counter, but Thank The Lord Jesus Christ and Apple, they’ve found a way.
Although I’m not buying their argument about having to search for my wallet. I don’t know about you, but I’ve misplaced my wallet like, never, but lose my cell phone on an hourly basis. What then?
So if you agree that bigger is bigger and are looking to do more for longer periods of time with your accelorometer and your fancy-schmancy polarizer, and you’re mad as hell about to devote an extra 2-3 seconds purchasing items the old, laborious, time-consuming credit card way, then definitely do get in line for the iPhone 6 to secure the possibility that you may have one before Christmas 2016.
Or at least do so to avoid violently imploding the following day, like my teenager can certainly count on doing.
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