New iPhones: Is Apple playing catch-up on innovation?

Another September, another iPhone launch.

As expected, Apple CEO Tim Cook took the wraps off a pair of new iPhones on Wednesday: the iPhone 6S (from $199 on 2-year contract) and the larger iPhone 6S Plus (from $299 on 2-year contract), both available September 25.

“While they may look familiar, we have changed everything about these new iPhones,” said Cook before unveiling what looked like last year’s best-selling models (with the exception of a new rose gold color option).

“The only thing that’s changed is everything” teases the first Apple ad for the new iPhones, perhaps acknowledging the physical similarities to its 2014 lineup – but rattling off many of the device’s new capabilities.

Marketing hype aside, how do the features and specs compare to previous iPhones and other smartphones?

As always, iPhones are more evolutionary than revolutionary.

But you can’t really blame the company for not messing with its formula. After all, they’ve got the world’s hottest smartphone, so why take a chance by reinventing the wheel?

Plus, with many of Apple’s products, the magic is in the experience – not a list of specs on a website – so hands-on time is required to properly pass judgment.
With this in mind, here’s a deeper dive at what’s new, and if it’s a big deal or not.

3D Touch

Along with pinching, flicking and swiping, the new iPhone screens sense the amount of force you’re applying to enable contextually relevant actions. Press lightly on an email summary to “peek” into the entire message or press a photo attachment to see the pic in a larger view. Press deeper to “pop” into the content itself. Use 3D Touch on an app icon and it can provide shortcut menus to some of the app’s key features.

While this feature might let you do more in less time, adding tactile feedback – a slight vibration felt under your fingertip – has been around for years in rival devices. It may be new for iOS users, but years behind similar technology on many Android phones.

Better cameras

The new iPhones boast a new rear-facing iSight camera with a 12-megapixel sensor, and with advanced pixel technology for added detail, compared to the 8-megapixel camera in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

A new 5-megapixel FaceTime HD (front-facing) camera now offers Retina Flash, which delivers a light boost by brightly illuminating the screen for better selfies in darker environments.

Good photos aren’t just measured in megapixels, of course, but we’ve seen exceptional smartphone cameras like Sony Mobile’s 23-megapixel camera in the Xperia Z5 (and hey, it’s waterproof) or Samsung Galaxy Note 5’s fast and blur-free 16-megapixel camera.

As for video, iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus aren’t the first phones to offer 4K recording – which refers to capturing four times the resolution of 1080p HD video – as major players like Samsung, LG, Motorola, HTC, Nokia and others have all offered it for a while now.

Apple’s new Live Photos feature is kind of cool, though, which adds motion to your photos by capturing the moment just before and after your snapshot. Gimmicky? Sure, but visually stimulating.

Under the hood

As you’d expect from Apple, the new iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus are powered by a new processor – a third-generation 64-bit chip called the A9 – which is said to offer up to 70 percent greater CPU performance over last year’s A8 chip. GPU (graphics) performance is up to 90 percent better compared to the previous generation, says Apple.

Without a side-by-side comparison it’s difficult to substantiate these claims, but no doubt gamers and video editors will appreciate the added power.

But many other devices have tons of horsepower under the hood, such as the recently-launched Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and its proprietary octacore 64-bit processor, combined with 4 GB of RAM, for blazing performance (and ideal for multitasking smoothly).

Siri, iOS 9

If you haven’t noticed the theme yet, these appear to be marginal upgrades to last year’s iPhones, and with features seen in competing devices, too.

With the faster processor, Siri can now be truly hands-free – just say “Hey Siri,” followed by a command or question – and you don’t need to have your phone connected to a power source this time around. But the Google app already lets you do this on Android devices (by first saying the wake word “OK Google”).

Tied closely to the new iPhones is Apple’s operating system refresh available on Wednesday as a free download. iOS 9 adds a number of improvements to the mobile experience – a more predictive Siri, better search, new Notes app, detailed transit info in Maps and a new News app – but arguably the biggest update is multitasking support (for iPad only, unfortunately). While we’ve seen it on Android phones and tablets for years, iPads users for the first time can have more than one app open on an iPad.

Final thoughts

Are these new iPhones better than the ones that came before it? Absolutely. Will the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus be the phones of choice for those eligible for an upgrade to their older iPhone? You bet. Will they sell? Bet on it.

But many geeks (like yours truly) were underwhelmed during Wednesday's media event in San Francisco, with nary a “shut the front door!” moment.

Playing it safe might be smart business for Apple and its dominating device – but it’s certainly a departure from Apple’s once-popular “Think different” tagline.

Follow Marc on Twitter: @marc_saltzman. E-mail him at techcomments@usatoday.com.