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.
Wednesday October 29, 2025 4:22 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple is about to drop iOS 26.1, the first major point release since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least six notable changes and improvements to look forward to. We've rounded them up below.
Apple has already provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 26.1, which means Apple will likely roll out the update to all compatible...
Friday October 31, 2025 1:40 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a small but helpful change for iPhones, and it could prevent you from running late to something important.
Specifically, when an alarm goes off in the Clock app, there is a new "slide to stop" control on the screen for turning off the alarm. On previous iOS 26 versions, there is simply a large "stop" button, which could be accidentally tapped.
The new ...
Monday October 27, 2025 7:55 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a handful of new features and changes for iPhones, including a toggle for changing the appearance of the Liquid Glass design, "slide to stop" for alarms in the Clock app, and more.
Below, we outline key details about iOS 26.1.
Release Date
Given that Apple has yet to seed an iOS 26.1 Release Candidate, which is typically the final beta version, the...
Friday October 31, 2025 7:32 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple has just given a strong indication that it will not be releasing any additional new Macs for the remainder of the year.
Apple's CFO Kevan Parekh dropped the hint during the company's earnings call on Thursday:On Mac, keep in mind, we expect to face a very difficult compare against the M4 MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac launches in the year-ago quarter.Parekh essentially gave a heads up ...
Thursday October 30, 2025 4:42 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 at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.
One thing worth...
Monday October 27, 2025 4:51 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple is designing an updated version of the Apple TV 4K, and rumors suggest that it could come out sometime in the next couple of months. We're not expecting a major overhaul with design changes, but even a simple chip upgrade will bring major improvements to Apple's set-top box.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
We've rounded up all the latest Apple TV rumors.
...
Wednesday October 29, 2025 7:13 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Rumors are stoking excitement for the next-generation iPad mini that Apple is reportedly close to launching. So what should we expect from the successor to the iPad mini 7 that Apple released over a year ago? Read on to find out.
Processor and Performance
Apple is working on a next-generation version of the iPad mini (codename J510/J511) that features the A19 Pro chip, according to...
Tuesday October 28, 2025 1:07 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate versions of upcoming iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, macOS Tahoe 26.1, tvOS 26.1, watchOS 26.1, and visionOS 26.1 updates for testing purposes. The RCs betas come a week after Apple released the fourth betas.
The new betas can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software...
Apple launched the Apple TV HD, the Siri Remote, tvOS, and their accompanying App Store a decade ago today, marking a major overhaul of the device.
The new vision for the Apple TV was unveiled on September 9, 2015 during Apple's "Hey Siri" event in San Francisco, where CEO Tim Cook introduced the device with the statement, "The future of TV is apps." The announcement represented a major...
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.
