Apple has announced lots of big changes for the iPhone 6, but it’s surely far from perfect we tell you. While it’s true that it can do some or a lot of things better than its other competitors, the are definitely lots of features that make the iPhone 6 worth skipping.
1. Wireless Charging
Wireless charging can be found on lots of devices – Nokia & Google being the ones who use it very often on their devices. Apple on the other hand has never utilized it and has used their own Lightning for charging. Basically, what this is is a feature where you have a charging pad and you just place your device on top of it and it will start to charge, even without plugging in a cable to your phone.
A lot of manufacturers are placing twists into device charging – fast charging, USB 3.0 to name a few. If Apple were to incorporate wireless charging, it would be interesting to see how they’d design the charger itself. Maybe in the iPhone 6S, we’ll see, but for now, iPhone fans can only dream.
2. Optical Image Stabilization
If you’ve read into the new iPhones, then I know you’re going to call me out that the iPhone 6 Plus has OIS – the camera technology that allows you to capture with less shake – but to counter, except for the display & the horizontal orientation, you’re paying an extra $100 for an iPhone 6 Plus that exclusively has Optical Image Stabilization. The iPhone 6, which will appeal to the usual iPhone crowd, does not have this feature, and I’m sure a lot of people will believe that the 6 and the 6 Plus are the same. Sadly, they’re not – and if you get the iPhone 6, you’re missing out on OIS, something that, again, Nokia, Samsung, LG, HTC and a lot more have used on their phones already.
3. Laser Auto-Focus
Here’s a flagship feature that’s exclusive to LG, debuting in the LG G3. Laser auto-focus basically allows the camera to focus faster on the subject by firing lasers to get a sense of depth. Apple is going with an approach they’d call Focus Pixels, but in terms of technology, we think we’d put more faith on this type of hardware. And while we have yet to see how the iPhone 6’s camera performs (and we are hoping it lives up to its promises), we can’t deny that it’s at least cool to have lasers. Lasers are cool.
4. Front-Facing Speakers
HTC comes into mind when I think about front-facing speakers, but only because they execute it so well. This type of thing is not exclusive to HTC – Sony has done it, Motorola has done it, Samsung has done it – and in those cases, audio quality has improved for the most part versus your conventional bottom or rear-facing speakers.
If you think about it, it does make sense to have music fired directly at you, and if the manufacturer can implement stereo, that’d be great. If only Apple implemented front-facing speakers, their new iPhones would be better multimedia machines… but sadly, they didn’t just yet.
5. Buttonless Control
Knocking on the screen to wake it up? Grabbing your phone to look at and it displays notifications? Waving over it to scroll through content? Those things aren’t new, and if not overdone, can prove to be very useful. Apple has done none of these things while LG, Motorola, Samsung and a lot more OEMs are – and they’re all using it to create unique experiences for their flagships.
This feature makes more sense on the larger iPhone 6 Plus, but it would be nice if Apple took some tricks and polished them to their own benefit too.
6. Xenon Flash
Again, a not so new feature which goes all the way back to the era of Symbian. Well, we can’t disregard the fact that LED has its pros over Xenon and the other way around, but who says we can’t have both? It really does up the photography experience for a lot of users, so safe to say, that’s one thing a lot of PureView & Galaxy K Zoom users will be enjoying while the iPhone 6 can’t join in.
7. Heart Rate Monitor
Something crazy, but not useless – Samsung has incorporated heart rate monitors into their devices for fitness purposes, and it does bring a level of depth to the experience. If you want to keep a closer eye on your heart but you don’t want to buy any wearable, then a heart rate monitor can prove to be useful. Also, it can also be tapped to take photos as announced with the Galaxy Note 4.
8. More Color Options
Gray, silver and gold – those are all the options that you have for choosing an iPhone 6. Apple may have colors for their iPods and iPhone 5Cs, but those are definitely not flagship material. All I have to do is point you to Nokia’s flagship phones and you’ll find a great range of colors to choose from. Motorola is doing great as well with their Moto Maker, and while Samsung & HTC may have a few subjective design choices, at least they have more than three colors.
9. Better Battery
Apple has made the iPhone thinner once again, they’ve added in more powerful internals and they’ve made everything efficient to compensate for the power hungry hardware; I think this means to say they’re just trying to preserve the usual iPhone battery life, not improve it. Other manufacturers on the other hand are working harder to add in larger capacity batteries into their phones, and so far, the reviews are doing great for them. Why not stay with the iPhone 5‘s thinness and just add in more battery from there? That might be better.
10. Water Resistance / Waterproofing
Finally, the one thing I personally wanted to see in the new iPhone but got disappointed – water resistance or waterproofing. Sony’s Xperia line has been bathing (pun intended) in advertisements and has become known for having waterproof devices in the lineup. Samsung also wishes to follow suit, but they’ve done so with compromises in design that needs more polishing. HTC’s Butterfly is joining in too, and with all of these manufacturers joining in the bandwagon, it’s safe to say there’s a demand for protecting your devices against water. When a flood comes, we might see crazy photos underwater – but they won’t be done using iPhones without bulky cases.
Special Mention: Bluetooth & NFC file sharing – We’re not counting on this, but it is still indeed something that the iPhone cannot do – share files via Bluetooth with other platforms. Also, while NFC is already found on Apple’s new devices, it’s only for Apple Pay – we still don’t have anything similar to Android Beaming.
Did we miss anything important? Or have you been looking for a feature that Apple failed to deliver with the iPhone 6? Feel free to leave your comments and opinions down below! Have friends who are interested in the iPhone 6 — share this with them to see if they still do.
The post 10 Game-Changing Things Not Found on the iPhone 6 appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines, Tech News & Reviews.
