Tim Cook called the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus the biggest advancements in the history of iPhone. It’s barely been six months since the bigger-than-big devices launched, but we’re already craving some upgrades.
With the first iPhone 6s leaks and rumors starting to hit the Internet, we decided to dream up what Apple could possibly do to make its next smartphone kick more ass than ever.
Here are nine upgrades we hope the iPhone 6s gets this fall:
Wireless charging
The Apple Watch is the first Cupertino product with wireless charging, but it hopefully won’t be the last. Making the iPhone truly wireless by finally ditching the charging cord would be huge for Apple.
Force Touch
The addition of Force Touch is only a matter of time. By adding haptic feedback to the iPhone, Apple will open up an entirely new dimension of UI controls for apps. It could even help Apple ditch the home button someday.
32GB storage standard
Seriously, how is 16GB even an option in the year 2015? Keeping the baseline iPhone 6 storage at 16GB was a hell of a way to get everyone to pay up for the pricier 64GB option, but it also felt like a big money grab. C’mon Tim, we all know 32GB flash chips don’t cost Apple an extra $100.
Better camera
There are two iPhone upgrades you can count on from Apple every year: processor and camera. This year could be the biggest iPhone camera upgrade ever if rumors of a two-lens system with optical zoom are true.
More RAM
Apple’s AX chips provide plenty of processing power, but the iPhone could use an extra boost of RAM to make it even more kick-ass. Most flagship smartphones nowadays come with 2GB of RAM while the iPhone 6 is playing with just 1GB. We expect that will change with the 6s.
Bright colors
We need more colors than just silver, gray and gold. A pinkish rose gold option might be on the way, but that’s mostly aimed at women and fashionistas. It wouldn’t be hard for Apple to cater toward more of us by adding other colors in the anodizing process. We’d love to see blue, green or maybe even yellow options.
All-day battery
The iPhone 6 Plus has the best battery life of any iPhone ever, but we wouldn’t mind 2 millimeters of extra thickness if it means we finally get an iPhone with 24 hours of battery life. It’s time for Jony Ive to put that terraced battery technology to work and give us the power to feed our iAddiction 24/7.
OLED display
The Apple Watch features an absolutely gorgeous OLED display, with blacks that are so dark they suck the light out of the sky. Fancy display technology is really cool on your wrist, but an OLED display would be even more useful on the iPhone where you can binge on Game of Thrones and other shows.
Waterproofing
I’m not saying I want to be able to go scuba diving 50 meters deep with my bigger-than-big OLED display iPhone 6s Plus, but some splash- and dust-proofing would be nice. Some sapphire crystal thrown in so the screen doesn’t crack within the first three months would also be super-duper.
Did we miss a feature you’ve been dreaming of? Drop your iPhone 6s dream features in the comments below.
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
54 responses to “9 features we want to see in the iPhone 6s”
“Making the iPhone truly wireless by finally ditching the charging cord would be a huge for Apple.”
Let’s play fill in the blank! A huge…. hmmm… radish?
#takingabreakfromeditingtoedit. ;)
Did they edit it? What I read just says it “would be huge for Apple,” which makes total sense.
Yeah, they removed the “a” a while back. Looks good now. :)
Maybe USB-C in iPhone?
NO, Not another damn cable transition. I like the lightining
“The Apple Watch is the first Cupertino product with wireless charging, but it hopefully won’t be the last. Making the iPhone truly wireless by finally ditching the charging cord would be a huge for Apple.”
– The apple Watch does not have wireless charging. Just because there is not a wire directly plugging into the watch doesn’t mean it is wireless charging, there is still a wire going to the charging mechanism and you still have to physically touch the charging mechanism, to the watch in order to charge. Wireless charging would be not having the watch or the phone physically connect to anything in order to charge.
All “wireless” charging has a cord that plugs into a power source. In reality, the Apple Watch IS “wireless” as it uses inductive charging. Just like the Palm Pre with the charging stone…it used a magnet in the charger to hold the phone and inductively charge the battery. Same concept with the Apple Watch. Look around the net, you’ll find plenty of docking solutions people are making and they all hold the inductive charger and the phone “sticks” to it. Same concept, same principle, and by definition…wireless charging.
WRONG! Wireless charging means that you have a coil within the device that is able to charge the battery via induction. It receives energy from an external wireless source.
Most wireless charging pads look like mouse pads. Wireless charging for watches and phones would be awesome – then we could have couches build with wireless charging in their armrests or have filaments built into our coffee tables. :)
ability to run Android OS!
Get outta here, phandroid!
Nice b8 m8
Edge to edge screen with smaller or no bezel.
Virtual home bottom in screen.
Switch from lightning to USB-C (can be controversial)
Apple SIM ( virtual SIM, no need to get one from carrier)
Stereo cameras (2 cameras, focus later via software)
Thinner!
Chocolate flavor.
