Apple iPhone 14 hot take series

Apple is a trend setter and even non-techies tune in to watch major new announcements like the one we had this week. The iPhone 14 series is official and already on pre-order starting this Friday. The first lucky users will have one in their hands next week.

We have extensive coverage of the event and relevant news surfacing around it (some of which revealed things Apple didn’t do). Here we wanted to share some thoughts on the new models now that the dust has settled.

Subtle and not so subtle price increase

Apple has slightly raised the price of iPhones a few times and has done so again this year. In 2021 the cheapest (non-SE) iPhone was the mini, which started at $ 700, now the cheapest member of the premium range is the iPhone 14 at $ 800.

Yes, the iPhone 13 cost $ 800 too, and Apple is pointing that out, hoping you won’t notice that the price of admission went up when the mini left. We have detailed pricing information for the new models if you want to check it out. The mini itself was part of a slight price hike: the vanilla iPhone 11 was starting at $ 700 in 2019, the base iPhone 12 was also costing $ 700 in 2020. However, that was the newly introduced mini, the iPhone 12. 6.1-inch (which was the current successor to the iPhone 11) has risen to $ 800.

There was another lie during Wednesday’s event: Apple showed the US price of the iPhone 14 models, suggesting it is the same as the 13 series. And it is, even if there is a “but ” arriving. The new models cost the same as the old ones in several countries (including the United States, Canada and China), but have significantly increased in Europe, parts of Asia and other regions.

The wait may have been a mistake

We’ll be talking about the Plus and the mini, but while we’re on the subject of pricing, we wanted to cover the older models as well. Like every year, Apple stops production of the old Pro series and keeps the vanilla models around at a discount.

It did so again this year: the iPhone 12, 13 and 13 mini are still available at a reduced price. Well, not entirely, the reduction is relative to the iPhone 14 series and as those prices have increased in some regions, the cost of the previous models has remained the same in several countries.

Worse still, the price of the iPhone SE (2022) has risen in places. We know some of you have been waiting for the next generation to launch so you can buy one of the older models at a discount, but this strategy hasn’t worked as well this year as it usually does.

The Plus is a welcome addition to the family

Apple has resurrected the “Plus” designation for the new iPhone 14 Plus. It is the same size as the 14 Pro Max (by a few fractions of a millimeter) and claims the same diagonal as the 6.7-inch screen. It actually has the same pixel density (458ppi) too, creating a nice, sharp image.

However, this is where the similarities between Plus and Pro Max end. For starters, it’s still a 60Hz panel and doesn’t support Always On Display (new on the Pros). Additionally, the Pro panels are brighter, the iPhone 14 Plus and vanilla maintain the typical brightness at 800 nits and peak at 1,200 nits (versus the typical 1,000 nits and the peak of 2,000 nits for the 14 Pro duo).

There are a couple of other important differences between the Plus and the Max – the chipset and the cameras – but we’ll talk about these later.

The iPhone 14 Plus is a welcome addition to the Apple family. Not everyone cares about having the best cameras, even fewer require peak performance these days, but some want a bigger screen and battery than the 6.1-inch iPhone offered. Previously their only option would have been the iPhone 14 Pro Max model for $ 1,100, now they can buy the Plus for $ 900 instead.

The iPhone line needed a Plus model and we think it will be quite successful. But did his birth require the death of the mini? Probably not and it doesn’t matter anyway. Following the sales numbers reported by analysts, the mini died on its own due to a lack of consumer interest.

A new mini wasn’t really needed

We know some people will protest the above claim, so let’s address it before moving on to updates (and sometimes lack of them) on the 14 series.

The mini is still in circulation in the form of the iPhone 13 mini. Considering the incremental upgrades of the base 14 series camera, chipset, and display, a hypothetical iPhone 14 mini wouldn’t have been all that different. If you want a small phone (properly small, not small Android) with premium build and performance, the 13 mini is still a great choice.

An exciting camera upgrade for professionals

Like Google, Apple over-optimized the camera setup and was reluctant to make any substantial changes. It has had excellent results for several years, but it was time to leave the 12MP resolution and standard Bayer filter behind.

Apple has done a great job of explaining the benefits. The new 48MP sensor delivers a high quality image with a 2x zoom, bridging the gap between the main cam and the 3x telephoto lens. In daylight it can capture detailed 48MP RAW images, in the dark it uses pixel binning to reduce noise. It could have enabled 8K video recording as well, but maybe next year.

Either way, the new iPhone Pro camera is much more versatile. The other side of the stable has less to show. The iPhone 14 and 14 Plus cameras integrate a larger sensor and brighter aperture for the main camera, plus they benefit from the new photonic engine. However, they are starting to feel really outdated now as they have been nothing but iterative improvements since 2019.

