Replaced my 5s with the new top of the line, 6s plus. Kind of an awkward name. I propose 7P and 7Ps for the next gen.

History: iPhone (no suffix), 4 (quite the upgrade!), 5, 5s (purchased in store on 6 release day to emergency replace 5; that was fun), 6s plus.

I was waiting to see if a new 5 sized phone would trickle down the line, but it appears it’s all big phones from now on. Given the choice between larger and much larger, though, I went with much larger. I spent a fair bit of time reading on my phone and was tired of squinting. Curiously, I bought an iPad for much the same reason, as a dedicated viewing device, but it’s not always with me. At this point I think I’d even consider an iPad mini if they made one with full phone functionality (not just skype or whatever). Can’t quite live without a phone (or can I???), but if it’s only 1% of what I do with the device, maybe it’s time to stop selecting form factors for that purpose.

It’s a little harder to operate one handed. Apple’s solution is to double touch the home button to pull the screen down, but this requires holding the phone quite low, exacerbating the problem. My solution is to use two hands, and if one hand is full, not use my phone. After a week of use, I occasionally find myself futilely trying to close a tab with my thumb, but I’ll learn eventually. It fits in my pocket acceptably walking around, but can occasionally jab when performing complicated maneuvers like tying my shoes.

Bigger phone means bigger battery means much longer battery life when tethered. Soon I’ll have to start charging my laptop from my phone instead of the other way around.

The new Touch ID sensor is really fast. It would take about a second to read on the 5s, but now it’s instant. Push the button to wake the phone and it’s already unlocked.

The screen, despite a strange scaling factor, appears fine. Without pixel peeping it, I can’t even begin to tell where the pixels are.

I was beginning to worry that the relentless CPU performance improvements were coming to an end, with the A8 only slightly faster than the A7, but the A9 seems to be back on track.

After chasing the integer series phones for a while, which always include the most new features, maybe sticking with the s series will work out too. Apple’s worked out a pretty good tick-tock cycle where they release a new model, then they refine it.

Setup is pretty smooth, but asks way too many redundant questions and seems to get worse with every upgrade. I enter my Apple account info and password to restore a backup. Then again to set up new backups. Then again to buy stuff from the store. Then I enter my credit card for Apple Pay. Then again for the app store. In various forms and guises, I must have spent 15 minutes reentering the same information over and over. It’s actually somewhat disconcerting because repeating the same questions so many times gives the impression that there’s no progress being made.

I have a thin Ringke case. Same brand as the case I used on the 5, which despite being just a thin millimeter of plastic, saved my phone from a couple drops. More importantly, with the 6, it keeps the camera bubble from hitting the table top when laying the phone down. The 6 design is a little different, more rounded, but generally disappears once it’s on the phone. From a tip in an Amazon review, I got the one with the cutout for the Apple logo, which makes it a little easier to grip and orient by feel.