Apple has opted to equip the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus with two separate accelerometers, as discovered in Chipworks' comprehensive iPhone 6 and 6 Plus teardown. There's a three-axis Bosch BMA280 accelerometer and what Chipworks believes is a MPU-6700 six-axis accelerometer from InvenSense.
According to Chipworks, Apple may have decided to incorporate two accelerometers into the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus to both minimize power consumption and "improve the overall user experience."
The InvenSense accelerometer has a range of functions, allowing it to operate in several different modes, but it can draw more power than the Bosch accelerometer due to its higher sensitivity. The maximum sensitivity of the InvenSense is at 16684 LSB/g, much higher than the Bosch's 4096.
The InvenSense device can operate as a six axis inertial sensor, or as either a three-axis gyroscope or a three-axis accelerometer. It is rated to consume 3.4 mA in the six-axis mode, 3.2 mA in the gyroscope mode and 450 µA in the accelerometer normal mode. By contrast, the Bosch device operates as a 3-axis accelerometer only and it consumes 130 µA of current in the accelerometer normal mode. Both devices offer two low power levels of operation for the accelerometer function. The InvenSense device actually consumes less current in its lowest power mode, with a 1 Hz update rate.
The main benefit of the InvenSense is full six-axis integration of the data by the on-chip digital motion processor (DMP). This will provide a direct benefit for gaming and other applications that need sophisticated inertial sensing capabilities. In addition the InvenSense provides significantly higher sensitivity than the Bosch device. The price however, is higher power consumption.
The Bosch accelerometer is able to operate at a lower power than the InvenSense and it has a "much faster" cold start up time, at 3ms compared to 30ms, allowing it to be used when complete six-axis integration is unnecessary. Chipworks speculates that it may be used for tasks where higher sensitivity is unneeded, perhaps for rotating the screen from landscape to portrait mode or for pedometer functionality.
According to Chipworks, the inclusion of two accelerometers in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is an example of Apple's "elegant engineering." A single InvenSense accelerometer would have enabled the device to work perfectly well, but the addition of the Bosch accelerometer allows for lower power consumption in the appropriate situations.
iPadOS 26 allows iPads to function much more like Macs, with a new app windowing system, a swipe-down menu bar at the top of the screen, and more. However, Apple has stopped short of allowing iPads to run macOS, and it has now explained why.
In an interview this week with Swiss tech journalist Rafael Zeier, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi said that iPadOS 26's new Mac-like ...
Thursday June 12, 2025 8:58 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup.
If you skipped the iPhone...
The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are three months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of June 2025:Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone X through iPhone 14 Pro have a...
Alongside WWDC this week, Logitech announced notable new accessories for the iPad and Apple Vision Pro.
The Logitech Muse is a spatially-tracked stylus developed for use with the Apple Vision Pro. Introduced during the WWDC 2025 keynote address, Muse is intended to support the next generation of spatial computing workflows enabled by visionOS 26. The device incorporates six degrees of...
Thursday June 12, 2025 4:53 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
With iOS 26, Apple has introduced some major changes to the iPhone experience, headlined by the new Liquid Glass redesign that's available across all compatible devices. However, several of the update's features are exclusive to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models, since they rely on Apple Intelligence.
The following features are powered by on-device large language models and machine...
Apple this week announced that iPhone users will soon be able to watch videos right on the CarPlay screen in supported vehicles.
iPhone users will be able to wirelessly stream videos to the CarPlay screen using AirPlay, according to Apple. For safety reasons, video playback will only be available when the vehicle is parked, to prevent distracted driving. The connected iPhone will be able to...
Wednesday June 11, 2025 4:22 pm PDT by Juli Clover
iOS 26 features a whole new design material that Apple calls Liquid Glass, with a focus on transparency that lets the content on your display shine through the controls. If you're not a fan of the look, or are having trouble with readability, there is a step that you can take to make things more opaque without entirely losing out on the new look.
Apple has multiple Accessibility options that ...
Thursday June 12, 2025 10:14 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple today added Mac Studio models with M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips to its online certified refurbished store in the United States, Canada, Japan, Singapore, and many European countries, for the first time since they were released in March.
As usual for refurbished Macs, prices are discounted by approximately 15% compared to the equivalent new models on Apple's online store. Note that Apple's ...
Apple today provided developers with a revised version of the first iOS 26 beta for testing purposes. The update is only available for the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 models, so if you're running iOS 26 on an iPhone 14 or earlier, you won't see the revised beta.
Registered developers can download the new beta software through the Settings app on each device.
The revised beta addresses an...
OK, so I got the obvious, witty Android joke out of the way. Here's the real point:
A lot of people look at these devices being released every year with the sense that all these companies do (LG, Samsung, and others included) is slap the same old components on the inside and change the case or screen size. In reality, they are re-architecting a lot of the technology every year or two. This is not easy to do.
Only when we get tear downs and such do we get the full story of everything going on inside the shell. These guys are doing amazing work to move technology forward. The result is better devices and increased convenience/utility for the user.
The engineers that put this particular solution together aren't going to be recognized or win any awards, but they're doing great things.
