iPhone 6 Plus: Crazy Big, Just Right!

By now you've probably read more news and reviews of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus than you need. So, my keen sense of understanding about what my readership wants tells me to add my two cents to the myriad drivel. What can I say? It's like a sixth sense.

So, why did I decide to buy this ridiculously large iPhone? Was it the extra screen real estate? Was it the exceptional keyboard extras when in landscape mode? Was it the very viewable movie experience? Was it the need to be blatantly obvious about owning the newest Apple flagship?  Well, yes to all, but the real clincher for me was the extra battery life afforded by the much larger size. With virtually identical innards as the iPhone 6, the 6 Plus has a lot more room for lithium. And boy can I tell the difference.

I've owned iPhones since 2007. The only model I skipped was the 5s. AT&T didn't see fit to let me upgrade my iPhone 5 at the subsidized price and I just couldn't bring myself to turn loose of $649 for the beefier processor and Touch ID. Call me frugal. (Then tell my wife.) Anyway, all those iPhones taught me one thing: Never get too far from a charger! At first it was a real paradigm shift. Before my original iPhone, the Samsung feature phone (I forget the model) I had would go two or three days on a full charge depending on usage. As many of you may recall, the original iPhone had trouble getting through an 8-hour work day without the low power alarm going off. Back then I didn't care. I was so enamored with the device and so busy being cool, the iPhone's abbreviated battery life was something I adapted to unbegrudgingly. Through the years, Apple greatly improved the iPhone's battery life. It's hard to know if this improvement should be attributed to advances in hardware or software. I'm betting it was a combination of the two. There was no seed change I can recall, rather a series if incremental improvements over the years. My iPhone 5 would make it through a full work day and well into the evening without a recharge. My 6 Plus typically makes it to lunchtime the next day. Not to suggest that's some sort of pattern I follow, but now I never feel the need to carry a charger when leaving home in the morning with a full charge, even if I plan for a late evening. That's a feeling I haven't experienced since my pre-iPhone days and it makes Apple's largest iPhone the right choice for me.

That's not to say the much larger size of the 6 Plus doesn't take some getting used to. One-handed operation is sort of a balancing exercise versus the “grip-n-thumb” operation of the 5 or 5s. Recognizing this, Apple added a GUI feature to minimize the need for both hands. Double-tapping the TouchID button on the 6 Plus scrolls the home screen half way down making the uppermost icons easily reachable for even the shortest thumbs.

Also, my shirt pocket is no longer a viable portage option. Most of my shirt pockets leave a quarter to one third of the phone protruding. The 6 Plus does fit in all my pants and shorts pockets, but it fills them completely. That's no big deal for me. Since my first iPhone, I've always reserved one pants pocket exclusively for my phone. The thought of my $600+ iPhone bouncing around in a confined space with my car keys makes me wince. The concept is tantamount to storing a Picasso in the back of a broom closet. Anyway, for me, the 6 Plus's size isn't an issue. but for people with small hands and/or small pockets, using it could be problematic.

One unexpected side effect of using the bigger phone: I find myself reaching for my iPad Air less and less. In fact, I'll bet I use it less than half as much as I did before getting the 6 Plus. With my iPhone 5, e-mail was something mostly only viewed with just an occasional quick response. Longer compositions almost always happened on my Mac or iPad. Now, I'm perfectly at home composing 50 to 100 word messages on my phone. The 6 Plus' new split pane mode behaves identically to the iPad and the larger keyboard makes composition much easier for a sausage-fingered person like myself, especially in landscape mode. The same goes for one of my most used apps, Evernote.  It's what I use to document everything I do as an IT consultant but I would only use my iPhone 5 for that task as a last resort. Apple's expanded landscape keyboard on the 6 Plus makes typing much faster and is a real difference-maker when you need to do more than reply a text message or compose a tweet.  Having the extra punctuation along with cut, copy and paste buttons eliminate a lot of keyboard shifting, but the new keys I like the most are the arrow keys. Having the ability to move around within a document without using the "tounch-n-hold" method of invoking the magnifying glass is a very handy time saver, especially when you just need to move back a few characters to change or insert something.

The long and short of it for all you iPhone die-hards like myself: The iPhone 6 Plus is definitely not for everyone, but if leaving your Lightning cable at home is near the top of your want list, it’s definitely your best bet. Despite Apple’s best efforts, there are times you’ll need both hands to handle this whopper, but like all big changes, it just takes a little getting used to. Any and all of the iPhone 6 Plus' peccadilloes don't add up to the inconvenience of a dead battery.

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