iPhone6 an object of unparalleled loveliness

Apple's Tim Cook told the whooping crowds at the Flint Centre in Cupertino, near Silicon Valley in California, that the new iPhone 6 is "the most beautiful phone ever made".

I am trying hard to be objective, but I think he is right.

The iPhone6 - and the 6Plus in particular - is a radical redesign with a large screen and glass that curves almost around the edge of the device.

The increased resolution, too, makes a real, albeit subtler difference. In an age in which design is increasingly the sole differentiator between mobile phones, Apple has tightened its grip on first place. And the camera now does better slo-mo.

Rivals have made phones with larger screens but Apple has thought seriously about how users will interact with a bigger device. If you want to use one hand, you can now take advantage of the larger display, rather than being forced to adapt.

So a simple double-tap on the home button brings the active screen into the bottom half. It is obvious and indispensable. If Apple has not patented it, every other manufacturer will steal it.

Cleverly, too, the sleep button is now on the side.

In the brief hands-on I've had with the new phones, there is no time to form an opinion about battery life, but these are bigger devices that promise similar or better performance than their predecessors, and for the 6Plus that can mean double. If Apple can deliver on that, then everyone's main frustration dissolves.

Some users will still criticise the lack of widgets on the homescreen, which makes Android so glanceably useful. But with iOS8 Apple has improved notifications to such a point that much of that is addressed.

The A8 processor speeds create new app possibilities, but we've yet to see them. Apple Pay, US only for now, is a revolution in prospect but has yet to appear in real life.

The crucial difference is in design. This is the phone that might have stopped the Android tide in its tracks.