Everything we know about the Apple iPhone 6S

Fans of buttons can count on Captain America for support, as Chris Evans notes that even after a few weeks with a newer phone, he still prefers his old iPhone 6S and its button. The topic came up in an interview with Collider (via iMore) while doing a press tour for Netflix’s $200 million+, Russo brothers-directed spy flick The Gray Man, which he stars in along with Ryan Gosling.

Evans is far from the only person still stuck on the missing button (he and Donald Trump agree on at least one thing), which Apple swapped for a solid circle with taptic engine feedback on the iPhone 7, and eventually dropped entirely from the iPhone X onward. Evans’ other big complaint is that it’s just too heavy. Like many people who struggle with bulkier phones, the actor is uncomfortably bracing the phone with his pinky finger, and no, the recently-refreshed iPhone SE (2022) just won’t do as a replacement.

I think most of us here at The Verge can agree that if we were famous celebrities who acted in some of the highest-grossing films of all time, we would always be rocking the latest and greatest tech. That’s apparently not how Chris Evans, star of Lightyear and The Avengers, rolls — on June 23rd, 2022, he posted a message on Twitter and Instagram that he’s finally upgrading his phone: “RIP iPhone 6S,” he said. “We had a good run.”

In his posts, Evan says that he’ll miss the 2015 device’s home button — a photo he posted shows that he’s upgrading what appears to be an iPhone 13 Pro — but not the fact that it was a “nightly battle” trying to get the 6S to charge. (In the comments of Evan’s Instagram post, Hidden Figures and Onward actress Octavia Spencer says that she too just switched to a phone without a home button.) He also mentions that he won’t miss the grainy pictures from the 6S’s 12-megapixel camera — you can see examples of those all over his Instagram page.

Big screens won.

For the past three years, the most meaningful change to the iPhone has been the size of its screen. After years of sticking with a 3.5-inch display and watching Android-powered competitors bite off a piece of the market with ever-larger screens, Apple relented ever-so-slightly with the 4-inch iPhone 5 and 5S, and then finally gave in to obvious trends with the much larger 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and massive 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus.

Everyone knows Apple plans to bring Force Touch to the upcoming iPhone 6S (competitor Huawei has already copied the feature), but it sounds like there may be more to it than that. The feature will reportedly be called the "3D Touch Display," and there's a reason for the name.

Update: Read the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus review.

The 16GB iPhone has been Apple's entry-level option for some time now, despite being more than a little controversial. Still, despite some rumors to the contrary, it looks like the company is sticking with it: 9to5Mac reports that the the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus will have the same storage options as the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, starting at 16GB and moving up to 64GB and 128GB. On-contract pricing, the site also reported, will likewise stay the same as 2014 models: $199, $299, and $399 for each storage tier of the 6S, and $299, $399, and $499 for the 6S Plus.

Update: Read the iPhone 6S review.

It's a very safe bet that Apple will introduce an iPhone 6S and an iPhone 6S Plus at the event it's holding two weeks from now, but it's been an open question about whether we'll see a smaller phone — perhaps an iPhone 6C — too. According to 9to5Mac, while we might see a new 4-inch iPhone eventually, it won't be coming in September. The site reports that Apple is working on a phone with the same display size as the iPhone 5, 5S, and 5C but with the internals of the iPhone 6. It makes sense that Apple would want to differentiate its product line this way, but it seems as though people looking to move up from the iPhone 5S without changing size will have to wait.

There are a number of other new bits of iPhone information in 9to5Mac's reports today. For one, the site reports that the new iPhones introduced in September will come in a fourth color: rose gold, to match the high-end Apple Watch. This rose gold will be a lot more accessible, though — it's just supposed to be colored aluminum, not actual gold. An earlier report said that Apple had been working on a pink iPhone, but it seems likely that this is actually the new color being referred to.

