iPhone 14 Pro Max: First Impressions
Thoughts about the camera, livin’ the Dynamic Island life, my surprising indifference towards the Always-On display, and more in my iPhone 14 Pro Max initial impressions.
The days are shorter, the morning's crisper, and the fragrance of pumpkin spiced everything has permeated the air. These can only mean one thing: It's new iPhone season! Having picked up Apple's latest and greatest new gadget, I wanted to jot down some preliminary thoughts about the iPhone 14 Pro (having upgraded from last year's iPhone 13 Pro Max).
Pickup Experience
There is no iPhone Upgrade Program in Canada, but the option exists to 'reserve' an iPhone for pick up, in addition to options for purchasing it for delivery or in-store pickup. Over the past several years, I've gone with the reservation route because 1) it requires no money down, making for a faster checkout experience, and 2) it allows me to trade in my current iPhone when I pick up my new device.
Two observations about the pickup this year were the additional diagnostics that ran on my existing iPhone before trade-in, and how much more aggressively AppleCare+ was being pushed over previous years.
Diagnostics: In previous years, trade-in consisted of a visual inspection (was the iPhone in good cosmetic condition? Did the screen turn on?). In addition to that step, Apple has also started running an on-device diagnostic to verify my iPhone's condition before providing a trade-in value.
AppleCare+: Apple was also pushier with AppleCare+ than in years past. This may have just been that particular salesperson, but I'm willing to bet staff are given a primer about how to discuss AppleCare with customers. First, I was questioned about why I hadn't purchased AppleCare+ when I reserved my iPhone online, to which the answer was that the website doesn't provide that option. Then I waited as they spent several minutes highlighting the cost differences between in-warranty and out-of-warranty repairs before telling me about the recently updated unlimited accidental damage policy; all this after I had agreed to add AppleCare to the purchase. AppleCare+, once a tiny & optional part of the sale, has become a very prominent part of the entire transaction.
Design
Left: Silver iPhone 13 Pro Max; Right: Silver iPhone 14 Pro Max.
Notable changes include the increased size of the rear camera, the much purer white backing on the silver model, a slight sliming of the bezels around the display, and a tighter corner radius. Image credit: Apple.
The newest Pro Max is a smidge shorter (160.7mm v. 160.8mm) and a bit narrower (77.6mm to 78.1mm) than the previous generation. This was achieved by creating even thinner bezels around the display, though in person, while I failed to notice these reductions either visually or in hand, I still welcome them. Apple's corner radius on the iPhone 14 has also gotten more aggressive from last year's iPhone, and your eye may prefer one over another, but I think it won't be something most people will notice or hold strong feelings about.
Silver
I returned to a Silver/White iPhone after owning the Pacific and Blue Sierra Blue iPhones for the past two years. Ever since the iPhone 3G, I have opted for Silver/White iPhones when possible. And this year, the Silver iPhone has gotten much whiter than last year's iPhone 13 Pro, whose back looks creamy and closer to Starlight when placed next to the Silver of the iPhone 14 Pro.
Deep Purple
I didn't spend much time looking at iPhones in-store (on launch day, I wanted to get in and out of a buzzing Apple Store as fast as humanly possible), but I didn't care for Apple's colour option this year. Pacific Blue? Incredible! Sierra Blue? Incredible! Deep Purple? Meh. With the in-store lighting, Deep Purple looked more like a dusty grey with purplish tones, though I bet the colour pops a lot more when you expose it to sunlight. I bet there are people inside Apple with their pulse on what colours are in vogue, and I would love to see the data on how Deep Purple compares with the colors of the previous two years. Although, as someone who insists on keeping their iPhone inside a case throughout the phone's life, I wonder why I even bother holding a colour preference at this point.
Always On
You know that always-on display users have been clamouring and begging Apple to release? It's more pomp than circumstance. It looks fantastic, yet I find the information I want from lock screen doesn't justify keeping the display on all the time. On the Apple Watch, always-on vastly improves the device's utility, but I don't feel that same utility on the iPhone. I turned it off after two days.
I know this is a byproduct of a bygone era, but I've been conditioned over decades to view bright screens, especially on mobile devices, as the nemesis of battery life. Maybe that's why I find Apple's implementation of the Always On display so disconcerting. It feels sacrilegious to every instinct that has evolved over the years. The screen, the whole screen, is literally Always On!
I might reconsider as Apple fine-tunes the battery life on iOS 16. I'd like it if Apple considered offering the option of just displaying the time & widgets rather than insisting the entire display needs to be illuminated (Update: Seems like there’s a pseudo-workaround to get this), presuming that also help preserve a bit of battery life in the process.
Dynamic Island
I am so delighted Apple managed to keep this feature under wraps until the Apple Event! Leaks can be exciting, but I feel that had this feature leaked before the event, the magic and whimsy of the Dynamic Island would've been lost. Give it to Apple for turning an otherwise unsightly pill-shape cutout into the hottest software feature that'll be envied and replicated by all of it's competitors in the coming months.
For starters, Dynamic Island is the conventional inverse of the iPhone notch. Apple wanted you to ignore the notch, but the Dynamic Island begs to be noticed and interacted with. Animations into and out of the Dynamic Island are fluid and more whimsical than anything I've seen from Apple software in years. The animations and physics make the cutout feel as though it's a living part of your iPhone (but not in a scary or creepy way). And functionally, Dynamic Island plays the role of highlighting timely information, showing timers only when one is active, music when a song is playing, the device and battery life information when connecting AirPods, and more. This feature isn't gimmicky; instead, I think this is Apple pushing the technologies it has built into these devices over the years (e.g., ProMotion, OLED Retina Displays) to make its software platforms feel organic and, in this case, also cute. Currently, the Island is sparsely inhabited by Apple's native apps, but I am excited to see what third-party developers do with the API in the coming months.
