Wesley's Tool-Box

LTE is the 4th generation (4G) wireless data communication standard that supersedes WCDMA and other 3rd generation (3G) ones. Unfortunately, the far more diverse range of frequencies that the carriers around the world uses for this standard is a big headache, especially for Apple.

This is because a single model of iPhone tries to support as much of the entire world as possible in order to simplify the lineup. iPhone 4S, the last model before LTE support, indeed came in a single model for the entire world. In contrast, iPhone 5 and 5S had to be split up into multiple models that each had differing LTE band support. This was largely because the chipset couldn't support all the needed bands at once.

This meant that an iPhone bought in one country may not support LTE in another country. With iPhone 5, you needed model A1429 (for Sprint and Verizon in US) if you wanted it to use LTE in Korea. A1428 (for AT&T and T-Mobile in US) wouldn't do. That may have been a factor in the Korean carriers not automatically enabling LTE for foreign phones until 2014.


If you wanted to use LTE, you had to take your phone to a carrier branch or a certified store to have the device manually registered as being LTE capable. My AT&T iPhone 5S was put in as an "OMD Apple LTE Handset" on the SK Telecom network. Come 2014, though, this situation was largely resolved. Not only would your iPhone from overseas work with the LTE network, iPhone 6 and 6 Plus had worldwide LTE band support regardless of the specific model.

Situation is similar with iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, which adds a few more obscure or upcoming LTE bands on an already extensive array of support. There are still three specific models for each type, but one is for adding an upcoming AT&T-specific band 30 (A1633, A1634) and the other is for Chinese release (A1700, A1699). They are identical to the general model (A1688, A1687) otherwise.


However, not everything is in the clear. VoLTE (LTE-based voice calls) support is still not a universally supported feature among phones and carriers are still enabling this on a manual basis as of this writing. Owners of internationally bought iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, and 6S Plus still need a visit to the carrier branch or store.

I had two iPhone 6S Plus that came from overseas - one is a "SIM-Free" version from Japan that you saw in my earlier post and the other is from United States intended for T-Mobile network. Both are model A1687 and the same version expected to be sold in Korea in a few days' time (October 23, 2015). The former was registered at an SK Telecom branch office as "OMD Apple VoLTE", the same title my iPhone 6 Plus received last year. The latter was registered at a local certified SK Telecom store as "OMD Apple VoLTE_6S" as shown here. Only after doing this, and waiting for a while to let the network know of the change, did the VoLTE function start to work.

The interesting (or cumbersome) part of doing the registration at a certified store was that it required me to have a separate, pre-registered device that was not in use to help with the registration. According to the store, once I inserted the SIM card into my iPhone 6S Plus, the network automatically registered it under "OMD Default Handset" because it wasn't recognized. In order to change that, the SIM card had to be put into another device so as to make the 6S Plus not be associated with any SIM card. Only then could the re-registration could proceed. Branch offices didn't have this requirement, so I have to assume that the system provided to the store is limited compared to the branch.

One of the features that stand out on the iPhone 6S series is the 3D Touch. It's something you can immediately notice when you use the device for the first time because many of the stock apps take advantage of it. Basically, the phone's screen now knows how hard you push your finger against it, and translates it into triggering different functions.

In the home screen, a light touch on the app icon still launches it. But when you push it a bit harder, Quick Actions menu is triggered for the supported apps, letting you do get into various tasks even before the app is actually launched. It's something that I didn't know I wanted, but I would definitely miss it if it were gone. I'd be slightly frustrated to use older generation iPhones now thanks to this, sort of like how I feel about the lack of Touch ID on iPhone 5 and older. As it's the most obvious way that an app can be extended for 6S series, many of the 3rd party apps are now getting updated to enable this.


Here's a comparison video I made to show how 3D Touch lets you do more. On the left is an iPhone 6 Plus, and on the right is a 6S Plus. When I push the Photos app hard, 6S Plus shows the Quick Actions whereas 6 Plus only recognizes the long press and wants to know if I want to delete any apps.

Once into the app, pressing hard on a photo in 6S Plus lets me "peek", i.e. preview the photo, and if I push even harder, I "pop" into the photo and it's loaded on the screen. A light tapping feedback happens as I do this due to the Taptic Engine. On 6 Plus, nothing happens. This peek/pop interaction can be seen in many other stock apps, so I'm having fun trying to push the screen a lot to see there's anything more I can do.

After getting my brand new iPhone 6S Plus on its launch day in Japan, I brought it to Korea soon after. As the family enjoyed the Chuseok holidays, my daughter Celine was given the honour of opening the box of this latest iPhone. This might be becoming an annual tradition.


Compared to last year, Celine handled the unboxing much better. She definitely knew what she was supposed to do now. In the box was an iPhone that was almost exactly identical to what she unboxed last year. She happily took it out of the box to show it to everyone in the family.