Wesley's Tool-Box

Apple introduced low-light photo mode on iPhone 5, enabling the device to boost the ISO to 3200 in order to take brighter photos in the dark. The quality was obviously grainy, but at least you would be taking a recognizable photo. Default camera app would slow the shutter speed down only to 1/15s, while 3rd party apps that could go into "night mode" could do 1/4s to 1s depending on the model, brightening the photo even further.

With the introduction of the Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) in iPhone 6 Plus, even the default camera app could slow down to 1/4s shutter speed because the OIS was expected to compensate. As I confirmed in my review, this definitely helped enhancing the low-light photo quality. But I came to notice a strange behaviour after trying to take a lot of photos in dark places.

In a really dark place, iPhone 6 Plus camera maxes out at ISO 2000 and 1/2 seconds, as you can see here. You can either set this manually if the camera app supports iOS 8 API, or automatically if the app supports the night mode. The ProCamera 8 app that I used has both modes. After noting the brightness of the objects in the preview screen, I took a snapshot.


But the photo came out quite darker than the preview. To see why, I checked the EXIF data. It showed that the camera limited itself to ISO 500 and 1/4s shutter speed instead of the ISO 2000 and 1/2s setting that I set. To see if the high ISO mode wasn't working, I manually set the ISO to 2000 in a brighter room, resulting in a much faster shutter speed. The camera had no problem obeying the ISO setting in this case. Then I tried the ISO 500 and 1/8s setting to take a photo in the dark. The result was that the actual settings decided by the camera was ISO 250 and 1/4s.

It seems that, when the camera feels that it's in a low-light environment, it automatically decreases the shutter speed to 1/4 seconds and use as low ISO as possible, and only up to 500. The manual settings are overridden. Most camera apps in the App Store that support manual settings or night mode seem to be affected by this. I've seen the same problem in VSCO Cam, Manually - Manual Focus Camera, and ProShot, so it's definitely not a bug in the individual app.

I've checked for this problem with the other iPhone 6 Plus units and they exhibited the same behaviour, while the iPhone 5S did not have this problem. I'm suspecting that the OIS function that allowed the 1/4s shutter speed in the default mode may be the culprit. I've filed a bug report to Apple. The issue has been observed in iOS 8.0, 8.0.2, 8.1, and 8.1.1 beta.

P.S. If you do need to take low-light photos on the iPhone 6 Plus right now, there is one series of apps that seem to be either unaffected by or circumventing this problem that you can use - NightCap (both regular and Pro versions).

iOS 8.1 update went live early morning today (in Korea Standard Time). This brings a lot of improvements and fixes, but also enables Apple Pay function for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. In the Passbook app, a new option to add cards to work with Apple Pay is supposed to show up.

Unfortunately, this is only available for the people in the United States at the moment. In fact, if you're using iPhone 6 series outside of the US, it is highly likely that the Passbook app will not show the Apple Pay option at all, as if the function does not exist. This was probably to prevent any confusion about the function that won't currently work in the user's region.

Of course, there's an easy way to force the Apple Pay option to show up if it doesn't. Go to Settings app, and under General > Language and Region > Region Format, set the region to United States. Once you've done that, the Passbook will show the Apple Pay option. You do not have to reboot, or tweak any other settings. As you can see, I'm on a Korean mobile carrier (SKT), the language setting is in Korean, and iTunes and iCloud are all logged into my Korean account.


Once you're able to go into the Apple Pay settings, you can try to add the credit card that you have on your hand. The iPhone will be able to recognize the card number via camera, as well. Once the card number, expiration date, and verification number are put, Apple will try to check to see if it'll work with Apple Pay. Unfortunately, the check will fail like this if the card issuer isn't participating.

As of this writing, credit and debit cards issued by nine US-based banks will work and nothing else. Further roll-out seems to be US-only in the near future. If you do have an eligible card, you can add to the Passbook app and make payments on any NFC-enabled card processor, including vending machines.

