Apple iPhone 14 Introduction:
Apple, just like any other company on the planet it seems loves a good buzzword. Another group of "r words" that are arguably the most trendy! Reduce, Reuse, Repair and Recycle. But one of Apple's greenest practices though not perfect, either in terms of environmental impact or wish fulfillment to potential buyers) is repurposing its oldest designs as new products with each refresh. It has been done over and over again, with iPhone SE models or Macbooks.
In a way, the new iPhone 14 falls into this product category. Apple made some changes under the hood to simplify service, but only kind of so. And you know what, it did bring new cameras and all the jazz.
But externally, the iPhone 14 is pretty much an iPhone 13 and so are the cores that they share. Assuming Apple was still in the "s" game, regardless of how many years had passed by that point, it's likely any iPhone 14 would have been named something like an “iPhone 13s.”
Even the base iPhone 14 simply begins at INR in 64,900 which is just revising yet not expanding any last year, so it suits this beat and strolls precisely if you will.
So is the iPhone 14 better than the iPhone 13, and should you shell out a little more to buy it over that phone?
Apple iPhone 14 Unboxing:
So yeah, before we go super in-depth with the iPhone 14 and how different (and perhaps better) it is, let's start small its box. If Apple paved the way with its bare minimum accessory package, and I see nothing to suggest that will change.
This is the usual Apple affair – clean in and out. White cardboard box, two pieces and tiny in every dimension.
In the box, you will get a rather short 1-meter long USB Type-C to Lightning cable apart from SIM ejector tool and some leaflets. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.
Apple iPhone 14 Display:
On the outside, the iPhone 14 looks exactly like an iPhone 13. Their display-diagonal sizes (6.1 inches) are also identical, and both notches have the same shape as well The contours have exactly the same feel and major shape is identical in general.
The same goes for iPhone 14 Pro which measures 146.7 x 71.5 x 7.8mm, just like the iPhone from last year with measurements changed only in thickness (+0.1mm). The Apple iPhone 14 and the new Google Pixel are so similar, that most cases for the iPhone 13 still fit on that one. Perhaps due to a repeated design or perhaps due to leaked schematics making their way into case manufacturers' hands already!
Weighing in at 172 grams -- two less than before. However, it still comes with a slightly larger 3279 mAh cell (39 mAh more).
All iPhone 14 colors Midnight is Apple black, Starlight is the silver/white signature of Gismo. The company will retain the existing finish for its new flagship in addition to three of the same colors Apple introduced when it unveiled a revamped iPhone 12 range, albeit with two modified shades. The baby or sky Blue in Apple is very pretty for our review unit.
Apple iPhone 14 Build Quality:
Apple has a solid reputation in having high build quality. And here is why the iPhone 14 Is nothing Different The body is a "glass sandwich" as well, with Ceramic Sheild glass on the front of the device and an unnamed glass at the back all butted up against an aluminum middle frame to keep everything in place.
The IP68 ingress rating remains as well. That the phone will be fine if it takes a dunk in clean water up to six meters deep for no more than 30 minutes. Not too shabby at all.
As for the iPhone 14, it's perhaps never been clearer that we're living in a "glass sandwich" world. Apple didn't say much in its launch presentation, though it did add chipsets from iPhone 14.
Now, it is a pretty heavy and very important redesign in all actuality. This iPhone 14 it looks like the iPhone 13, though Apple has pulled off some major rearrangements under the hood, essentially turning all those internal components upside-down. At IFIXIT you can also take a look at the brilliant disassembly video and see exactly what has happened (or not).
In other words, Apple has clearly put in the work on a wide scale to make the iPhone 14 substantially easier to repair than its predecessor. For the past few iPhone generations, it was notoriously difficult to replace the rear glass panel. With the iPhone 14, it sounds like gone is that ultra secure internal glue and now we have just a simple bully along with some heat to get everything out of there. It is super-easy to replace this.
Also, about the stuff being flipped over inside that's what makes it so you're now taking out components in such a way as to access them via the back of your phone instead of the front. The photo above by IFIXIT shows the difference quite well.