-Display: OLED or UHD
-Chips A9 True Quad-Core & M8
-RAM: 3gb or 4 gb DDR3
-Speaker: Dual Stereo Speakers (standard) w/BeatsbyDrDre Software & Hardware
-iSight Camera: 16 mgp w/true low light sensor
-Video Recording: 4K 60+ fps
-FaceTime: 5mgp (1080×1920) w/Full HD Video Recording
-Video Calling: Able to talk with more then just one person like one of the early episode on Modern Family
-Audio Calling: Able to 3-way
Wi-Fi: and last but not least Wi-Fi Calling for Non-T-mobile customers please…
They can’t record 4K @ 60fps on a phone that’s small enough and cheap enough. 4K @ 60fps requires SSD storage and a TON of it. Plus, it would destroy the battery life. Look at the Black Magic Design 4K @ 60fps cameras, they use SSD storage and a lot of it. The price of the thing would be in the $2000 price range, it would be HUGE, and no one except for a small handful of people would actually buy it. 4K is such a waste right now. It’s a tiny market, lack of content, huge storage requirements, lots of battery requirements, etc. It’s just a waste for a smartphone.
If I remember correctly, the WiFi calling is up to the carrier, and AT&T said it is coming later this year.
Or maybe I dreamt that, because I really want it.
yes wifi calling is carrier dependent. It has nothing to do with iphone 6s since iphone 6 already supports it.
you can 3-way call can’t you? i’ve connected calls before…
3 (and more) way calling has been a feature since the original iPhone in 2007…
The iPhone has supported 3 (or more) way calling since the original iPhone in 2007.
Ever heard of factime audio? theres your wifi calling
smaller screen would be nice
ha
I’d upgrade from my 5s if the 6s had all-day battery and an improved camera with optical zoom. Battery life is my major gripe with smartphones in general. An improved camera would cause us to toss our point-and-shoot in the drawer for good. I can live without wireless charging. I don’t mind plugging in my phone to charge as long as it charges quickly.
Gotta say I went 6Plus purely for the bigger battery, and it gets through all day just fine. But yes, always more battery.
I can squeeze almost two days of life on my 6…
Optical zoom would be nice… optical zoom or a flat back with no camera bump??? (from the guy with the cracked rear camera lens) hmmm…
I agree that for $1,000 we should have been given, at the least, the 32-gig chip & preferably the 64. I can think of at least a dozen other options I want re security & privacy as well as formatting options, but I don’t understand how practicable they’d be in interacting with third-party apps. I like the colours as they are & wouldn’t want Apple to cheapen this gorgeous phone with primary colours. They could add a nice bronzish or deeper gold colour though, and perhaps an elegant brushed iron grey – but keep it classy. IPhones aren’t cheap and shouldn’t look like they are. If someone wants bright primary colours they can by a case or a bumper.
What are you talking about? You must live in a country that has huge taxes. In the US, the 6+ with 128GB retails for $950 and the 6 w/ 128GB retails for $850. The 16GB is either $650 or $750 for the 6+ and I think they should come with 32GB.
lol – look up… way up… here in Canada the 16GB 6 is $840 and 16GB 6+ is $970. So ya, a $1000 phone.
I’m In Toronto where we pay more for just about EVERYthing!
Dreaming of features in the next iPhone? How about 16 or 32 GB of internal storage and a freaking microSD slot? Prices for internal storage are absolutely nuts when you can get a 64 GB Class10 for $35 on Amazon.
I see Samsung’s upcoming offerings have ditched the microSD so maybe that could be some incentive to grab Samsung customers on that front as well?
I don’t think MicroSD can handle faster 4K video at higher fps, plus you need a lot of it to capture any decent footage at the lower fps. I just see 4K right now as a waste and it’s only bragging rights at this point in time. Most households don’t have 4K video, there isn’t much content, and what there is is ripping expensive, takes a long time to download, and it eats up battery life. I think anyone that currently has a 4K capable phone isn’t using 4K all that much, if at all, once they get passed the honeymoon phase and realize that it sucks.
They’ll never offer a micro SD slot, I think you may just need to get over that (The record is broken already). If they did, let’s say you put a slow crappy microSD card in and the overall user experience will degrade. Apple would never allow this and is why they control the hardware. This also along with the fact that the stupid slot takes up a lot of internal space. Another reason Samsung just dropped it.
I think they should make a 5.1 inch version. The iPhone 6 size is looking more like a 5S. The 6+ is just too big for my taste and I think something smack dab in the middle would be perfect. I prefer it if they got speakers that were actually facing the user rather than away from the user, stereo would be nice, induction charging would be great, and 32GB minimum storage and at least 2GB of RAM, A9.
problem is iphone has a huge bezel and that touch id takes up a lot of space. See galaxy s6 for comparison.
Nice list. More ram is good, but I’ve yet to come across any app(s) that has burdened the ram on iPhone 6 to date.
