With no notch, the intriguing Dynamic Island and eye-popping camera technology, Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro is about the future.
The iPhone 14 Pro — which Apple unveiled at the Steve Jobs Theater in California on September 7- is, unlike the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus, about the future.
While the still attractive and, thanks to the A15 Bionic chip, still reasonably powerful iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus look a lot like last year’s iPhone 13, not so with the 6.1-inch iPhone 14 Pro (and 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Pro Max).
Apple has always steadfastly defended the notch, which houses the powerful TrueDepth module — even in the face of taunts from competitors like Samsung. However, Apple had to move forward, even if it’s kind of a stutter step with half the iPhone 14 line still sporting the notch and the pricier Pro line not.
The result is the new and exciting Dynamic Island. Unlike a traditional screen cutout, this one, which sits near the top of the Super Retina XDR display, can change depending on activity.
The Pro line also gets (finally) an always-on display for that added bit of glanceable convenience, and adaptive refresh rates that can smoothly adjust from 1Hz to 120Hz.
Apple also upgraded the camera array with the main lens offering 48MP; shots will combine four pixels into one big one for better images (yes, it’s what Android phones have been doing for ages). And while the megapixels on the ultrawide and telephoto lenses haven’t changed, Apple said they’ve been updated, as has the front-facing, 12MP TrueDepth camera, which now has autofocus. All cameras will take advantage of Apple’s new Photonic Engine image pipeline.
On the inside is the new A16 Bionic chip, which has a 6-core CPU, a 5-core GPU, and a 16-core neural engine. Apple said it’s capable of 17 trillion operations per second.
Features like 4K support in Cinema Mode, crash detection, and satellite communications are copied across the iPhone 14 line.
In other words, Apple iPhone 14 Pro covers the new iPhone basics, but adds in the powerful, pro-level capability you expect, including better cameras, a feature-rich screen and the intriguing Dynamic Island.
Apple also managed to make its best iPhone better without raising the price, at least in the US. That’s called a win, but it will cost you a little extra in some markets.
The iPhone 14 Pro starts at $999 / AU$1,749 (approximately £867) for the base 128GB model. There are storage options up to 1TB.
Pre-orders are kicking off on Friday, September 9 at 5 AM PDT / 11pm AEST and availability begins on September 16.
Apple didn’t throw out the iPhone 13 Pro design — which we can trace back to the iPhone 12 — on the iPhone 14 Pro. It still has the stainless steel band wrapping around the glass back and front and the now instantly recognizable square, three-camera array with the smaller LiDAr sensor. The dimensions are very close to the iPhone 13 Pro, though not quite the same. At 147.5mm x 71.5mm x 7.85mm, the iPhone 14 Pro is just slightly longer and thicker than the iPhone 13 Pro (146.7 x 71.5 x 7.7 mm). At 206 grams, it’s also 2 grams heavier.
None of this was noticeable when I held the phone. It felt very much like my iPhone 13 Pro. Perhaps the one thing that stood out, aside from the Dynamic Island (more on that later) was what’s missing: a SIM slot.
This is the first iPhone line to go all eSIM. During the presentation, Apple did its best to make the eSIM setup on the iPhone 14 Pro look easy, but this might take some getting used to, especially for those who regularly switch SIM cards on new phones.