For nearly a month, I've been using my iPhone 6 Plus every day. As one of the first users of such device in Korea, I decided to take an in-depth look at its improvements and functions whenever I can, to show what the Korean users are going to get soon. Now all the hard work is done, and I present to you the summary of all the reviews I wrote about it.

iPhone 6 series will finally launch in Korea officially on October 31, 2014, according to Apple's official announcement, and carriers are preparing to accept pre-orders about a week before that. I hope these reviews will help you decide if iPhone 6 Plus is right for you.

Preview	Summary
	0. One of the first iPhone 6 Plus in Korea (2014-09-19)
	Wesley gets his iPhone 6 Plus on the first launch day in Japan and brings it to Korea.
	1. iPhone 6 Plus - Unboxing & First Look (2014-09-22)
	The box containing the iPhone 6 Plus is opened up, and the phone is taken an all-around look. The bump caused by the camera lens is also examined.
	2. Protecting my iPhone 6 Plus (2014-09-23)
	Front and back side protection films are applied to the iPhone 6 Plus. Then, it is put inside a belt case intended for Galaxy Note series. Apple's own leather case is also tried out.
	3. Sizing up the shape & size of iPhone 6 Plus (2014-09-23)
	The size, thickness, and shape of the iPhone 6 Plus gets compared to other devices. It is first compared to other iPhones and iPads, then to a comparatively-sized Android smartphone.
	4. iPhone 6 Plus - LTE Compatibility & Speed (2014-09-24)
	Unlocked iPhone 6 Plus bought overseas is found to have LTE working on Korea's SKT & KT networks automatically. Also, real life LTE speed comparison is made between the 6 Plus and the 5S.
	5. iPhone 6 Plus - VoLTE Compatibility (2014-09-25)
	Initially, all calls were made in 3G mode despite changing the settings to allow VoLTE. To have the VoLTE actually working, a visit to an SKT branch office and a device registration process was needed.
	6. Testing iPhone 6 Plus battery w/o bending (2014-09-29)
	Real-life battery discharging and charging tests are performed simultaneously on iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 5S to see the difference. Belt cases made sure the phones didn't bend.
	7. iPhone 6 Plus - General Performance (2014-10-01)
	Performance comparison across multiple apps are made between iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 5S. This included 3DMark, Geekbench, and various JavaScript tests.
	8. iPhone 6 Plus - Camera's Quality (2014-10-01)
	Compared to iPhone 5S, the camera on the iPhone 6 Plus has improved dynamic range and enhanced night time photography performance. Image stabilization works well, too.
	9. iPhone 6 Plus - Camera's Speed (2014-10-04)
	The focusing performance of the iPhone 6 Plus is noticeably more advanced than iPhone 5S. Burst mode shooting and slow-motion video recording also saw improvements.
	10. iPhone 6 Plus - M8 Motion Co-processor (2014-10-08)
	The M8 motion co-processor and its new barometer are tested out by walking up the stairs and seeing how many floors are registered. Other uses are also taken a look at.
	11. How far does iPhone 6+ & SKT's VoLTE go? (2014-10-13)
	How the SK Telecom's network treats the attempts to make a VoLTE call from iPhone 6 Plus varies by how the person at the other end is connecting. All the possibilities are tested.
	12. Thoughts on a month of iPhone 6 Plus use (2014-10-14)
	Using the iPhone 6 Plus one-handed is not as convenient as Apple would hope. However, the big screen that caused this also offers many benefits that maybe considered as worthy trade-offs.

In my iPhone 6 Plus reviews, I've been focusing on the functions. But before wrapping this series up, I'd like to touch on the usability part. There will be a lot of existing iPhone users who's going to contemplate whether the huge screen is worth the risk. While iPhone 6 feels like a slightly enlarged iPhone 5S, 6 Plus is halfway to an iPad, a device that generally needs two hands to properly use.

Unlike an iPad, you can hold an iPhone 6 Plus with one hand just fine. This is due to its thinness and relative lightness. Using it in that manner is another matter, though. As you can see in the photo, the stretched screen of iPhone 5S (compared to 4S and earlier) already put some strain on the user's thumb when reaching the top corners. With iPhone 6 Plus, the thumb can realistically reach only about half of the screen area.


