iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max: A Dynamic Notch, 48MP Camera and More Reasons to Go Pro

    

    iPhone 14 Pro and pro Max feature some high-end upgrades.
    Apple
    

    This story is part of Focal Point iPhone 2022, CNET’s collection of news, tips and advice around Apple’s most popular product.
    

    Apple unveiled a new line of iPhones at its “Far Out” event on Wednesday, but it reserved its biggest changes for the higher-end iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max models. The standout new feature is a smaller pill-shaped notch. But rather than try to ignore the cutout, Apple built a system of moving alerts and notifications that utilizes the black space. Apple calls this the Dynamic Island.?
    This feature, not present in the iPhone 14 or iPhone 14 Plus, is just one of the ways that Apple widening the gap between the regular and Pro models, forcing customers to pay a hefty premium for the latest and greatest features. The iPhone 14 Pro starts at $999, while the iPhone 14 starts at $799.?
    iPhone 14 Pro vs. iPhone 13 Pro: Should you preorder?
    iPhone 14 Pro demo units at Apple’s Far Out event.?
    James Martin/CNET
    At quick glance, the iPhone 14 Pro doesn’t look at all different from last year’s flagship, the iPhone 13 Pro, down to the Lightning port. So for those wanting to flaunt the latest in industrial design from Cupertino, the iPhone 14 Pro likely won’t turn heads.?
    Internal hardware does get upgrades, including the camera, which now sports a 48-megapixel sensor, a major leap from the iPhone 13 Pro’s 12-megapixel sensor. Still, to the unassuming eye, it’ll be hard to tell the iPhone 14 Pro apart from last year’s model, that is, until it’s turned on.
    Immediately, people will see that the much-loathed notch, a section made to house the front-facing camera and other sensors, has been removed for the pill-shaped cutout. Instead of letting the pill sit as a black splotch on the iPhone 14 Pro’s screen, Apple has created what it calls the Dynamic Island. The interface uses that black space as a design element, bringing up animations that extend the notch in novel ways to give people information.?
    

    The Super Retina XDR display can hit 2,000 nits of brightness for visibility in bright light. By contrast, the iPhone 13 Pro maxes out at 1,200 nits of brightness. The 14 Pro uses LTPO technology to bring the refresh rate down to 1Hz, which will help save on battery and allow for Always-On display. The 13 Pro bottomed out at 10Hz.?
    Unlike the base iPhone 14, the Pro and Pro Max models will get the new A16 Bionic chipset. With 16 billion transistors, the circuitry elements that process and store data, it’s Apple’s most powerful mobile chip to date. Last year’s A15 Bionic had 15 billion transistors by comparison. The A16 Bionic is made on a 4-nanometer process versus 5-nanometer, which helps explain the transistor gains Apple has made. Apart from the added transistor count the new manufacturing process, the jump in computational power won’t be as significant from the 13 Pro to the 14 Pro as it was from the 12 Pro to 13 Pro. It’s uncertain how much RAM the iPhone 14 Pro will have.
    The camera on the iPhone 14 Pro has been given a noticeable upgrade over all past Apple handsets. The 48-megapixel camera sports four times the pixels of the iPhone 13 Pro. Apple has shied away from engaging in the megapixel wars happening on the Android side, instead opting to make the most out of 12-megapixels. Now it seems Apple is willing to make the leap. Fans should expect more detailed pictures and a robust RAW editing mode giving greater control in picture editing.?
    iPhone 14 Pro’s A16 Bionic: The new chip for 2022
    Apple A16 Bionic chip.
    Apple
    Powering the iPhone 14 is the?A16 Bionic chip?featuring 16 billion transistors on a 4-nanometer process. Apple said the chip’s efficiency cores make it 40% faster at third of the power consumption compared with the competition. The GPU sees an upgrade as well, with 50% more memory bandwidth. The display engine on the A16 Bionic chip helps power the LTPO display as well as the Dynamic Island. Apple says the A16 Bionic’s neural engine is capable of 17 trillion operations per second, which is needed for computational photography.?
    Notably, the iPhone 14 uses last year’s A15 processor.?
    iPhone 14 Pro Camera: Finally, more megapixels

    
    

    
    The iPhone 14 Pro will feature a 48-megapixel camera. The quad-pixel sensor takes groups of four pixels and makes them act as one large pixel for better light capture. Android manufacturers employ a similar technique with high-megapixel camera sensors. The handset’s Pro Raw mode allows photos to be captured at full, uncompressed 48-megapixels.?
    Apple has also developed a new computational image-processing method to take advantage of the new pixel pattern for better color accuracy and detail in difficult shots. With the Photonic Engine, Apple said low-light photos will get a 2x improvement when compared with the iPhone 13 Pro. Apple can use the 48-megapixel sensor to punch-in on a photo, emulating a 2x zoom with the middle 12-megapixels of the sensor.?
    Apple was sure to tout its ProRAW option, allowing photographers to edit photos with uncompressed data. Of course, Apple can also use its computational photography to enhance ProRAW photos.?
    

    Apple said the ultrawide sensor, along with the Photonic Engine, can give people a three times improvement in low-light photography, and two times better on telephoto and front-facing camera photos.
    In video capture, Apple said the iPhone 14 Pro will come with Pro Video and Cinematic modes that can record at 4K and 24 frames per second.?
    
    iPhone 14 Pro camera showcase.?
    AppleiPhone 14 Display: Goodbye notch, hello Dynamic Island

    
    

    
    Apple’s designers have embraced the front-facing camera cutout on the iPhone 14 Pro. The Dynamic Island integrates the black pill-shaped hole that sits on top of the Super Retina XDR Display in a way that makes it feel deliberate thanks to clever software animations. The pill can expand in various ways to let you know someone is calling or that your Face ID is working.?
    Dynamic Island aside, the Super Retina XDR Display on the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max comes in two sizes: 6.1 inches and 6.7 inches, respectively. Peak HDR brightness hits 1,600 nits for vibrant colors and can hit 2,000 nits for bright sunny days.?
    Always-On Display uses LTPO technology to bring the refresh rate down to 1Hz. This allows the iPhone 14 Pro to display information at all times without consuming lots of power.?
    iPhone 14 Pro: Battery life, price and other features
    Apple said the iPhone 14 Pro will feature all-day battery life, longer than previous models.?
    It’ll also include the newly unveiled features found in the base iPhone 14, such as Emergency SOS, a satellite-based system for communication in dead zones, and Crash Detection, which lets the device know if you’ve been in a car accident. ?
    The upcoming?iOS 16?will be the operating system powering Apple’s iPhone 14 line out of the box.?
    

    The iPhone 14 Pro will start at $999 (￡1,099, AU$1,749). The 14 Pro Max will start at $1,099 (￡1,199, AU$1,899). Both of Apple’s premium handsets are more expensive than the base iPhone 14 and 14 Plus devices, which start at $799 (￡849, AU$1,399) and $899 (￡949, AU$1,579) respectively.
    See at Apple
    Preorders start on Sept. 9, with the phones launching on Sept. 16.