We’re less than a week away from Apple’s annual big iPhone unveil, but there’s still room for Apple to surprise us with the iPhone 14.
We’re less than a week away from Apple’s annual iPhone event, where we fully expect to see the iPhone 14 and 14 Pro lineups. While the rumor mill has already given us a typically good read on what we’ll get from the iPhone 14, there’s still plenty of room for Apple to surprise us. In Apple’s playbook, nothing is ever certain until the company takes the stage and shows it off in person.
This means that almost anything can happen. While I’m not fanciful enough to believe Apple will actually release its mythical foldable iPhone anytime soon, there are still some more practical updates I’m hoping will come to fruition in this year’s iPhone 14 lineup.
There’s a good chance that at least this year’s iPhone 14 Pro models will finally get an always-on display — and it’s about time.
Always-on displays have been around on smartphones for nearly a decade and arguably became mainstream on Android handsets five years ago. So, it’s fair to say that Apple is very late to the party here. The lack of an always-on display on the iPhone is even more unusual when you consider that Apple added this to the Apple Watch Series 5 in 2019.
Of course, it’s arguably a feature that’s more necessary on a smartwatch, and Apple makes far fewer Apple Watches than iPhones. This was likely Apple’s way of dipping its toes in the water, and there’s at least some evidence that it wanted to bring this type of display technology to the iPhone 12 Pro lineup in 2020.
At the very least, we know that Apple originally had a faster 120Hz ProMotion display in mind for the high-end iPhone models. It was reportedly forced to shelve those plans when pandemic-related supply-chain problems resulted in a shortage of controller chips needed to power those displays.
It’s hard to say if the iPhone 12 Pro would have also gained an always-on display if we’d lived in an alternate timeline where COVID-19 never happened. Still, it does look like Apple was setting the stage for it: Apple’s official Leather Sleeve with MagSafe included a window that was nearly pointless without an always-on display behind it.
Perhaps the biggest hint this year is found in the iOS 16 betas, which feature an entirely new lock screen design with support for widgets in a simplified style — all suggesting it was made with an always-on display in mind.
Nevertheless, if the reports we’ve been hearing are accurate, the always-on display may finally come to this year’s iPhone. Sadly, it will likely be limited to the more premium iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. However, as a consolation, the standard iPhone 14 models could get the faster 120Hz ProMotion display from last year’s iPhone 13 Pro lineup.
Apple first moved to a dual-lens camera system in 2016 with the iPhone 7 Plus, adding a second 2X telephoto lens to the standard wide camera. Although Apple improved image sensors and widened apertures over the years, the optical zoom on this telephoto lens remained fixed at 2x until the iPhone 12 Pro Max bumped that slightly to 2.
