Hardware Design The iPhone 6s is nearly identical in design to the
iPhone 6. In response to the "
bendgate" design flaws of the previous model, changes were made to improve the durability of the chassis: the 6s was constructed from a stronger, 7000 series
aluminum alloy, Alongside the existing gold, silver, and space gray options, a new rose gold color option was also introduced. The iPhone 6s has 2
GiB of RAM, twice as much as any previous iPhone, and also supports
LTE Advanced.
Batteries While the capacities of their non-user-replaceable batteries are slightly smaller (1715
mAh and 2750 mAh respectively), Apple rates the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus as having the same average battery life as their respective predecessors (1810 mAh and 2915 mAh). The A9 system-on-chip was dual-sourced from
TSMC and
Samsung. Although it was speculated that the Samsung version had worse battery performance than the TSMC version, multiple independent tests have shown there is no appreciable difference between the two chips. Although the device was not promoted as such, the iPhone 6s has a degree of water resistance because of a change to its internal design, which places a silicone seal around components of the
logic board and an adhesive
gasket around the display assembly to prevent them from being
shorted by accidental exposure to water.
Displays Their displays are the same sizes as those of the iPhone 6, coming in 4.7-inch 750p and 5.5-inch
1080p (Plus) sizes. The iPhone 6s features a technology known as
3D Touch; sensors are embedded in the screen's backlight layer that measure the firmness of the user's touch input by the distance between it and the cover glass, allowing the device to distinguish between normal and more forceful presses. 3D Touch is combined with a Taptic Engine vibrator to provide associated
haptic feedback. Although similar, this is distinct from the
Force Touch technology used on the
Apple Watch and the trackpad of the
Retina MacBook, as it is more sensitive and can recognize more levels of touch pressure than Force Touch. Due to the hardware needed to implement 3D Touch, the iPhone 6s is heavier than its predecessor.
Cameras The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus feature a 12-megapixel (4032×3024 pixels) rear-facing camera, an upgrade from the 8-
megapixel (3264×2448) unit on previous models, as well as a 5-megapixel front-facing camera, compared to 1.3 megapixels of the
iPhone 5,
iPhone 5s,
iPhone 6, 6 Plus and
iPhone SE. Their rear camera can record
4K video (3840×2160p) for the first time on an iPhone, as well as FullHD (1920×1080p) video at 30, 60 and now 120 frames per second, the latter also for the first time on an iPhone. The camera was well received by many critics of the phone. When the camera takes a
4K video recording, it can use the storage on the phone rapidly. The 16 gigabyte version of the phone was only capable of holding 40 minutes of 4K video (
bit rate: 6 MB/s or 48 Mbit/s). Still photos with 6.5 megapixels (3412×1920) can be captured during video recording.
Storage The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus were originally offered in models with 16, 64, and 128 GB (14.9, 59.6 or 119.2 GiB) of internal storage. Following the release of
iPhone 7 in September 2016, the 16 and 64 GB models were dropped and replaced by a new 32 GB (29.8 GiB) option. Some of this storage space is used by preinstalled software, resulting in usable storage of 11.5, 27.5, 56.5 and 114 GiB. For improved storage performance, iPhone 6s utilizes
NVM Express (NVMe), resulting in a maximum average read speed of 1,840 megabytes per second.
Others The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are the first iPhones to feature Raise to Wake.
Software The iPhone 6s originally shipped with
iOS 9; the operating system leverages the 3D Touch hardware to allow recognition of new gestures and commands, including "peeking" at content with a light touch and "popping" it into view by pressing harder, == Reception ==