Display
The iPhone 6’s screen is where the party’s at. It’s big, bright and beautiful. It’s not the highest-resolution screen out there, but it is a “Retina” display by Apple’s definition.
Measuring 1,334-by-750-pixels, the screen has a resolution of 326 pixels-per-inch, which means someone with 20/20 vision cannot resolve individual pixels at a normal viewing distance of 10.5 inches or more. Someone with my vision (blind as a bat) can’t see the pixels at all, even with my nose pressed right up to the screen.
Apple started the ppi war in 2010 with the iPhone 4, which also had a 326 ppi screen. This has since been eclipsed by a new generation of 400-plus ppi screens, which are getting ever closer to true 1,920 by 1,080 HD resolution. Samsung’s Galaxy S4 boasts 441 ppi and the HTC One has 469. At these resolutions, people with 20/20 vision can’t see the pixels at 7.8 inches away, which is uncomfortably close to the screen.
The 6’s screen is both bigger and brighter than the old 3.5-inch Retina display in the iPhone 4 and 4s. Anyone upgrading from these devices is going to be delighted.
Apple says it’s made several technical improvements to the screen, including better viewing in full sunlight when wearing sunglasses (it’s been too overcast in San Francisco to test) and some gobbledygook about using UV light to precisely position the LCD crystals. “Better-aligned crystals deliver a superior viewing experience,” Apple claims. Does that mean older screens are full of misaligned crystals? I never noticed.
It is amazing how thin and power-friendly Apple’s screen technology has become. I’ve seen a dismantled display, which is thin as a credit card. Apple claims the LED backlighting is the most energy efficient it’s made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdAAgRXIGcE&feature=youtu.be
Display Zoom and Reachability
With the 6 and 6 Plus, Apple introduced a pair of new view settings for the screen.
Display Zoom blows up the screen to the full extent of the larger displays, making everything a bit bigger and making maximum use of the extra real estate. Display Zoom doesn’t make a huge difference on the 6 — it’s more effective on the larger 6 Plus — and I turned it off after a while, preferring the standard view.
There’s also a new feature called Reachability, which makes the bigger phones useable with one hand. A gentle double-tap on the Home button zooms the display halfway down the screen. It brings icons and controls at the top of the screen within reach of your thumb if you’re using one hand.
It works well, for the most part, but it takes some getting used to — and it’s a bit goofy. The biggest problem is how often you have to double-tap to get a task done. The screen resets to its normal size after every tap, so something simple like sending a text message involves dozens of double-taps.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
