First Week With the iPhone 6

I've had my iPhone 6 for almost a week now and I could not be happier with it. I wrote earlier about what I was looking forward to in the new iPhone and I'm happy to say that each thing on that list has met my expectations.

Camera

The camera is a huge upgrade from the iPhone 5. Focus pixels work incredibly fast. The new lenses and image stabilization combine for incredibly sharp picture with great color accuracy. It's no DSLR obviously, but for something that's thinner than a pen it delivers incredible performance and reliability.

I have yet to test the timelapse but I have played around with the slow motion feature and it's super fun. The editing controls for selecting the portion of the video clip you wish to play in slow motion are simple, intuitive and accurate. I am not sure if, simply because I've yet to try, you can have multiple slow motion sections in a single clip. I can't wait to take some time to explore and put the camera through it's paces around Kansas City.

Battery

Next on my list was the battery. Simply put the batter in the iPhone 6 is marvelous. I understand that a new battery trumps an old battery any day, I get it. But my iPhone 5 was only a year old because I had to replace my original one, so the battery wasn't that old, but it was struggling big time towards the end. The iPhone 6, on the other hand, comes in above 50% every night when I go to bed. I don't watch or shoot a whole lot of video on it, so that helps, but I do listen to quite a few podcasts and music throughout the day, as well as Twitter, phone calls, email and the like. I'm so pleased with how the battery turned out.

TouchID

This brings us to my favorite thing about my new iPhone, TouchID.

Holy. Crap.

How did I use an iPhone before this? Unlocking my phone, downloading anything from the App Store, iBooks, or iTunes, and using 1Password, it all happens without any effort. I can't tell you how great it is that 1Password has integrated TouchID. My master password was a beast and typing it in on the iPhone keyboard was tedious but worth it for the security it afforded me. But now that I can access all of my secrets in 1Password with my thumb, I'm in it all the time and it makes me happy.

M8 Coprocessor

The last thing on my list was the M8 processor. I always wanted an activity tracking app that wouldn't suck the life out of my phone and now I have one, built in. With the M8 coprocessor and the Health app I can track my steps and distance walked (it says 'ran' as well, but come on, we all know I'm not running anywhere), without a drain on my battery. Now I have empirical evidence that I'm lazy, which categorizes this as a 'Be careful what you wish for' item.

I'm a bit disappointed with the bugs in iOS 8 thus far but I am confident that Apple will iron them out soon. Rumor has it the 8.1.1 release is fixing the iCloud and Extension reordering issues, which is fantastic. That being said, I'm incredibly pleased with the iPhone 6. It feels amazing. The rounded edges, the seemingly gapless transition from aluminum to glass, it all works so well. Simply put, using this new iPhone makes me smile.