Battery Life
The new iPhone 14 Pro Max is rated for an extra hour of battery life by Apple's measure of video playback (29 hours vs 28 hours) over the 13 Pro Max. Although there is no one proper way of measuring battery life because no two use cases will ever be the same, these numbers suggest that you should see a slight increase in battery life in your daily use.
However, I have noticed noticeably worse battery life by 15-25% since Friday. I am attributing this to a couple of factors:
Setting up a new phone is an intensive task, with many things downloading and reconfiguring over the first week.
iOS 16 is less optimized than iOS 15.7.
I am initially more inclined to play around more with a new phone.
Anecdotally, I would argue that iOS 16 plays the most significant role here since even after upgrading my iPhone 13 Pro Max to iOS 16, I noticed similar reductions in battery life. Wait until iOS 16.1 or .2 to understand better what the actual battery life will look like.
Camera
The iPhone does a phenomenal job preserving contrast and colour. In this example, the photo was shot directly into the setting sun. Foreground leaves retain their sharp gold colour while the background holds a strong constant between the dark scenery and surrounding light water and pale blue sky.
Bulge is beautiful! With each passing year, the iPhone continues to position itself more and more as a top-tier cinematic contender. This year, the sensors are larger, and Apple has upgraded the resolution of the primary sensor by 4x, from 12 to 48MP, allowing for absolutely massive 48MP RAW photographs. Add improvements in image signal processing for each photo (aka The Photonic Engine), 4K Cinematic Mode, and a new Action Mode (aka aggressive cropped video stabilization), and you give me more than enough reasons to upgrade.
Side-by-side unedited cropped (1655×1655) comparison between the iPhone 13 Pro & iPhone 14 Pro Max main camera. The only light sources illuminating these two photos are a dim closet light and the table lamp in the background. It was really poor lighting. While both performed well given the dim the circumstances, the iPhone 14 Pro Max shows noticeably more texture & sharpness, doing a better job highlighting individual hairs and fibres on my pup and her bed. The automatically selected higher ISO on the iPhone 14 Pro also produces no more noticeable noise than the 13 Pro.
I shoot ~50% of my photos indoors (mostly photos of my pup), so any improvements in low-light photography are always welcome. Initial impressions are that pictures from the 14 Pro reveal more detail and generate less noise in low-light environments. In bright, well-lit environment, the gains are not easily noticeable.
#Cameragate: Some users are experiencing a horrifying grinding noise & camera vibration using opening video/camera apps. This issue has a bit of virality to it, so I have no idea how widespread the problem is, but it's worrisome since sustained vibration risks damaging the mechanics of the camera. Fortunately, Apple has responded, stating that a software fix is in the works and should be out in the coming days.
2x Zoom: Thank god Apple brought back the Goldilocks zoom because I could never get my head around the proper shooting distance to take a decent 3x photo of anything!
Action Mode: I didn't test it out, but my pup will eventually get a spurt of zoomies, and maybe I'll try it out.
Front Selfie Camera: I didn't test it out, but apparently, it is leaps better.
For more technical reviews of the camera, visit the Halide blog, their social media, and read Austin Mann’s iPhone review.
A16
This iPhone is faster (Apple says), but honestly, I wouldn't know. My day-to-day use would probably not even make an A4 break a sweat. Interesting to see apple go down another nm with A16, which is now down to 4nm from the previous 5nm used in the A15 & M1/M2 line.
Crash Detection
Apple has its next video promoting its life-saving technologies written. Being in an MVA is no joke, and having been in a pretty severe rollover myself, the assurance of knowing that there's a technology that can quickly reach out to emergency services when my loved ones or I might not have the ability or wherewithal to do so in a state of shock is comforting.
Case Colors
My go-to case is always an Apple Leather Case, and this year Apple slayed it with their accessory colours, with Umber, Ink, Storm Blue, and Succulent being my four favourite new case options. I went for an Ink case with an Orange MagSafe case to create a nautical vibe with my iPhone this year.
Differentiation
In a tweet, Ming-Chi Kuo has stated that Apple will create more significant differentiation between the regular and pro iPhone lines in the coming years. I think this makes a lot of sense. Most people don't want or care to pay the premium for the bleeding edge cameras, display tech, and other bells and whistles that'll sit unused for the life of the phone, but they still want the latest device. Differentiation across iOS devices bifurcates the line in a way where you pay for what you need, and you still get the best version of that product tier that calendar year. It also frees the iPhone Pro to continue to get more advanced features and technologies without Apple feeling as obligated to keep the regular iPhone in tow.
In Sum:
The iPhone 14 Pro is a collection of iterative but meaningful updates. I've grown fond of the flat edge design of the iPhone reintroduced in the iPhone 12 and didn't mind seeing it stick around for a third straight year. And while software features like an always-on display turned out to be far less influential in my daily use, Apple's experimentation with UI by means of the Dynamic Island has me excited and craving for Apple to lean further into this design language. The camera updates (both hardware and software) produces larger photos when utilizing all 48MP, and much sharper, brighter images at the margins of challenging lighting conditions. Looking forward to what the 14 Pro & 2023 both have in store.
