Apple debuts four new iPhones at Far Out event

Apple has announced four new iPhones, the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. The iPhone Mini form factor has been relegated to the scrap heap for now although, who knows, maybe the mini form factor will pop up as the next generation of the iPhone SE.

Need to know

	iPhone 14	iPhone 14 Plus	iPhone 14 Pro	iPhone 14 Pro Max
Screen size	6.1-inch	6.7-inch	6.1-inch	6.7-inch
Resolution	2532‑by‑1170-pixel resolution at 460 ppi	2778‑by‑1284-pixel resolution at 458 ppi	2556‑by‑1179-pixel resolution at 460 ppi	2796‑by‑1290-pixel resolution at 460 ppi
Body Size	146.7 x 71.5 x 7.80mm	160.8 x 78.1 x 7.80mm	147.5 x 71.5 x 7.85mm	160.7 x 77.6 x 7.85mm
Weight	172g	203g	206g	240g
Storage	128GB 256GB 512GB	128GB 256GB 512GB	128GB 256GB 512GB 1TB	128GB 256GB 512GB 1TB
Materials	Ceramic Shield front Glass back and aluminium design		Ceramic Shield front Textured matt glass back and stainless steel design
Chip	A15 Bionic	A15 Bionic	A16 Bionic	A16 Bionic
Camera	Dual camera system	Dual camera system	Pro camera system	Pro camera system
Battery	Video playback: Up to 20 hours Video playback (streamed): Up to 16 hours Audio playback: Up to 80 hours	Video playback: Up to 26 hours Video playback (streamed): Up to 20 hours Audio playback: Up to 100 hours	Video playback: Up to 23 hours Video playback (streamed): Up to 20 hours Audio playback:  Up to 75 hours	Video playback: Up to 29 hours Video playback (streamed): Up to 25 hours Audio playback: Up to 95 hours
Price	From $1,399	From $1,579	From $1,749	From $1,899

Processors

Apple has differentiated it’s ‘budget’ iPhone – if you can call something that starts at $1,399 budget – from the high-end Pro models by equipping it with the last generation A15 Bionic chip, albeit with a point upgrade from last year.

The iPhone 13 also shipped with the A15 Bionic system on a chip but this year’s model gets an extra processing core so it should give a moderate boost over the iPhone 13, which is still viable, as are the iPhone 12 and iPhone SE if you’re a little more budget conscious.

The new Pro models ship with the A16 Bionic chip, which Apple says is generations ahead of the competition.

The A16 has a laundry list of important sounding specs like two high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores, an accelerated 5-core GPU and a new 16-core Neural Engine capable of nearly 17 trillion operations per second. What is boils down to is that Apple continues to make its newest hardware faster than each previous geberation.

What remains to be seen is if the A16 is better enough to get people to upgrade from the iPhone 13. My gut feeling is that most people hold onto their iPhones for at least two years so I suspect the latest models will appeal to those with an iPhone 12 or earlier.

Dynamic Island: Not a new reality show

The Dynamic Island is a region on the Pro displays that can adapt in real time to show important alerts, notifications and activities. It replaces the notch but doesn’t Without impeding content on the screen, the Dynamic Island maintains an active state to allow users easier access to controls with a simple tap-and-hold. Ongoing background activities like Maps, Music or a timer remain visible and interactive, and third-party apps in iOS 16 that provide information like sports scores and ride-sharing with Live Activities can take advantage of the Dynamic Island. 

Seeing is believing – this short You Tube video demonstrates how it works.

Cameras

We’ve now reached a point where smartphone cameras can make almost everyone into a pretty good photographer. The combination of advanced hardware and smarter software that compensates for everything from bad light to user incompetence has made smartphone cameras into cameras that make phone calls and almost completely destroyed the compact camera market.

A lot of what Apple has done in terms of improving photography in all four new phones is the result of the Photonic Engine – which is not the latest propulsion system being deployed in the ship of [insert your favourite sci-fi show here]. Photonic Engine is a computational engine that uses algorithms to look at what you shot a picture of and then improves it so that it actually looks like what you thought you were photographing. Think of it as software that compensates for poor light, incorrect exposure and other things that make your photos look less than amazing.

By combining the Photonic Engine with new camera tech, we can expect the new phones to shoot better photos than ever.

The iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max each get a new 12MP Main camera featuring a larger sensor and larger pixels, a new front TrueDepth camera and Ultra Wide camera to capture more of a scene. The Pro line-up features a new 48MP Main camera with a quad-pixel sensor that adapts to the photo being captured, and features second-generation sensor-shift optical image stabilisation.

What’s that all mean? The latest iPhones shoot better images than the previous generation – which is what Apple says each year. Whether this is better than what Google, Samsung and the other major smartphone makers remains to be seen. But each new release seems to leapfrog the others so while Apple might be King of the Hill today, that might change in a week or a month.

Crash Detection

This is a rather nifty safety feature. The various sensors in the latest iPhones can be used to detect when you’ve been in a car accident and call emergency services if are unable to reach the phone or make a call. If you have an Apple Watch, then Crash Detection uses data from that as well.

Final Word

Whenever a new iPhone is released, current owners tyowially ask “Should I upgrade?”.

My answer to that is if your phone s more than three year old, you should seriously consider it. While an older phone may work perfectly, not all the features of the latest operating system will work with older devices.

If your current device is newer that that, chances are your current device is well and truly good enough. The key reasons for upgrading then come down to whether the nest features are important to you. If you shoot a lot of photos, then the new camera tech could be a compelling reason. Or there may be another new feature that is important to you.

Or you could simply fall victim to technologist and simply must have the latest of everything.