The iPhone camera is finally upping its megapixel count. 9to5Mac's Mark Gurman reports that the next major flagship from Apple will feature a 12-megapixel camera, an increase over the 8-megapixel approach the company has stuck with for years. As iPhones have kept loyal to the 8-megapixel sensor, Android makers like Sony, Samsung, and LG have produced some fairly remarkable 16-megapixel smartphone cameras. We recently pitted the new Galaxy Note 5 against the iPhone 6 Plus as just one example.

Update: Read the Apple iPhone 6S review.

9to5Mac is reporting that at least one thing separating the iPhone 6S from its predecessor will have to do with wallpaper. Similar to Apple Watch (and Android's live wallpaper feature), the next iPhone will reportedly support animated backgrounds. "For the new iPhone, we are told the types of motion wallpapers range from sets of animated fish from a koi pond to colorful arrays of smoke," wrote 9to5Mac's reliable Mark Gurman.

Read next: The iPhone 6S review.

Apple is widely expected to bring Force Touch to the next iPhone, and now we're getting some idea of how it might work. According to 9to5Mac, Force Touch will be used as a way to access shortcuts, pull up menus, and activate new functions. If that sounds kind of confusing, well, it is — for now, at least. It sounds like Force Touch on the iPhone will do different things depending on where you use it, and you'll probably have to play around to find out where it works and what it does.

A few specific examples are provided by 9to5Mac:

As for that new iPhone, Apple is on its "S" cycle, which means we'll likely see a phone physically identical to last year's iPhone 6, but with some radical hardware changes — the new phone is rumored to include the force touch technology included on the Apple Watch and the company's new MacBook and MacBook Pros. The Apple TV is expected to be a complete redesign of the hardware that Apple's been offering unchanged since early 2012; the entire Apple TV experience is largely identical for even longer at this point. If Apple has managed to lock down the content deals it needs to make it stand out, this could be worth a lot of attention in the company's presentation.

As for new iPads, it feels like a lot for an event that will already feature the iPhone and Apple TV — but given the slowing down of the iPad business in general, the product category might not quite warrant the headlining status in the October events Apple has held in recent years (those events also often feature Mac and OS X updates). Whether or not this will be the year we finally see the rumored large screen iPad Pro remains to be seen — but such a product certainly would take advantage of a lot of the new iPad multitasking features showing up in iOS 9. Fortunately, it seems we won't have to wait long to find out. As usual, The Verge will be there to report all the news as it happens. We've reached out to Apple for a comment on this report and will update if we hear anything else.

Update: Read the Apple iOS 9 review.

One of the most annoying things about the iPhone is its tendency to latch onto Wi-Fi networks even when there's a very poor signal. Join a Starbucks network or your cable company's public Wi-Fi just once, and the phone will often try to hop back on even in passing. This leads to disruptions when you're browsing Safari or using apps — at least until you turn off Wi-Fi in frustration. But with iOS 9, Apple has found a much better solution: your iPhone will now automatically switch over to cellular data if it detects that Wi-Fi reception has degraded to the point where it's unusable.

A new Apple TV may finally be on the way. According to BuzzFeed News, Apple plans to announce an overhauled Apple TV in September, likely during the same event that it'll unveil new iPhones. The new Apple TV is supposed to bring some major changes to the device, including an App Store, voice control with Siri, and an improved remote with a touch pad on it. The box itself is supposed to be slimmer, and it should have some speed improvements on the inside. It would mark the first update to the Apple TV since 2012.

Read next: The Apple TV review.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that the next iPhone, ostensibly known as the iPhone 6S, will include a Force Touch display, similar to the screen currently used on the Apple Watch. This report backs up an earlier 9to5Mac report from May.

Read next: The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus review.

Apple appears to be bringing one of the most important — and divisive — features of the Apple Watch to the next iPhone. According to 9to5Mac, the iPhone 6S will include Force Touch and haptic feedback, allowing the phone to perform additional functions when pressure is applied to the screen.

Read next: The Apple iPhone 6S review.