So what did Apple do about it? It added a feature called "Reachability" to iPhone 6 series. When you tap (not click) the home button twice quickly, the whole screen slides down half way for a while. This is supposed to let you be able to touch the unreachable area, enabling you to touch anywhere with one hand.

In practice, though, still doesn't fully solve my problem of reaching the opposite top corner with my thumb, where navigation buttons usually reside. This is because the phone became wider as it has become tall. I could temporarily adjust the grip, but that increases the risk of dropping the phone.

Some apps get around this problem by providing the edge dragging gesture for navigating backward and forward. Thanks to this, Apple's default apps like Safari can be used with one hand more or less okay. But there are still a lot of apps that don't support this. So in essence, the Reachability is more of a temporary fix for when you have no choice but to hold the iPhone 6 Plus with one hand. If you can, don't hesitate to hold the phone with two hands. It's much better that way.

As I mentioned in the previous VoLTE post, all three major mobile carriers in Korea have been supporting VoLTE for quite some time now. One glaring problem, though, is that cross-carrier VoLTE still hasn't been realized, despite years of negotiations. This seem to have introduced some confusion. The truth is that a device can always request a VoLTE call, but it's up to the network to decide to go with it, and if so, fully or just on the surface.

In the case of LGU+, the carrier's aging "2G" CDMA network had been a weak point, so it worked hard to have everything done on LTE, even voice. That's why it'll accept a phone that can do VoLTE even if it doesn't support the needed CDMA frequency band - namely, the iPhone 6 series. ( One caveat is that they are not accepted for registration on the network yet until official Korean debut. This is largely a decision of policy, not technicality. ) If you have such a phone, all calls will be connected as VoLTE no matter what.

But in case of SK Telecom (SKT) or KT, their "3G" WCDMA networks are still widely used. So they don't have the urge to go fully LTE. A call could still be made on either 3G or LTE, depending on the situation. No handsets on these networks get to make all of its calls on VoLTE.

Since I'm on SKT, I made calls to various phone numbers on my VoLTE phone, iPhone 6 Plus, to see how they end up connecting, and what quality they were.

Case	Caller 1	Caller 2	Connect 1	Connect 2	Quality
1	SKT VoLTE	SKT VoLTE	LTE	LTE	HD Voice
2	SKT VoLTE	SKT 3G (AMR-WB)	LTE	3G	HD Voice
3	SKT VoLTE	SKT 2G/3G	LTE	2G/3G	Normal
4	SKT VoLTE	KT / LGU+ VoLTE	LTE	LTE	Normal
5	SKT VoLTE	KT / LGU+ 2G/3G	LTE	2G/3G	Normal
6	SKT VoLTE	Landline (02 ~ 064)	LTE	Landline	Normal
7	SKT VoLTE	Toll Free (080)	LTE	Landline	Normal
8	SKT VoLTE	Special (15xx, 3-digit)	3G	Landline	Normal
9	SKT VoLTE	VoIP (070)	3G	Internet	Normal

As of this writing, two types of phones on the SKT network, the VoLTE-enabled phones (case 1) and the AMR-WB supported phones without VoLTE (case 2), can make end-to-end HD Voice-quality calls to and from iPhone 6 Plus. AMR-WB codec is the same codec used by VoLTE, but some phones support this only on 3G at a lower bitrate, e.g. iPhone 5 and Xperia Ray.

As mentioned earlier, cross-carrier VoLTE agreements are not yet in place, so calling VoLTE phones on other networks (case 4) ends up degrading quality. I'm hoping this clears up soon because there's no technical reason to be like this.

Meanwhile, most calls connect via LTE, with the exception of special numbers such as the three-digit numbers (including emergency) and the 15xx, 16xx numbers that companies use (case 8), as well as the VoIP numbers with the 070 area code (case 9). I understand that these numbers don't connect with high-quality codecs so LTE connection isn't necessary, but it doesn't explain why regular landline connections do connect via LTE.