The Problem with the iPhone 6 Plus

[mashinhead]

Phone hadn't even been out a week yet. Do you not remember when the iPhone 5 was launched. Give it some time.

I'm with the OP on this one. To use the 5 as a comparison basically means you don't even understand the issue he's raising. The 5 was simply about updating graphics resolution so everything is sharp. What's being discussed here is something complete different. It's about rethinking all apps and OS design specifically for this device. Just making a larger iPhone OS does not work. It's a lazy solution.

I wrote, in the thread I created about this topic, that a great example of how bad of a decision this was, was something that Tim Cook said at the keynote when he introduced the Apple Watch. He said, "what we did not do, was just take the iPhone and shrink it down and put it on your wrist." Which is smart thinking. But they completely didn't apply that here, because all they did was scale up the iPhone, instead of reimagining it.

 

[booksbooks]

Well if you're that unhappy with the 6 plus/6 u can always try something else.

Stop. Everyone just stop posting the most obvious of things. We get it. Yes, we can return the devices. We know.

This is an over simplification. We're having a discussion here about the issues with the phone amongst ourselves. We know we get take it back, sell it, or whatever. That's irrelevant as we already know this.

Why we're discussing this on an Apple based forum on the Internet is that like Apple users can get together and talk about their experience with Apple products, good, bad, and ugly. We can find ourselves in a community of others who may share the same experience as us. We may also discuss these points in the context of business: how successful will Apple be moving forward? Is the leadership on the right track. Do we want to keep investing their stock and products, etc.

This isn't just about a issues with a phone and taking it back. It's about an entire business and how things are going for it. Particularly in a post-Steve Jobs era.

The amount of bugs and issues with the iPhone 6 Plus and iOS 8 is alarming. I have never seen anything like it out of Apple. Siri failing to go into landscape mode, then at some point just doing it. Massive UI glitches all over the place. Poor performance. Drops in internet connections. Poor sound quality on phone calls out of the earpiece. Etc.

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I'm with the OP on this one. To use the 5 as a comparison basically means you don't even understand the issue he's raising. The 5 was simply about updating graphics resolution so everything is sharp. What's being discussed here is something complete different. It's about rethinking all apps and OS design specifically for this device. Just making a larger iPhone OS does not work. It's a lazy solution.

I wrote, in the thread I created about this topic, that a great example of how bad of a decision this was, was something that Tim Cook said at the keynote when he introduced the Apple Watch. He said, "what we did not do, was just take the iPhone and shrink it down and put it on your wrist." Which is smart thinking. But they completely didn't apply that here, because all they did was scale up the iPhone, instead of reimagining it.

This.

 

[circa7]

Stop. Everyone just stop posting the most obvious of things. We get it. Yes, we can return the devices. We know.

This is an over simplification. We're having a discussion here about the issues with the phone amongst ourselves. We know we get take it back, sell it, or whatever. That's irrelevant as we already know this.

Why we're discussing this on an Apple based forum on the Internet is that like Apple users can get together and talk about their experience with Apple products, good, bad, and ugly. We can find ourselves in a community of others who may share the same experience as us. We may also discuss these points in the context of business: how successful will Apple be moving forward? Is the leadership on the right track. Do we want to keep investing their stock and products, etc.

This isn't just about a issues with a phone and taking it back. It's about an entire business and how things are going for it. Particularly in a post-Steve Jobs era.

The amount of bugs and issues with the iPhone 6 Plus and iOS 8 is alarming. I have never seen anything like it out of Apple. Siri failing to go into landscape mode, then at some point just doing it. Massive UI glitches all over the place. Poor performance. Drops in internet connections. Poor sound quality on phone calls out of the earpiece. Etc.

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This.

AMEN. I've never had so many issues with Apple as I have lately. This is coming from someone who is decked out in Apple products and would almost never go elsewhere. But the myriad of problems lately is crazy.

 

[dilutedq]

AMEN. I've never had so many issues with Apple as I have lately. This is coming from someone who is decked out in Apple products and would almost never go elsewhere. But the myriad of problems lately is crazy.

What actual issues have you had that have impacted the use of your phone so much as to feel this way.

I've had some ui glitches but they are nothing compared to the glitches I get on my Nexus 5. The phone has better hardware, better screen. Everything is better than what else is out there now. I know that apple will release a new version of IOS 8 that will hammer out the small quirks...

 

[Zinthar]

Good points but there's something missing from your analysis that I keep discussing:

The iPhone 6 Plus is a tweener. A new category of screen size for Apple. Developers/Designers cannot design something for a smaller phone (iPhone 5, iPhone 6...) and have that same design work well on such a larger screen. I do this for a living. It doesn't happen.

It's not just about resolution, you have to redesign your App. You will get problems with white space issues, FITTS principle will be out the window, etc.

