iPhone 14 Pro reviews: Many small steps forward

With the introduction of the iPhone 14 Pro, Apple’s flagship iPhone raises the bar for the performance of the iPhone family. Is it enough to satisfy Apple’s fans? Is it enough to win customers from other smartphone manufacturers? Or is it just enough to keep the momentum going without disrupting Apple’s ecosystem of software and services?

Ahead of the public sale, Apple has supplied a number of reviewers with the iPhone 14 Pro. What did you think of the latest iOS-powered smartphone? Let’s take a look at the highlights of the new smartphone and how they are received.

The dynamic island

The biggest talking point is probably the dynamic island. Apple extends this with a brand new way of working with your smartphone. For the more cynical, it’s a large notification popup that tries to hide the display crop needed for the cameras and facial recognition. As always, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Nilay Patel for The Verge:

“The easiest way to understand the island is that it’s basically a new widget system built on top of this API for live activities, and the widgets can have three views: the main view on the island, an expanded view and an ultra-minimal icon if you have two things going at the same time. If you have more than two things going, Apple has an internal priority list to put the two most important things on the island.”

If that works? Much depends on how widgetized the third-party developer’s approach is. When new content and new ways of working are embraced, it becomes amazing. But if the work of coding both the original notification system and the new island system is too complex or too expensive, the iPhone may have just created its own Touch Bar.

A16 performance

Apple’s newest system-on-chip is the A16 Bionic, which is limited to the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max (creating a notable performance difference between the vanilla and Pro iPhone models). It certainly collects the big numbers on a presentation slide and in benchmarking tests. Lance Ulanoff for TechRadar:

“It’s an upgrade of the A15 Bionic… with 16 billion transistors and a 4-nanometer process, which means the size of each of those transistors is shrinking. The benchmarks and real-world performance seem to confirm the strength of this new Apple silicon, reaching into almost every corner of the iPhone 14 Pro Max’s performance (photos, the always-on display, and the dynamic island). Between the new display tech, the more efficient A16 Bionic, and the size of the 14 Pro Max, we expected more than the 13 hours of mixed-use battery life.”

Ulanoff points out the comparatively short battery life for a smartphone of this price, but notes that he increased the screen brightness to make the phone readable outdoors. Pulling that back indoors gets you closer to Apple’s quoted 20-25 hour endurance; Florence Ion from Gizmodo:

“The battery test is usually the last thing I test on any review, so I need to track the final numbers of the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max in our video playback test. At the moment I can say the iPhone 14 Pro Max has been streaming a 24 hour YouTube video at 200 nits for almost 16 hours. It’s still chugging at 29%.

imaging

Apple may have loaded the camera presentation with a “Photonic Engine” and an “Action Mode,” but the difference between the 13 Pro images and the 14 Pro images isn’t as big as the branding might suggest. The primary sensor has grown to 48 megapixels and includes pixel binning for the first time – a feature popular on Android devices.

To many eyes, the comparison reveals cooler color temperature and less saturation on the 14 Pro’s images compared to last year’s model. Taking the Pixel 6 Pro for comparison, the 14 Pro still comes out with less vibrancy, and Engadget’s Cherlynn Low calls Google’s aging flagship the better smartphone for low-light shooting:

“A similar story can be told about the low-light cameras. In one example, the iPhone 14 Pro’s shots had the most accurate color and cleanest detail, beating the Pixel 6 Pro at capturing each line on a sheet. But Google’s flagship did a better job of capturing a picture of a bright bar in a dimly lit restaurant. It clearly captured individual leaves of a potted plant on a shelf, while the same part of the image was shrouded in shadow when shot with the iPhone 14 Pro.”

Emergency SOS via satellite

This feels like an edge case for the vast majority of users, but the ability to send an SOS signal over a network of satellites is a limitation of Apple’s ability to ship. In an unusual move, Apple is first to market here, but T-Mobile’s service with Starlink will be added shortly. Myriam Joire for PocketNow:

“T-Mobile USA and Starlink, SpaceX’s high-speed satellite Internet service provider, recently announced a partnership to bring low-bandwidth satellite communications to the carrier’s subscribers. But unlike Apple’s implementation, which requires additional hardware in compatible devices, Mobile and Starlink’s service will work with any handset that already supports mid-band 5G and is not limited to emergencies.”

Some thoughts

There’s no doubt that the iPhone 14 Pro is an improvement over the iPhone 13 Pro (as are the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro Max over their respective 2021 models). Whether it’s enough for anyone but the incredibly loyal to upgrade from last year’s model remains to be seen, but when placed alongside an iPhone 11 or iPhone 12 it’s a worthy replacement.

For those outside of the Apple ecosystem, the iPhone 14 Pro’s hardware is comparable to the flagship Android devices. There are a few areas where it wins in the Top Trumps comparison; There are others where Android comes out on top, and others where it’s essentially neck and neck.

The difference lies in the software, and the eternal “Android vs. iOS” never stops. Apple continues to simplify as many options as possible while offering more graphical cues and different ways to do existing things. Android remains flexible for multiple manufacturing partners and offers users more customization. There is no magic bullet in the iOS 16 / iPhone 14 Pro combo that makes switching a necessity.

Apple has provided the iPhone with a solid update that makes small strides in many areas. It’s an improvement over previous models and existing users will surely feel the difference. But it doesn’t feel like it’s created a sufficient advantage over Android to entice the masses.

Read the latest iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch headlines in Forbes’ weekly Apple Digest now…