AppleInsider podcast goes hands-on with iPhone 6s, answers questions about watchOS 2 & much more

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Posted:
in General Discussion edited September 2015
On this week's AppleInsider podcast, Dan and Victor talk hands-on wit the new Phone 6s, Mikey and Neil discuss iOS 9 adoption, Neil's favorite features of watchOS 2, and content blockers. We also discuss some of the ways the iPhone and now the Apple Watch act as assistive devices, and Mikey's appearance on MSNBC.



AppleInsider staff members Mikey Campbell, Victor Marks, and Neil Hughes discuss these top stories:
  • The iPhone 6s is here! Dan has one
  • watchOS 2 is here
  • Listener questions about watchOS 2 and the new Apple TV
  • The best watchOS 2 apps (including Proloquo2Go and DarkSky)
  • Mikey on MSNBC, "Apple Car" won't be self-driving (at first, at least)
  • iOS 9 content blocker controversy
  • XCodeGhost and malware-infiltrated apps
The show is available on iTunes and your favorite podcast apps by searching for "AppleInsider." Click here to listen, subscribe, and don't forget to rate our show.

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You can also listen to it embedded via SoundCloud below:



Show note links: Follow our hosts on Twitter: @mikeycampbell81, @vmarks, and @thisisneil.

We'd appreciate your feedback and comments, as well as any questions that we can answer on future episodes. Send your responses to the AppleInsider podcast at [email protected] and follow or tweet at us @appleinsider.

Finally, anyone interested in sponsoring the show can reach out to us at [email protected].

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    ingelaingela Posts: 217member

    I think we are getting to the peak end of the smartphone curve. The point where your phone's state of the art is so good, you do  not need to upgrade as often and still have a great experience with it.



    Other than the larger screen this time around with the 6, my 5s does juts fine with most everything out there that I use on a daily basis. Actually the 5s is so good, and so well made with it's sexy design, that I've felt I was downgrading by upgrading.

    I WANT a new phone, but the logical part of me tells me I do not NEED a new phone, and it reminds me again how nice the 5S is.

     

    So will skip the entire 6 cycle entirely. I will definitely get the 7 no doubt, but I really do think we have reach the point where the state of the art can now be commoditized  by anyone with a flood coming to market with smartphones that are good enough for everyone's needs and upgrade cycles that the car may be Apple's Ark. Because like with the iPad, with a great, well made product, upgrade cycles grow longer and longer. 



     

  • Reply 2 of 10
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Just asking, but why does he not refer to himself as "Mike"?
  • Reply 3 of 10
    vmarksvmarks Posts: 762editor

    I invite you to try any one of the competing smartphones and see if your hypothesis holds true. I'd like to hear the results? What alternative smartphones would you use? Nokia? Moto? ZTE? Huawei?

     

    I think we're on a faster development cycle, where the phone improves in important ways with every release.

     

    Certainly, you can lag behind that cycle for a little while, but at some point devices wear out physically, functionally, and become unsupported with software.  Try and use a 3G for any length of time, and you'll find that many of the apps no longer function because the servers or authentication methods have moved on as time has passed.

  • Reply 4 of 10
    slprescottslprescott Posts: 765member
    Apple Wallet is cropping info on the left and right edges of my screen, making some text incomplete and illegible.

    IPhone 6s, iOS 9

    Edit: Apparently this is a bug in the screen scaling when configured in "Standard" mode. Changing the screen to "Zoomed" is a workaround to fix the problem.
  • Reply 5 of 10
    vmarksvmarks Posts: 762editor



    Can you post screenshots of both views, standard and zoomed? I'd like to see what you see.

     

    Thanks!

  • Reply 6 of 10
    slprescottslprescott Posts: 765member
    I would, but it appears to have corrected itself. It now renders properly in both display modes.
  • Reply 7 of 10
    slprescottslprescott Posts: 765member

    One other observation on the new updates:

     

    watchOS 2.0 appears to have decreased the font size -- within the Maps app -- of the remaining distance on your current leg.

     

    For example, if you're on Main Street, it used to display in a BIG font, "3.7 miles".

     

    Now it displays this distance in the normal font size.

     

    I know this is a very picky use case, but I particularly liked the large font because it was very visible when you glanced briefly at your watch.  Now it's a bit harder to read.  I don't know why they changed this... it was nice in watchOS 2.0 (in my opinion).

     

    ?Overall I like watchOS 2.0 a lot; this is just one feature that regressed slightly for me.

  • Reply 8 of 10
    sphericspheric Posts: 2,564member
    However, the actual directions ("turn onto exit 33 to Billstedt") are in a LARGER font now - which I'm happy about. :)
  • Reply 9 of 10
    fafotfafot Posts: 19member
    I am responding in regards to the ad blockers:
    As you mentioned in your podcast the ads became very annoying up to a point that now nobody want to even consider ads at all. I was subscriber for about a year to your app because I value your opinions and news you bringing and I do think that you should be paid for what you are doing.

    On the other hand I am using Firefox for browsing the web and I have add blocker for many years. When I on rare occasion using IE on my PC I am shocked at the amount of ads that are completely destroying the pleasure of reading the news or anything at all. The worse ads are the ones that are gif types (moving all the time)and the pop-up windows.

    So when looking for solutions in regards to this problem, I think that it is way too late and actually the future of ads will be the same as current TV channels: Young people watch YouTube, Netflix or Hulu and not the usual channels. Once it happened they will never again go back to watch TV as it was once. Same in regards to ads - once there will start using ad blockers - ads are done.
  • Reply 10 of 10
    gelevaagelevaa Posts: 1member
    I am referring to the general podcast content.

    I like the content. It is insightful and helpful most of the time. I would like to suggest that you guys:

    COMPARE and CONTRAST iOS vs. Android.

    It would be great to here all of the pro an con arguments and whether they are real or fluff. I hear a lot of comparisons to Android, but they are usually just comments in passing and not a rigorous comparison.

    Cheers!
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