Some tangible stuff: all your hit targets (buttons) have to be carefully designed/sized in consideration of the screen size. You have to look at how content is appearing. You may completely toss the idea of designing any navigation at the top of your App because the screen is so tall (bad usability to reach). You now have more room for main content, not just heightwise, but widthwise... how is that looking? Will it affect our UI? Most probably yes...

You have to consider all of these things to get a good experience going out of an App for a device of this "odd" size. The point is this isn't trivial anymore. This isn't just a point sync over. This is a device that demands redesigns all for itself.

I wasn't disagreeing with you on those points nor doubting your expertise on the matter. I can see how it would be a major pain in the ass for developers and I really do sympathize.

But the average end user is just going to care about the result, and developers like yourself will probably opt to put in the work to get it right because the market of people who are willing to throw down the cash on $800-1k phones is a lucrative one.

I hope for your sake that it's primarily a matter of figuring out how to design it the first time and then subsequent redesigns will be easier ports. I doubt Apple is planning on changing point sizes again anytime soon and pissing everyone off.

P.S. I didn't buy the Plus so please consider me blameless. FWIW, I'd have preferred a single 5.0-5.2" iPhone 6.

 

[Nate.]

Outside of a number of things, like:

• Weird bugs (try typing in landscape mode in Mail... the text is cut off for me)
• Low volume from ear speaker for phone calls
• It may be weak and bend too easily (compare to Note 3)
• It's very big and awkward

Here's the major problem: It's a tweener.

What does that mean? It's such an odd size that it's effectively, in some ways, in between a full size tablet and a smartphone. No, it's not as big as a 7" tablet, a size typically used as the benchmark for tweeners. But it approaches tweener territory. And what does this really mean?

It means that Apps need to be designed specifically for it.

Right now, the lack of Apps is a huge issue for me. Everything is blown up and looks like crap. Facebook, banking Apps, everything. iOS does not do this well: it just blows everything up, including the text. It's pixelated and looks like garbage. This is in some ways even worse than Android, and I hate Android.

This is fragmentation. Tim Cook and company should have done a lot more to prepare a better App showing out of the gate. And they should have done a deeper dive into iOS to deal with better scaling. I know to be patient as developers change their Apps and the 5S was a screen jump from previous iPhones, but there's the problem:

It's a tweener, and it needs more customized design when it comes to Apps.

The 5S was easy: it was just another row. The interfaces of Apps didn't really change at all. There was just a bit more vertical room for content. The 6 Plus is different because it's so fundamentally different as to be a huge leap in screen size both width and height wise. For example, Apple has introduced split screen in things like Mail, Reminders, etc. The problem is, it doesn't work very well because it's trying to do things that a large screen full size iPad does and it doesn't translate/work very well. And just blowing up the same interface from the smaller screened iPhones (e.g., 5S) doesn't translate either.

I believe this is going to be a challenge and it's not clear what the results will be, or when the situation will improve dramatically. But my opinion is that the 6 Plus is a different category of device and developers simply cannot just make the same interface for a 5S/6 over to the Plus.

Agreed completely with the scaling. Though I think a lot of it is on the developers end, there should've been more prep with more mainstream apps as far as optimization goes. I can understand Apple not letting the cat out of the bag with the 6+ to smaller app developers, but for big companies there's just no excuse. Why the hell is Instagram STILL not optimized for iPhone 6 Plus?

I'm not too peeved by it, as I bought the original iPad Mini at launch and the same exact issue happened, I had to deal with iPhone sized apps in the middle of my new iPad's screen for a few months, and it sucked, but within a few months I was enjoying the real estate the way it was supposed to be. It just takes time for developers to catch up.

 

[burgman]

Just to take stock: I've read through all the posts now in this thread. Someone on page 1 mentioned a 5.2" device. That's more what I was thinking. I believe Apple has made a mistake introducing two different screen sizes here. They should have kept it simple and released just 1 new iPhone.

Here's my take.

It's for fanboys to get out of their delusions and realize that Apple - Tim Cook - has been riding on the coattails of Steve Jobs since he died. Nobody, nobody can say whether Tim Cook is right for Apple, and that Apple will go in the right direction.

For me, the tweener 6 Plus that I own is feeling like a bizarre device. What would Steve have done? And don't ******** me that nobody should ask what Steve would have done because some idiot journalist wrote an article years ago about that that everyone vomits up. You should ask that right now because Steve is the only reason Apple even exists today and made the products they did.

He would have said, "Focus. One new phone. Not two entirely different screen sizes. Slice those bezels, make it as small physically as possible but with a perfect jump in screen size".

What would he be saying about Beats Audio? "Why the fxck did you do that? You're selling another brand under the Apple brand? That's confusing firstly."

What would he say about the iOS 8.0.1 update? "You should hate yourselves."

What would he say about the massive delay in the Apple TV that he had apparently cracked years ago? "What the fxck are you waiting for?"

