Apple is facing a new lawsuit from Deco Proteste, a private consumer organization from Portugal, over “planned obsolescence” with the iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, and 6S Plus. The lawsuit alleges that Apple’s planned obsolescence forces consumers to buy a new phone before they would otherwise have to.
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A new report today from iPhoneSoft claims to have details on what devices Apple plans to drop support with iOS 15. Notably, the information lines up with a preview report we saw at the end of last year suggesting the iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, original iPhone SE will be on the chopping block.
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The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus were really popular smartphones and Apple sold them up until about a year and a half ago. There are lots of customers who are still using the devices but with A9 processors from 2015, they’re starting to show their age (not to mention battery performance throttling). If you’re curious how much faster a new iPhone would be compared to your iPhone 6s, check out the latest speed test pitting the two against each other.
Do you still use an iPhone 6s or have one laying around? Apple on Friday launched a new repair program for iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus units that won’t turn on. Here’s how to check to see if your iPhone 6s is eligible for the program.
[UPDATE: Yep.]
While we know we’ll see three new iPhones unveiled today, the fate of at least two of Apple’s older iPhones is uncertain. The iPhone SE, iPhone 6s, and iPhone 6s Plus are not listed on the leaked sitemap that includes iPhone 7, iPhone 8, iPhone Xs, iPhone Xr, and iPhone Xs Max.
It was first suggested back in January that Apple was planning on beginning iPhone 6s production in India – alongside the iPhone SE – and it is today reported that this is now underway …
Apple confirmed in December that it does slow older iPhones as their batteries age and are unable to handle a full load. The company is currently offering users a discounted rate for battery replacements, giving users the opportunity to return to full power.
A new video shared today offers a great look at just how noticeable the performance difference is between an iPhone 6s with performance throttling, and one with a brand new battery just replaced by Apple…
In a move which hit Apple harder than other smartphone brands, India increased the import tax on smartphones from 10% to 15% in December. Less than two months later, it has just decided to increase the rate again, this time to 20% …
A new report on Wistron’s plans to expand its manufacturing operations in India says that the company will make iPhone 6s models. Only the iPhone SE is currently made in India.
While the report is based on two unconfirmed sources, only one of which is specific, there are two reasons such a move would make sense …
Update: The offer is now live!
AT&T is introducing a couple of new prepaid iPhone deals on their $45/month plans, sources tell us. It will be offering a 32GB iPhone 6s for $344.99, and an iPhone 6s Plus with the same storage for $444.99 …
[Update: Developer Guilherme Rambo has discovered the software system, powerd (short for power daemon), that Apple put in place in iOS 10.2.1. powerd controls CPU/GPU speed and power. It also responds to thermal pressure and helps iPhones from catching fire.
Since powerd was first released in 10.2.1, this looks to be separate from the Low Power Mode feature and directly related to the performance and battery age issues.]
Last week we reported on the news that a new battery could solve performance issues with older iPhone models like the 6s. Today, Geekbench founder, John Poole, published an article describing his findings after diving deeper into the relationship between iPhone performance and battery age.
IHS Markit released its latest data today comparing shipments of 350 smartphones by model last year, and within finds that iPhone 6s topped the list as the most popular, beating out newer iPhone 7 and 7 Plus models and all the Android devices on the market.
Last fall a growing number of iPhone users started experiencing random shutdowns, particularly with iPhone 6s. After Apple launched a battery repair program to solve the issue for some devices, they stated that the problem may be more widespread than first thought and that a fix for some iPhones could come in the form of a software update…
Apple has said that the random shutdowns plaguing some iPhone 6s models may be more widespread than it first believed.
Apple initially said that it found that battery components in a particular batch of iPhones were exposed to the air for too long before assembly, causing the batteries to cut out. It has now updated its statement to say that some customers with phones from outside this batch have also experienced shutdowns, and that it will be issuing an iOS update to help track down the cause …
Just days after launching a repair program for the iPhone 6 Plus “Touch Disease” flaw, Apple today launched yet another repair program, this time for iPhone 6s users. The program is focused on users that are affected by a battery flaw that causes their iPhone 6s to unexpectedly shut down.
