Apple's new smartphone models are just now arriving in people's hands, and iFixit has already stripped the iPhone 6s to its screws and frame. Inside they found what looks a lot like an iPhone 6, but with a few critical differences.
Apple's iPhone 6s: a lot like the iPhone 6 inside, but better
The iPhone 6s display is heavier, weighing in at 60 grams compared to the iPhone 6 version at 45 grams. The 3D Touch sensors in the iPhone 6s display make it weigh more, but the trade off is the ability to use same stronger presses introduced on the Apple Watch to perform tasks on your phone.
The battery is slightly smaller, too. The iPhone 6 shipped with a 1,819 mAh battery, where the iPhone 6s uses a 1,715 mAh version. The smaller battery was most likely used to make room for the new Taptic Engine—it fit along the bottom edge of the battery.
The Taptic Engine is pretty impressive. iFixit put their sacrificial iPhone in an x-ray machine to see inside the component. The Taptic Engine's vibrating motor may be small, but its big enough to vibrate your iPhone, and it takes only a single oscillation to reach its full output potential.
The new 5 MP FaceTime (front-facing) camera doesn't take up any more space than the 1.2 MP version it replaces, and 12 MP iSight (rear-facing) camera is a welcome improvement. It's been sitting at 8 MP since the iPhone 4s. The iPhone 6s Plus version, like the iPhone 6 Plus it replaces, also includes hardare-based motion stabilization.
The new iPhone models also include Apple's custom designed A9 processor, 2GB of RAM from Smasung, NAND flash memory from Toshiba, Qualcomm's Cat 6 LTE modem, an InvenSense six-axis gyroscope and accelerometer, Universal Scientific's Wi-Fi chip, and power management chips from Texas Instruments and Dialog.
The iPhone 6s weighs 143 grams, up from the iPhone 6's 129 grams. It's marginally larger, too, at 138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm where the iPhone 6 measured 138.1 x 67.0 x 6.9 mm. The size change isn't enough to make your iPhone 6s too big for most of the iPhone 6 cases already on the market.
iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus pre-orders started on Saturday, September 12th. Deliveries and in-store sales began this morning, September 25th. Do you have your new iPhone yet? If so, let us know if you like it.