Vanilla models have a larger sensor (1.9µm vs 1.7µm) • All four have AF on selfie cameras

One change we applaud is the addition of autofocus to the selfie camera, this can (and usually does) have a big impact on the quality of selfies. But how long will we have to look at the pill-shaped notches and holes before the under-display cameras make it to the iPhone?

AOD and Dynamic Island

The displays of the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max are some of the best OLED panels on the market: LTPO 1-120Hz, crisp, stunningly bright, HDR10 and Dolby Vision support, tough glass, and now with Always On mode to boot. It’s hard to find fault with the displays themselves.

This is not the case with the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus, which practically do not make any updates from the 13 series and are not really that different from those of the iPhone 12.

We’ll go back to the pros to review the first major TrueDepth camera redesign. It’s the biggest punch hole we’ve ever seen, but Apple has dressed it up in the so-called Dynamic Island.

The dynamic island brings up icons from apps that require your attention, shows indicators (e.g. showing that the camera or microphone is active), can also expand to show a new notification.

We have to give it to Apple, the animations are smooth and the marketing is elegant, but Dynamic Island doesn’t do anything that a typical status bar can’t. Of course, with such a large pill, there’s no room for a proper status bar.

Apple’s relentless progress on chipsets is slowing down

Apple stood out not only for having the best mobile chipsets, but also for using them on all smartphones of a given generation: even the iPhone SE (2022) has an Apple A15 chip. There was a small split as the A15 had two tiers, one with a 4-core GPU (used in the iPhone 13, 13 mini and SE) and one with a 5-core GPU (used in the Pros).

There is now a much bigger gap between the vanilla and Pro models as the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus still use the A15 chipset. It’s the most powerful 5-core GPU version (which Apple claims will deliver 18% more GPU performance), but we’re not sure it will have a big impact when the target is 60fps.

We suspect that a change that Apple hasn’t talked about will be much more beneficial: all iPhone 14 models have 6GB of RAM (no changes for the Pros, but the 13 and 13 mini only had 4GB). Moderate multitasking should also get a better experience.

As for the new Apple A16 chipset, Apple compared it to a three-year-old A13, but this was mainly to flex how fast it was (the company claimed the A13 is faster than the best Android chipset of 2022, but it might just be true with a lot of fine print). Initial reports show that Apple has increased the maximum CPU clock speed – at 3.43 GHz theirs is the fastest smartphone core – but the actual performance improvements are minimal.

While it is true that Apple has the fastest mobile chipset, the competition is no exception and the A16 is about to come face to face with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which will arrive in a couple of months.

T-Mobile and SpaceX have stolen Apple’s satellite thunder

It sounds a bit like science fiction: a small pocket phone without an external antenna can connect to a satellite and send an SOS. There is no doubt that it will be invaluable if the worst happens and you find yourself in trouble away from the rescue.

However, Apple has left some things unspoken. IPhone 14 buyers will receive a free 2-year subscription, but only in the US and Canada, where the beta test begins. But how much would it cost afterwards? Will it be a monthly subscription or pay-per-use? Also, in some regions it is necessary to have search and rescue insurance. You will still be saved even if you don’t, it will only cost a lot.

Apple’s SOS emergency service and satellite location sharing

And how does location sharing via Where’s it work if connecting to a satellite requires the user to carefully point their iPhone at the satellite (with on-screen guidance)?

Either way, the timing of the partnership between T-Mobile and SpaceX is pretty obvious. A couple of weeks ago they announced that by the end of next year they will have smartphones connected to satellites.

Unlike Apple’s solution, it will work with current phones and be available for general chats (SMS, MMS, even some third-party chat apps), not just SOS and location sharing. Google is already working on satellite support for Android 14. If T-Mobile and SpaceX can pull it off, Apple’s new Emergency SOS feature will look like an old hat a year after launch. Of course, iPhone users (including those with older models) on T-Mobile will also benefit from this, but Apple won’t make any profit from it.

The lessons of the CDMA were not learned

The new iPhone 14 models that will be launched in the US will not have a SIM slot, they will rely solely on eSIM. While eSIM is undeniably a useful thing, it is entirely under the control of vectors.

This was the case with CDMA phones, but then switching operators meant getting a new number. Things had improved a lot since then and users had the freedom to swap phones without making a carrier deal out of them. This is a step backwards with not many benefits that we could see: iPhones already had eSIMs and are some of the best waterproof phones on the market. How does removing the physical SIM tray benefit consumers?