New Q2 data from both Strategy Analytics and Kantar shows that the iPhone 6s is the best-selling smartphone in both the USA and worldwide. The 6s accounted for 4.2% of global smartphone sales, says SA, with the iPhone 6 taking second place at 2.5%, just ahead of Samsung’s Galaxy S7 at 2.4%.
“Apple’s iPhone 6s is currently the world’s most popular smartphone,” said Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics. “The iPhone 6s is wildly popular in dozens of countries globally, due to its attractive hardware design blended with rich features such as 4K video, large multi-touch display and fingerprint security.”
Kantar’s U.S. data concurs, the company noting that iOS market share was also up …
Update 8/9: In a statement to Reuters, Apple denied any price-fixing in Russia, claiming that resellers set their own prices:
“Resellers set their own prices for the Apple products they sell in Russia and around the world,” the company said.
Apple is once again being targeted for alleged price-fixing, this time in Russia. The country’s federal antitrust body has today opened a case and investigation into accusations that Apple and 16 resellers formed an agreement to fix prices of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.
According to Military.com, the United States Army’s Special Operations Command will switch from Android to the iPhone. In the past, the Army has given soldiers an Android Tactical Assault Kit, equipped with what was believed to be a variant of the Samsung Galaxy Note. The new iPhone Tactical Assault Kit, however, will feature the iPhone 6s.
Apple today has been hit with a lawsuit by Texas-based Somaltus LLC, which claims that the charging system used by the iPhone violates a patent it acquired from Snap-On Technologies. Snap-On Technologies originally acquired the patent in 2010 for an “integrated battery service system” that performs a “plurality of services related to devices/components that are coupled to the battery.”
Apple is breathing new life into its award-winning Shot on iPhone ad campaign. According to TechCrunch, the company is launching a new series of images in the campaign that focus on color. The campaign is called Colors and will put images shot with an iPhone on billboards across many countries.
The same developer who found the original iOS 10 Dark Mode references in the Messages app, Andy Wiik, has found even more evidence that Apple was/is developing a black appearance for its iPhone and iPad operating system. The latest screenshots show the iOS 10 Simulator presenting the Settings app in a dark interface style, with black cell backgrounds and white text.
The screenshots are captured from the iOS 10 Simulator where it is easier to inject code and discover unfinished flags and behaviour, like this Dark Mode interface style …
A purported image of the front of an iPhone 7 has appeared on the Internet today, via mobipicker.com. Blurry cams and bad photography aside, the picture claims to a major new detail for the upcoming flagship iPhone 7 launch, which is expected to mostly resemble an iPhone 6s in appearance.
The image shows a tweaked Home Button that appears to be flat with the bezel, meaning Apple will drop the physical click in favor of a fully touch-sensitive capacitive Home Button. Noting that the image could quite easily be faked, it does appear to show a button that has no depth …
Alongside various new features (Siri, Auto Unlock, Apple Pay) coming in macOS Sierra, Apple’s next major desktop operating system, it also ships with the brand new version of Safari, Safari 10. Safari 10 introduces a major change in the way the browser handles plugins. In short, proprietary plugins like Adobe Flash will be disabled by default when browsing the web.
This means that websites will serve modern HTML5 representations of content as often as possible as they will not be able to detect an installation of Flash at all. Safari is smart however — it will allow you to enable Flash temporarily on demand …
Siri unlocks a new dimension of functionality in iOS 10, allowing third-party apps to integrate inline into the Siri voice assistant experience. Any developer integration expands utility of Siri dramatically but it’s important to note the limitations of the system Apple announced.
For iOS 10.0, the Siri API will only work with six kinds of application: ride booking (think Uber), messaging, Photo Search (find photos and videos in a particular app), payments (‘Send $100 to John with SquareCash’), VoIP Calling (e.g: Skype) and Workouts (for starting health and fitness activities) …
