Yes, it’s September again, and you know what that means: more Apple stuff. At its traditional press event in California today, Apple unveiled a number of new products. There’s the iPad Pro, a larger cousin of the iPad with a 12.9-inch screen and smart keyboard and stylus accessories reminiscent of Microsoft’s Surface tablets. There’s a new Apple TV with a fancy Siri- and touch-enabled remote. And, of course, there are new iPhones.
The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus are here, and while they may look the same as the previous models, there are a lot of changes under the hood. The biggest is the addition of what Apple is calling 3D Touch, a new aspect of iOS that senses the force of your touch and uses that to allow you to interact with apps in new ways, like “popping” into emails or directly accessing specific app features via a dropdown menu on the home screen that you access by tapping and holding. The new phones have upgraded processors and upgraded cameras (12 MP in the back, 5 MP in the front now) and can even shoot 4K video.
Of course, you probably already know all this. And if you live in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, or Japan, I have good news: the phones will be available on launch day, which is September 25. Pre-orders start on September 12. Although Tim Cook gave India a shoutout as an important iPhone growth market during his presentation, there are no details yet on when the phone is coming to other nations, although Apple says it will be in over 100 countries by the end of the year.
On local Apple store sites in countries like India, the new phones are simply listed as “Coming soon.”
The phones cost about what you would expect. Local prices vary, but they’re all based on the US prices, so the phones will cost somewhere in the area of US$649, US$749, and US$849 for the iPhone 6S (16, 64, and 128 GB models respectively); and US$749, US$849, and US$949 for the iPhone 6S Plus. As usual, Chinese Apple fans get the short end of the stick, with China’s heavy import duties pushing the price of the cheapest model – the 16 GB iPhone 6S – all the way up to US$827 in China.
If you don’t want to pay a big chunk of change up front, though, there is another option. Apple’s also introducing its own subscription plan: for US$32 a month, you can get the latest iPhone and upgrade once a year at no additional charge. The package also includes Applecare+. It’s only available in the US to start with – lame – but Apple says it will be expanded to other countries pretty quickly.
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