iPhone 6 review: The little things make it a real star

The larger design is very welcome, but there's much more to the iPhone 6 than a bigger screen

Security for work and home

The iPhone 6 and iOS 8 together are a powerhouse when it comes to security if tied to a mobile management server such as those from Citrix Systems, Good Technology, MobileIron, or any of several other vendors. In addition to supporting Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) policies:

• iOS 8 has more APIs for security and management than any platform, BlackBerry excluded (when using its BES server).
• iOS 8 provides a broader set of management capabilities, such as for e-books, than just security management.
• It has vastly more user privacy controls than any other platform — personal security is anathema to Google's business model and not a concern in other mobile OSes, but should be.
• It has hardware-protected biometric security and now credit card security no one else provides.

Nothing comes close to iOS 8's privacy controls over the data gathered by the iPhone's hardware and accessed by apps.

For corporate security, iOS 8 and BlackBerry 10 are essentially tied when used with a management server. Nothing matches BlackBerry's backbone network security, but even those backbones are open to national governments' spy agencies. Most businesses long ago decided they weren't so worried about the backbone anyhow
What iOS ostensibly lacks is support for the notion of separate device personas, but that's more style than substance given the internal separation possible in iOS between personal and corporate assets. It's telling that persona-separation technologies such as BlackBerry Balance, Divide for Android, and Samsung Knox for some Android devices have gained little uptake despite massive attention.

About the supersized iPhone 6 Plus ...

I was unable to buy an iPhone 6 Plus to test, and Apple declined to loan InfoWorld one for review. But I spent a few minutes with one at Apple's Sept. 9 launch event and a few minutes more with units at several
What's different about the iPhone 6 Plus is the size and rear camera. In every other respect, it has all the positives and minuses of an iPhone 6.

The screen measures 5.5 inches diagonally, and the device weighs 6.07 ounces — that's 1.52 ounces, or 33.4 percent, more than the iPhone 6's 4.55 ounces. The rear camera's lens has an optical stabilization feature meant to help overcome the inevitable jitters from trying to hold such a monster device steadily in motion photography. (I could not test that.)

That extra time with the devices didn't change my opinion that the iPhone 6 Plus is too big. It's too much of a handful even with Apple's one-handed display trick (which also works on the iPhone 6): Double-tap the Home button to bring down the screen, so you can reach the top of the screen with your thumb. In most apps, you can scroll down in that diminished screen — but not in all.

The iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 6 (shown here) let you double-tap the Home button to pull down the app so the top of its screen is more easily accessed by your thumb when controlling the iPhone with one hand.

The iPhone 6 Plus sticks too far out of a men's shirt pocket. That's great for surreptitious video recording, but I'd be constantly worried about it sliding out and falling to the floor any time I bent forward.

However, it's cool that apps can be designed to use all the extra screen real estate in landscape mode on an iPhone 6 Plus, switching to double-column view on Mail, for example, as if they were iPad apps. That's a smart accommodation of the "ablet" part of "phablet," and I wish Android phablets did the same.

I know there are people who love phablets, and who are comfortable using it with two hands all the time. And I know many of the Android makers are falling all over themselves to make each new model even bigger than the last, leading to really grotesque phone sizes. Seriously, people: A 4.7-inch screen is the optimal size for viewing, carrying, holding, and manipulating.

If you really want a micro tablet more than a smartphone, rather than use both an iPhone and an iPad, then I get the appeal of the iPhone 6 Plus. But try out an iPhone 6 Plus in person to see if it's right for you.

The iPhone 6: This is the iPhone you've been waiting for

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are available from the major U.S. carriers — AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon — as well as from major carriers in Japan, Australia, and much of Europe. (Apple's still waiting for regulatory approval in China.)

The iPhone 6 costs $649 for the 16GB model, $749 for 64GB, and $849 for 128GB — the pricier models offer more capacity than the predecessor iPhone 5s did. Some carriers will subsidize those prices with a $450 discount if you agree to a two-year contract. The iPhone 6 Plus has the same capacities but costs $100 more for each model. The casing colors are the same as for the iPhone 5s: silver, gold, and dark gray. Gone is the M&Ms color scheme of last year's iPhone 5c.

Samsung has derisively congratulated Apple for the new iPhone models, saying "Welcome to 2012." It's true that the iPhone 5 series was too small at 4 inches, and most iPhone users have jealously regarded those bigger competitors. But the iPhone 6 is a much better smartphone than the competitors' offerings. Much of that is because iOS 8 is a vastly superior operating system to Android 4.4 KitKat, and Apple's customizations of iOS 8 for the new phones is smarter and more sophisticated in most cases than what Android smartphone makers have done.

No one can match Apple when it comes to the total package — once Apple commits to that total package. Although a good smartphone, the iPhone 5s was clearly an interim product. The iPhone 6 is the total package — and a great smartphone.