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Chronicles

The story behind the story

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iPhone 6 better in every way: display, performance, photos, videos, battery life, and network speed

The iPhones 6  —  The Big Picture  —  A few days into testing the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, I accidentally left my personal iPhone 5S on a desk next to the iPhone 6 Plus.

Daring Fireball John Gruber

Context & Ripple Effects

Apple's move to bigger iPhones has been building for years: back in September 2012 the iPhone 5's taller screen was framed as the phone 'taking to the big screen,' and the 6 Plus is the logical endpoint of that arc — Apple finally competing in the large-phone category outright.

The breadth of same-day pickup is itself the story: Daring Fireball, TechCrunch, Re/code, Yahoo Tech, Six Colors, The Verge and others all published verdicts on or about September 17, 2014, converging on the confirmed reviewer consensus that both new models beat the iPhone 5S on display, performance, photos, video, battery life, and network speed.

First-order effects

  • iPhone 5S owners weighing an upgrade get an unusually clean answer this cycle — reviewers find no dimension where the older phone wins — which concentrates upgrade demand into the 6 and 6 Plus decision rather than a wait-and-see.
  • Samsung and other large-phone specialists lose their size differentiation at exactly the moment their own flagships are being compared against Apple's first entry in the category.

Second-order effects

  • App developers and accessory makers now have to support two new iPhone sizes alongside the existing installed base, splitting design and SKU decisions that were previously one-size-fits-all.
  • Carrier and retail conversations shift toward which of the two models fits a buyer, echoing the choice-framing coverage like Yahoo Tech's 'which should you buy' piece rather than whether to buy an iPhone at all.

Third-order effects

  • If the pattern holds, the large-screen format stops being a niche Android segment and becomes the default smartphone shape, with Apple's entry validating demand that rivals had been serving alone.
  • The synchronized review event — dozens of outlets publishing verdicts within days — hardens into an annual industry rhythm where each fall iPhone cycle resets comparison baselines for the whole market.

The trend: Smartphones are consolidating around the large-screen format, with Apple's 2014 entry turning the phablet from a rival niche into the mainstream standard.

Related: iPhone 6 · The iPhone 6 Plus · The iPhone Takes to the Big Screen · iPhone

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