Safari
Aren’t you asking for Galaxy S6 combined with Xperia? :-) All your requests are fulfilled long ago, just not from Apple :-(
P. S. I use both, ios and android plus OSX and Win, so no fanboy junk, please.
Anti glare screen easy to read outdoors.
ram – yes. camera – yes. (thicker) battery – no. i don’t want a thicker phone, this Plus is uncomfortable enough in my pocket without making it any thicker. wireless charging would be cool though
dunno what else i really want, i’m generally pretty happy with my phone and just upgrade coz i hate having old technology
Allow iPhone initiated AirPlay to play on multiple Apple TVs simultaneously. Audio or Video.
Allow users to arrange icons however we want, add a toggle switch to revert back to the standard grid – best of both worlds. Apple still designs, but also allows the user freedom to change things.
I’d personally like to see the screen edge to edge (Similar to iPhone 5/5s) but with less bevel, I also think it should go back to a flatter design, it was definitely stronger in the iPhone 5/5s form factor.
Airplay should have it’s own wireless settings, so you can have airplay connected even when you’re on 4G. This way if you have unreliable internet, you can switch to 4G and still stream or play your music on your internal network.
Just about everyone uses a case on their iPhone. I’m not sure how good an edge-to-edge display would be in practice.
It worked on the iPhone 5/5S, my cases didn’t wrap around the front, they were in line with the thickness of the phone. Even the Apple leather case now only just wraps around the 6 and 6 plus. One can only hope?
Sapphire
Oled display? Forget it. Oled displays look amazing – for the first year that is, then they get burn-in, a green hue and go dark and look like shit. I have been servicing phones for 6 years and have witnessed how great a new oled display looks and how they begin to burn out after just a year. Don’t believe me? Do some research. Perhaps go into a dealership and have a look at the oled phones that have been running on display for a year or so and compare them to the LCD phones that have been running the same amount of time.
Beats audio? Forget it. There is no such thing as “Beats hardware” I have opened so may “Beats Audio” laptops and phones in my career and I have yet to find one of these devices that doesn’t have the exact same mediocre amp/dac combo chips found in every other device on the market….Beats Audio is nothing but a software based equalizer that adds bass and treble. The Cirrus Logic audio hardware found in the iDevices is far superior to that of many “Beats Audio” devices and yes, that includes the HTC M7 (not the M8). Anyone ever tried an iPhone 5s or iPhone 6 using a music player app with a decent eq such as Onkyo’s HF Player or Denon’s Audio? Anyone who knows their audio hardware and understands the use of an equalizer knows Beats Audio is a joke.
I should also say “no” to coloured iPhones. i think coloured any phones are for kids, in my mind they make the phone look incredibly tacky.
dreams!!
USB-C is defo coming but don’t think Apple will change it with the 6s, it will be with the next one. But a surprise would be good !!
Wireless charging & force touch are natural assumptions but don’t think Apple will put that in just yet.
Apple is very clever at this and has always squeezed every last drop of juice from their investment in terms of time and effort for their product design so they might throw in one or two things but not all of them.
It will be the usual incremental s upgrade so I fully expect to see faster processor, better camera, updated finger print scanner, definitely 2GB RAM.
I also expect to see 32Gb to be the base storage to start with considering there will be a 4 inch version of the phone that will be 16 GB model.
Dhaval
i feel like in the next iPhone or the next one after that, we should be able to build our own iPhone, like what kind of resolution we want in our screen and how many megapixels of a camera. because then we would have more battery power for other things. If your a photographer, get a good camera. If your a person that uses there phone for movies or business, get a really nice screen, if you are an average person who likes to have a big battery life and doesn’t care about screen or camera, get a smaller megapixel camera and a average resolution screen for more battery life. This would give us more personalizing than just picking a color and storage amount. And you would get the best experience of what YOU want out of your iPhone
My wish list (not that it matters): All week battery life – come on, aspiring to a day’s worth is just so lame. Smaller (i.e. 5s size phone) – the six is just too big as a phone. Tougher – scratch proof, drop proof, water proof etc (if mobile payments take off, I want it out of its case). Get rid of all of the physical buttons, we really don’t need them any more. No cables – wireless charging, wireless EarPods. And get iOS to “just work” – still too flakey/user unfriendly in some areas for my liking. ForceTouch and haptic feedback would be nice too. Plus just get rid of the memory options – or at least make 64gb the entry level option (with iCloud space to match).
I’d be happy if the only change from the 6 is an all day battery. I’d buy it for sure!
I second “edge to edge screen” Put the 6+ next to my Note 3 and you can see where apple could improve its display, particularly at the top.
There is no reason to ask for more RAM in the next iPhone. The reason there is only 1Gb in the current model is because that’s all it needs. iOS is built on C and other variants, unlike the ram hogging Java that all android OSs are built on. More RAM would not increase performance, it would only serve to increase energy usage and heat output.