iPhone 6 Review (Part 1): Hardware and iOS8

This is the first in a two part review of the iPhone 6. In this post, I cover my initial hands-on impressions with the new iPhone 6 and the new iOS 8. In the next post, I will go into detail on some of the key features like Apple Pay (coming in October), call and data performance, camera experiences and battery life.[gallery ids="1718,1710,1700"]I am taking a year long break from Android to head back to iOS. As an Android user who has now seen 4 years of devices and a huge improvement in the OS from Gingerbread to KitKat (and L beta on a Nexus 5), I am now ready to see how much iOS has changed on the phone front. And to that effect, I preordered an iPhone 6 on AT&T last week and my device arrived today.Why the move from Android to iOS now?I love my Android device (HTC One M7). It fits all my requirements quite nicely. It has a large but not a huge screen (4.7" 1080p display). It has Android Kit Kat, a pretty cool OS with minimal skinning. It has widgets that I actually use. It is just the right size with an excellent industrial design and a good dose of metal. My only complaint with the M7 is its camera. The UltraPixel camera is volatile. At times it takes great pictures and at times, it screws up even the simplest of scenarios. But it was never a deal breaker.Then the iPhone 6 was announced. The iPhone 6 with iOS 8 hits a good sweet spot for me. It is the right size with an excellent display. iOS 8 now allows for custom keyboards (where will I be without you, Swype) and widgets - both of which are necessities for me. It comes with an excellent AppStore of which I need to say no more. And in the one area where it one ups the HTC One, the iPhone 6 boasts a better camera.The timing was perfect. I was looking to experiment with a different OS for a year before heading back to Android. I have a Fire Phone for work which offers its own unique take on Android. For my personal device, it was either Windows Phone or iOS. As good as Windows Phone looks, I am still not fully sold on the ecosystem. So it was iOS and here I am with an iPhone 6 on my hands.Out of the Box ExperienceApple was one of the pioneers of minimalist packaging that is now seen all across the industry. To that effect, the iPhone 6 packaging was no different. It is a simple white box that has the iPhone written on its sides. Once you open the box, there is the usual disclaimer, single sheet user guide, power plug, USB-Thunderbolt cable and the earbuds.[gallery ids="1696,1697,1698,1700,1699,1707"]iPhone 6 HardwareAs always, the most important aspect of every iPhone is the hardware design. This year is especially big - really big. The iPhone makes its jump to the big leagues with the launch of the 4.7 inch iPhone 6 and the 5.5 inch iPhone 6 Plus. As a happy owner of a HTC One M7 which boasts an excellent 4.7 inch display, I naturally leaned towards the iPhone 6.The iPhone 6 feels extremely comfortable in the hand- almost too comfortable at times that I am worried it will slip and fall. To that effect, I strongly recommend a rubberized case with some amount of friction with your hands. The other major design change is the relocation of the power/sleep button from the top to the right side to account for the larger screen. Compared to my HTC One M7, the iPhone 6 feels thinner and lighter but the dimensions are about the same otherwise.[gallery ids="1701,1718,1711,1710,1709,1708,1706,1705,1704,1703,1702"]For long, Apple has prided itself on the one handed use of the iPhones. With the 4.7 and much more so with the 5.5 inch devices, it breaks away from that tradition. To mollify the ardent devotees of one handed use, Apple has added a software feature called "Reachability Mode". The mode can be invoked by gently tapping the home button twice. In practice, I had difficulty activating the mode. I see this as a feature for a checklist but I dont expect it to get much use. See my video below outlining the display and the reachability mode.I am writing this review barely 10 hours after I received my unit. So I cant write up about the iPhone battery life yet. It came in about 70% charged. Ten hours later, it is at 24%. Much of the drop happened fairly early on when I downloaded a huge bulk of apps in one shot. The device felt warm when that was happening. Once the apps were downloaded and setup, I have not seen a big drop in the battery. More on this in the second part of my review.There has been a lot of discussion about the protruding camera in the back. Here is my 2c on it- I dont think it is a big deal. I always use my phone with a case and it does not feel like something to worry about at all. On the other hand, if Apple had considered adding the extra millimeter of bulk in