I'm slightly irked by the rumor of the smaller batter in the iPhone 6s/ 6s Plus. They cite increased battery efficiency as a reason for this.... here's an idea how about keeping the same size batter for MORE battery life!! What does Apple have against giving us long-lasting smartphone battery life?!?!
Will I be irked if the rumours turn out to be true and they put in a smaller battery? Irked? I'll be bl**dy furious!
I was all set to get a 6s because I thought this might be the point where Apple threw everything that it could at improving battery life and could possibly produce a 6s with the battery life of an existing 6 Plus. If they're actually reducing the battery size by about 5% rather than finding space to increase it by 5-10% (which by the look of some of the leaks they might have been able to do especially if they'd increased the case thickness to hide the rear camera bump) then I don't see them getting battery life figures on the 6s up to the level of the existing 6 Plus.
I'm currently on iPhone 5 and I would like a bigger screen and TouchID. If a rumour on 9to5mac is true that Apple is keeping the iPhone 6 in the line-up as a mid-price offering then, if all that Apple have done on the 6s is keep the same battery life as the 6 rather than significantly improve on it, I'll almost certainly go for a 6 rather than a 6s to save a bit of money ($100?) . If Apple don't keep them in the stores then I could always get a new 6 off eBay for probably a bigger saving. That's how I got my existing 5 a couple of years ago and it's still going strong although the battery is showing its age now.
ForceTouch and better cameras aren't worth an extra $100 to me but another 3 hours on video playback time would be without question, in fact I'd pay quite a bit more than an extra $100 for that. (I read ebooks a lot on my phone which obviously has the screen on all the time so the video playback figure is the one I tend to use as the closest approximation to what I care about most.)
I'm going to vote with my wallet on this one I think. Part of me wants to wait for the iPhone 7 if the smaller 6s battery rumours are true but I really do want a bigger screen and TouchID now so I think I need to buy something in the next few weeks.
The iPhone launches always seem to have a slide in the presentation with the claimed battery life times (standby, talk time, music playback, video playback, WiFi & 3G surfing, etc) and I'm pretty much going to make my buying decision based on that slide as follows...
If the iPhone 6s launch doesn't quote at least +1 hour on video playback (i.e. up from a claimed 11 hours to 12) then I think I'll definitely save money and get a 6 because the 6s would give me no improvement that I care about vs the 6. The speed boost I would see going from a 5 to a 6 would already be huge so I don't need the extra CPU power of a 6s and I don't feel constrained by 1GB of memory.
If the 6s launch quotes +2 hours on video playback (i.e. up from a claimed 11 hours to 13 hours) then I will definitely get a 6s regardless of the underlying battery size although if teardowns did subsequently reveal that it had been reduced I would then be irked rather than furious; irked because I would be left thinking that if only they'd kept the same battery size my money would probably have bought me +3 hours of video playback instead of +2.
If the 6s launch quotes +1 hour improvement on claimed video playback time that would make me think about the price difference between a 6 and a 6s and I might go either way.