Apple is making a play for the action camera market with the iPhone 14 – but Action Mode is far from the GoPro killer.
GoPro is used to fighting the likes of DJI and Insta360 in a Squid Game-style battle for action cam supremacy, but this year, an unexpected contender entered the fray: Apple.
This week we saw the arrival of the highly-anticipated GoPro Hero 11 Black, a direct successor to what is, for us, the best action camera you can buy. But just a week earlier, Apple heckled GoPro by launching its iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro smartphones with a shiny new video feature called Action Mode.
The feature is effectively Apple’s take on GoPro’s HyperSmooth technology, a powerful form of digital video stabilization that works by cropping into the camera’s wide-angle view, leaving the outer edges of the frame free to correct shake and vibrations.
This creates a gimbal-like effect without needing any extra accessories, with HyperSmooth being a staple of GoPro’s action cams since its first introduction on the GoPro Hero 7 Black back in 2018.
Has Apple, then, finally cornered the lucrative action photography market? Tim Cook and company would certainly like to think so, but the reality is a little different. While the iPhone 14’s Action Mode has certainly been impressive in our early testing, it comes with more limitations than the stabilization effects possible on the Hero 11 Black. And the latter, naturally, maintains a degree of durability that Apple’s smartphones just can’t match.
Why is Apple’s Action Mode more limited than GoPro’s HyperSmooth? For starters, Action Mode mostly uses the iPhone 14 Pro’s ultra-wide lens (13mm), which has a relatively small 1/2.55in sensor and f/2.2 lens (the standard iPhone 14 has an even smaller sensor and slower f/2.4 lens). Both configurations mean you need plenty of light for Action Mode to function effectively, and it’s likely to struggle (or be unavailable entirely) in gloomy environments.
The Hero 11 Black, on the other hand, boasts a larger 1/1.9in sensor that means its HyperSmooth feature can work in moderately lower light. It’s still not brilliant in these situations, mind, but you’ll certainly get more versatility from the GoPro than the iPhone when you’re out and about in the mountains, on the water or wherever else you like to get your adrenaline kicks.