the back and kept things flush and in the process increased the battery size, that might not have been a bad idea at all. As cool as the device is with its thin design, a tad thicker for a larger battery would be most welcome.On the connectivity side, the iPhone 6 has support for Bluetooth 4.0, Wireless 802.11 ac and LTE on 20 bands. The iFixit teardown offers good clues on the exact hardware components if that is of interest to you. From a cellular side, two things standout- VoLTE support and 20 bands on the same device. The VoLTE feature is expected to offer enhanced voice quality and services like video calling and more embedded into the dialer. AT&T has been slowly rolling it out across the country (less than 10 markets in the last count). Verizon has also just started with its VoLTE rollout. The iPhone 6 Qualcomm 9625 chipset also supports Carrier Aggregation, a feature that allows the network to combine resources from two different bands and offer service. This will allow the device to experience higher data rates even in places where the network does not have maximum capacity on one single network.iOS 8iOS 7 was a huge change for iOS. It offered a flat design approach that got rid of much of the skeuomorphic UI that the earlier versions of iOS boasted.  iOS 8 takes the design elements of iOS 7 and refines it. iOS 8 is what iOS 7 would have been if Apple had the time to clean it all up. That is not to say that iOS 8 does not have any standout features. There are a whole lot of new things that are packed into iOS 8 which you can read about here and here. I will focus on four of them.1. Camera UpgradesThe iPhone always boasted one of the best smartphone cameras. iOS on the other hand has been minimalistic in its approach to photo shooting options and letting third party apps drive much of those. With iOS 8, Apple has introduced two new features of interest- time-lapse photography and 240 fps slo-mo video capture. The first feature is available on iPhone 5x also while the second feature is unique to the iPhone 6 family.The time-lapse mode is one of those things that used to be a pro photographer's expertise until a few years ago. You needed special gear and a lot of patience. The patience part still stays but the iPhone is all you need to get started with time-lapse photography. In part two of this iPhone 6 review, I will post some time-lapse and slo-mo videos.2. Custom KeyboardsOne of the biggest upgrades on iOS 8 in my opinion is the ability to use custom keyboards. Android has had it forever and it is about time iPhone supported it too. The first app I paid and downloaded on my iPod touch and the iPhone 6 was Swype.Swype was available by default on my HTC One and Samsung phones before that. And I love using the swiping motion on my keyboard. Setting up a third party keyboard on iOS 8 took a while. And even after it is all setup, it has to be selected by clicking the globe icon for every single app when it is used for the first time. A little roundabout way to do it but it is available finally. So that helps.3. Notifications and ExtensionsiOS 8 allows richer notifications than before which is much welcome given how far ahead Android is in this area. iOS 8 also allows widgets in the name of Extensions. These extensions can communicate directly with the Notifications drop down. I enabled a few of them like Yahoo Weather, Evernote and Calendar. I will know how useful they are as I use them more. I will add more in this section in my second part of the iPhone 6 review.4. HealthThe Health app/ecosystem/interface forms much of the basis for the soon to arrive Apple Watch. Apple originally started offering APIs to track steps and such when it launched the iPhone 5S with the M7 co-processor. With the M8, it is going a step further by adding a barometer sensor in addition to the accelerometer, gyro, and a compass. It is also offering its own Health tracking app which will interface with the Watch when it arrives.Look for third party apps to continue to use this data in various ways like Moves and Nike+.Other UpdatesThere is a new Family Sharing option for apps and other content like books, music and photos. There are updates to every app in small and medium ways like the Photos app, Apple's own keyboard (Quicktype) and Messages. And Continuity via the Handoff mechanism will allow apps to work well across the Apple ecosystem.  Again, nothing revolutionary but they decent tweaks to apps to make them on par with competition and in some cases offer unique experiences.Coming soon In the second part of this review, I will go into detail on Apple Pay with videos of the feature in action, camera options and picture quality and the battery life of the device on normal and abnormal use.