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The iPhone 6S is truly an amazing piece of hardware; there is so much internal enhancement over the iPhone 6. Yet Apple hardly hyped it in that way. I got my

The iPhone 6S is truly an amazing piece of hardware; there is so much internal enhancement over the iPhone 6. Yet Apple hardly hyped it in that way. I got my wife a 6S for Christmas and what convinced me was what I know about it that didn't come from Apple.

jedmeyers 11y ago
The majority of iPhone users have no desire nor ability to understand the engineering genius that went into the internal design, and that is fine. And that is why Apple don't usually advertise those things when they present the new features. "It has a really awesome SoC" won't really cut it for most people.
derefr 11y ago
My impression of the iPhone's tick-tock release cycle is that the number-increment releases are actually intentional efforts of product design... while the "S" releases are actually forced on Apple by the extremely tight supply chain they've set up for themselves. The moment it becomes more cost-efficient to buy a bunch of some new components early, Apple does so—but then the cost of having them sitting around doing nothing when they could be put to use steadily rises. Meanwhile, it can also become increasingly expensive to keep ordering "old" components for your existing design, because the rest of the industry has moved on from using that component and you're the only one the suppliers are still producing it for, and they really want you off it too so they can shut that line down. Together, these effects imply that it actually becomes cost-effective from an operational logistics perspective to refresh the iPhone's hardware each year, even if the "design plan" is written in terms of two-year milestone releases. Whatever ends up being cost-effective to put into the interim refresh gets advertised on stage, but—unlike the actual "planned" releases—it's effectively random, rather than a "curated" list of features that go together to form a whole. Or, to put it another way—Apple likely went to the drawing board and designed the iPhone 7 right after the release of the iPhone 6. Some random subset of the components of the iPhone 7 ended up "resolving" early enough that they got "binned" together as the iPhone 6S. Whatever components didn't become available in time for the 6S release, are now waiting until the 7. When you see a number-increment release like the 6 or the soon-to-be 7, imagine that all the features that went into the previous "S" release were also announced on stage at the same time that they announced whatever did go into it. Because that's what Apple intends to happen; together, the 6S's features and the 7's features (or the 5S's features and the 6's features, etc.) add up to a coherent and compelling product vision. The "S" release just takes a random bite out of that vision and sputters it out early, leaving the actual numbered release to say whatever's left over.

jedmeyers 11y ago

The majority of iPhone users have no desire nor ability to understand the engineering genius that went into the internal design, and that is fine. And that is why Apple don't usually advertise those things when they present the new features. "It has a really awesome SoC" won't really cut it for most people.

derefr 11y ago

My impression of the iPhone's tick-tock release cycle is that the number-increment releases are actually intentional efforts of product design... while the "S" releases are actually forced on Apple by the extremely tight supply chain they've set up for themselves. The moment it becomes more cost-efficient to buy a bunch of some new components early, Apple does so—but then the cost of having them sitting around doing nothing when they could be put to use steadily rises. Meanwhile, it can also become increasingly expensive to keep ordering "old" components for your existing design, because the rest of the industry has moved on from using that component and you're the only one the suppliers are still producing it for, and they really want you off it too so they can shut that line down. Together, these effects imply that it actually becomes cost-effective from an operational logistics perspective to refresh the iPhone's hardware each year, even if the "design plan" is written in terms of two-year milestone releases. Whatever ends up being cost-effective to put into the interim refresh gets advertised on stage, but—unlike the actual "planned" releases—it's effectively random, rather than a "curated" list of features that go together to form a whole. Or, to put it another way—Apple likely went to the drawing board and designed the iPhone 7 right after the release of the iPhone 6. Some random subset of the components of the iPhone 7 ended up "resolving" early enough that they got "binned" together as the iPhone 6S. Whatever components didn't become available in time for the 6S release, are now waiting until the 7. When you see a number-increment release like the 6 or the soon-to-be 7, imagine that all the features that went into the previous "S" release were also announced on stage at the same time that they announced whatever did go into it. Because that's what Apple intends to happen; together, the 6S's features and the 7's features (or the 5S's features and the 6's features, etc.) add up to a coherent and compelling product vision. The "S" release just takes a random bite out of that vision and sputters it out early, leaving the actual numbered release to say whatever's left over.