All told, I prefer the one-handed usability of the smaller 6S and that includes losing the newer-design interactions, particularly control center on the XS necessitating two hands to invoke it. In fact, I'm the reverse of Gruber—I'm apt to use old-UI gestures on my XS (not that it happens often, I tend to switch seamlessly).

Fine. Whatever. That's just me. What I find more disturbing is all the words spilled by reviewers about all these devices. At this point, not much is significantly changing in what's offered with new devices, so the simple lists of Pros and Cons capture most everything. Using Gruber's review as an example, I don't find a need for multi-paragraph expositions on the UI changes that took place years ago, and I suspect most of his readers are informed enough that they don't either.

For the average person, battery life is similar among models, all the cameras are impressive, the screens and speed great. The tradeoffs between models are generally minimal but distinct—just list them.

Overall, smartphone innovation has plateaued and so too have the reviews.