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Apple reveals iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max with Dynamic Island notch and A16 Bionic chipset

Apple iPhone 14 Pro series.

In the same fashion where Apple streamlined its non-Pro models into handsets with identical features carrying different sizes, Apple launched the Apple iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max for users who like big and bigger mobiles. That, and all the latest Apple advancements in these two models, like iOS 16.

The iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max come with IP68 water resistance and stainless steel bodies protected with a Ceramic Shield up front. They have 6.1 and 6.7-inch displays, respectively. Apple has upped their peak HDR brightness to 1,600 nits, and peak outdoor brightness to 2,000 nits, making these numbers the highest ever on iPhone models.

Smaller notch and Dynamic Island

The Pro models have a new TrueDepth camera that occupies 30% less area, giving it a different notch appearance (oblong shaped, no longer touching the edge of the iPhone). Apple calls the resulting design Dynamic Island, with new animations and transitions centred around the oblong bar’s aesthetic.

Dynamic Island blends iPhone notifications like alerts, music controls, map directions, Face ID confirmation, and live call details into its bar.

This feature is always live and active on iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. It is also designed to support third-party apps, like notifications from private car-hailing services and sporting news platforms, so it's not just for Apple's natively built-in functions. Here's how it fares in our first-hand experience:-

Power-efficient Always-On Display at 1Hz

Apple iOS 16 lock screen on the iPhone 14 Pro series.

The switch to LTPO panels and changes to its Always-On Display feature sees iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max with a reimagined, battery-efficient idling screen.

The upgraded Always-On Display with low refresh rate, to save on battery life.

They now offer 1Hz refresh rate for its LTPO AMOLED in low-power mode, with an additional smart dimming feature for its lock screens to preserve details like time and date while maintaining pleasant-looking backgrounds (instead of a blacked-out screen like other smartphones).

Pros get Apple Silicon A16 Bionic

Apple also diverted from its usual practice of sharing the same chipset across both Pro and non-Pro models. Now, only the Apple iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max get Apple's latest mobile processor: the Apple Silicon A16 Bionic. This chipset focuses on power efficiency, display, and camera prowess.

On it are 16 billion transistors built on a 4nm manufacturing process, which Apple claims to be “40% faster than the competition”. It has a 6-core CPU, with two high-performance cores (that now use 20% less power than before) and four efficiency cores (which use one-third of the power when compared to its competitors).

Its 16-core Neural Engine offers 17 trillion operations per second, and the 5-core GPU comes with 50% more memory bandwidth. The upgraded Display Engine helps to support Dynamic Island features, and the built-in image signal processor (ISP) with the combined processing power of A16 Bionic 4 trillion operations per photo.

Pixel-binning for its 48MP main camera

Both iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max get a 48MP main camera on the rear.

These phones have a 65% larger main camera sensor than iPhone 13 Pro and second-generation sensor-shift OIS. They also come with a quad-pixel sensor (what Apple calls pixel-binning). The quad-pixel sensor combines four adjacent pixels into one large pixel, allowing 4x more light into each quad pixel. Combined with its Photonic Engine software, the main camera sees “2x improvement” in low-light photos.

Joining its default ultra-wide (0.5x zoom), standard (1x), and portrait zoom (3x) is a new 2x zoom option in the Camera app. This is powered by its 12MP 2x Telephoto camera, which also shares its main camera core perks.

Apple ProRAW now offers 48MP shooting, allowing users to rely on the full resolution of the Main Camera, partly also thanks to A16 Bionic. The added resolution gives professional photographers more image data to work with when post-processing their work.

Finally, its 12MP ultra-wide angle camera also has a larger sensor, 100% Focus Pixels, 3x improved low-light capture, and improved macro shooting.

Even the rear flash LED got a boost, with a new 9-LED array offering 2x improved brightness. Overall, all cameras received improved low-light performance, including 2x better low-light performance for telephoto shots.

The Pro models also inherit Action Mode stabilisation, and Cinematic Mode gets 4K24FPS and 4K30FPS recording.

Other features

All the new additions that also went onto the iPhone 14 series (iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus), like Crash Detection, Photonic Engine, and Emergency SOS via Satellite, are also available in these Pro models.

Pricing and availability

The Apple iPhone 14 Pro retails from US$999 (S$1,649 for 128GB) onwards, while iPhone 14 Pro Max starts at US$1,099 (S$1,799 for 128GB). Pre-order begins on 9 September 2022, 8 PM Singapore Time, before hitting the streets from 16 September 2022 onwards. Each customer is limited to two 14 Pro and two 14 Pro Max units.