Look, what I see is a loss of focus at Apple. Forget the watch Apple, get your crown jewel right first. Right now, the iPhone 6/6 Plus are blowing up pretty much every App out there and the experience is crap. None of this stuff is acceptable.

The 5.2" phone is the Moto X. I think it's too thick but very cool and with their ear piece and Moto 360 watch and Android L, I'm seriously considering defecting over to Android and getting the Moto X, Moto 360, and ear piece. All of that combined would be cheaper than the iPhone 6 Plus 128 GB that I have!

Stopped reading at what would Steve do. Seriously people you never met the man, never worked for him, just stop posting like you have insight into him or his business methods. What about all of the recalled and known problems on hardware while Steve was there? Did they not happen or is the distortion field that strong in you?
Does this let Apple of the hook for QC, of course not but please fix those long term memory problems. If you didn't use Apple products in the last 10 years then ok.

 

[Truefan31]

Just to take stock: I've read through all the posts now in this thread. Someone on page 1 mentioned a 5.2" device. That's more what I was thinking. I believe Apple has made a mistake introducing two different screen sizes here. They should have kept it simple and released just 1 new iPhone.



Here's my take.



It's for fanboys to get out of their delusions and realize that Apple - Tim Cook - has been riding on the coattails of Steve Jobs since he died. Nobody, nobody can say whether Tim Cook is right for Apple, and that Apple will go in the right direction.



For me, the tweener 6 Plus that I own is feeling like a bizarre device. What would Steve have done? And don't ******** me that nobody should ask what Steve would have done because some idiot journalist wrote an article years ago about that that everyone vomits up. You should ask that right now because Steve is the only reason Apple even exists today and made the products they did.



He would have said, "Focus. One new phone. Not two entirely different screen sizes. Slice those bezels, make it as small physically as possible but with a perfect jump in screen size".



What would he be saying about Beats Audio? "Why the fxck did you do that? You're selling another brand under the Apple brand? That's confusing firstly."



What would he say about the iOS 8.0.1 update? "You should hate yourselves."



What would he say about the massive delay in the Apple TV that he had apparently cracked years ago? "What the fxck are you waiting for?"



Look, what I see is a loss of focus at Apple. Forget the watch Apple, get your crown jewel right first. Right now, the iPhone 6/6 Plus are blowing up pretty much every App out there and the experience is crap. None of this stuff is acceptable.



The 5.2" phone is the Moto X. I think it's too thick but very cool and with their ear piece and Moto 360 watch and Android L, I'm seriously considering defecting over to Android and getting the Moto X, Moto 360, and ear piece. All of that combined would be cheaper than the iPhone 6 Plus 128 GB that I have!

I understand this is your take but I don't think dead men speak so no one here knows what or how Steve jobs would've done. It doesn't matter. He's dead. And Steve jobs wasn't always right, like thinking his vegan diet meant he didn't have to bathe or trying alternative meds to cure his disease when he ultimately could've been cured by formal medicine.

 

[OneMike]

I'm with the OP on this one. To use the 5 as a comparison basically means you don't even understand the issue he's raising. The 5 was simply about updating graphics resolution so everything is sharp. What's being discussed here is something complete different. It's about rethinking all apps and OS design specifically for this device. Just making a larger iPhone OS does not work. It's a lazy solution.

Incorrect! The 4S was a 3.5 inch screen, the 5 was a 4 inch screen. It's the same principle as when going from a 5 to a 6 or plus. Along with resolution, in both cases there was more screen space to work with.

The phone has been out a little over two weeks now and many apps have already been revamped. Get out of the I want it and I want it now phase. Be patient.

 

[TheDoubler55]

I think that the phone works very well for just coming out, The only issues I have at this point are the apps not being fully developed for the plus and the fact that apple decided to take away the Nike+ ipod app in settings. I believe that was a dumb thing to do. The phone is super fast and the battery life is insane.

 

[mashinhead]

Incorrect! The 4S was a 3.5 inch screen, the 5 was a 4 inch screen. It's the same principle as when going from a 5 to a 6 or plus.

No its not. Thats like saying jumping from and iPhone to the iPad is the same principal just because it's bigger. If they had just ported iOS for iPhone to the iPad, that would be the same principal. It' has reached a size that is too large for the iOS for iPhone to work for it.

 

[OneMike]

No its not. Thats like saying jumping from and iPhone to the iPad is the same principal just because it's bigger. If they had just ported iOS for iPhone to the iPad, that would be the same principal. It' has reached a size that is too large for the iOS for iPhone to work for it.

Again I don't agree with you. Tired of debate so carry on.

 

[Truefan31]

No its not. Thats like saying jumping from and iPhone to the iPad is the same principal just because it's bigger. If they had just ported iOS for iPhone to the iPad, that would be the same principal. It' has reached a size that is too large for the iOS for iPhone to work for it.

It's been like 2 weeks. Patience is a virtue. If not return it. And it's not the same principle. It's a phone segment vs tablet segment.