iPhone (2007) – 2.0 megapixels iPhone 3G (2008) – 2.0 megapixels iPhone 3GS (2009) – 3.2 megapixels iPhone 4 (2010) – 5.0 megapixels iPhone 4S (2011) – 8.0 megapixels
And there it froze. From 2011 till the iPhone 6s this year, the iPhones had a megapixel count of eight. Yes, there were improvements in the quality of the camera, the sensors (which had larger pixels) and the flash (Apple introduced the dual tone – or True Tone – flash with the iPhone 5S) were always tweaked upwards, but on the spec sheet, it seemed that just as it refused to get into the cores and GHz battle in the processor division, the Cupertino company would rather fight on experience and results rather than megapixels when it came to cameras. To be fair, it was a strategy that served it well – even as its opponents focused on more megapixels, Apple was able to pull so much out of the 8.0-megapixel camera (which seemed so 2010-11 on paper) that it could run an entire campaign based on the pictures taken by the iPhone 6. However, with the latest iPhones, Apple finally decided to not just stick to tweaks in sensors but also upped the ante in the megapixel division – the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus come with 12.0-megapixel cameras, support for 4k videos, and (we can hear the selfie crowd go ‘hallelujah’) 5.0-megapixel front facing cameras. The company however is still betting on experience rather than specs. As it says on the camera section of the iPhone 6s page: Which is why we decided to take them at their word and focus (pun intended) just on hitting the shutter button when we evaluated the camera on the iPhone 6s Plus, which is considered to be a slight notch above that of the iPhone 6s, thanks to the presence of optical image stabilisation. To find out just how much had changed, we also took similar pictures with the iPhone 6 Plus. The results are as follows, and our conclusions come after them:
Conclusion: Much, much better than before…and still so easy to use
We have often been asked why we use the iPhone for so much of our photography, when there are phones with much better specced cameras around. Our answer has been to point at the two greatest assets of the iPhone’s camera – simplicity and consistency. In those departments, it remains unmatched – you pretty much know what you are going to get when you hit the shutter, which is not something you can say of the better-specced shooters in Android and Windows Phone. Yes, we know that we can get better pictures than what we have seen on the iPhone 6s Plus from other devices like the LG G4 and the Samsung Galaxy S6, but what is significant is that in the cases of the latter, they more often than not have to be coaxed out carefully. The iPhone 6s Plus on the other hand, is an ode to the sheer simplicity of photography – just point and shoot and you will get decent results. Yes, Apple did get that right: “All you have to do is find something beautiful and tap the shutter button…” Just how well the 6s Plus compares with other devices out there is something we will be looking at in the coming days, but as of now, what we can tell you is that it is streets ahead of the 6 Plus, which incidentally remains a very good camera phone (don’t forget that the likes of LG and Samsung were comparing their flagships with the 6 Plus not too long ago), and we would go so far as to say that this is perhaps the most significant camera upgrade we have seen on the iPhone since 2011. We love saying “cheese” to this one!