Kudos to Apple for actually putting a lot of effort into redesigning the iPhone 14 in a meaningful way, unfortunately this isn't an external change. This is an important bonus for a better and simpler repairability as well, which surprisingly enough will be of use to both the consumer who uses it longer (repair cost being included in buying decision) while still purchasing spare parts when needed, at low production numbers; thus helps us maintain our green perspective on things easier.
That said, Apple's obnoxious policy which mandates that some replacement parts need to be officially software activated is still intact with the iPhone 14. Reports even suggest that a back glass change will involve activation. So, Cupertino continues to be a rather suspect and repairability is far from just clearing skies.
Apple iPhone 14 Controls and Connectivity:
The iPhone 14 Menu is Nearly Entirely Unremarkable As usual with Apple, the layout on it. The power button is located on the right side of the phone.
The two volume buttons are on the left and, as always, there is an iPhone alert slider at the top. Our unit has the nano-SIM tray slightly lower on the frame but here, in Europe it's like that.
In the US, all iPhone 14 models are eSIM only for this year. Another Cupertino move to retire some I/O and set an example for the industry.
The side top of the iPhone 14 has no antenna line on that aluminum middle frame.
At the bottom resides with familiar Apple lightning connector. It is unfortunately 2022 and this thing still only has USB 2.0 data (480 Mbps max) or whatever you get with some bad accounting video output non-sense... It can do audio out, though, and it also supports USB Power Delivery 2.0 for charging.
Here on this side we can find the main microphone and a dedicated bottom-firing speaker as well. These are hybrid stereo speakers with the earpiece doubling as a second channel. iPhone 14 video focusing on display. Apple leaker offering free new MacBook. It sits above the display.
Also on the front, and one of easily most identifiable features as an iPhone 14 belonging to anyone standing in front or beside you is a big notch. Dynamic island is not used on the regular 14, a departure from Pro and Pro Max model configurations. But what the old notch does now is accommodate a more powerful 12MP front-facing camera with full-time autofocus.
Face ID tech is stuffed in there as well, and it worked just fine. The speed and wearability are also excellent, which in our opinion almost makes up for the lack of a fingerprint scanner.
For those wondering, the iPhone 14 doesn't feature a notification LED at all.
Based on our testing, there appears to be an appropriate proximity sensor present too though presumably it's buried beneath the display.
Unsurprisingly, the iPhone 14 and its so-called iPro sibling also have quite a bit in common on that front, as well with both models obviously leveraging the same ultra-powerful Apple A15 Bionic chipset. SA/NSA 5G, Wi-Fi 6, GPS with A-GPS+GLONASS+BDS,GALILEO,QZSS NFC and Ultra Wideband (UWB).
The iPhone 14 got some new features this year, too things like Bluetooth 5.3 and more excitingly enough satellite connectivity for SMS-based emergency communication while off grid at an out-of-network location or anywhere else where there's no network coverage available. The tech is fresh and fun, this has limitless use cases.
Apple iPhone 14 Camera:
Let us start with the main shooter of a dual camera found at the back on iPhone 14. Both of which do not seem to really be new. Here, it is the primary 12MP shooter that seems to be taken from iPhone 13 Pro. That means it has a brighter f/1.5 aperture and 1.9µm pixels, both larger in scale when you put this next to the iPhone 13 range of handsets available at varying levels too same capacity as well. As such it's a sensor that is likely brighter overall than the one in an iPhone 13 Pro.
The 12MP ultrawide camera has a coverage of up to 120-degree field and f/2.4 aperture as well. Going by what we see in the vanilla iPhone 13, this is apparently the same unit as ultrawide, so results can be expected to match.
So maybe not the same, but then again Apple is using a new processing pipeline for generation iPhone 14. The software tool is called the Photonics Engine. To put it another way Apple's new HDR stacking feature(Borderless Diffusion) period. The old one was called the Deep Fusion By contrast, the Photonic Engine merges a higher numbers of images into one and uses uncompressed images for merging.
The 12MP selfie camera is perhaps the biggest new addition to what would otherwise be fairly vanilla new cameras for an iPhone, as it joins phase detection autofocus.
Apple iPhone 14 Camera app and Features:
The viewfinder is largely unchanged from iOS 13, and the iPhone 11s you can see around just outside of frame thanks to some really precise calibration work between the two cameras that allow a mostly accurate preview of what will be left off-screen.
This time the image processing from Apple retains all older features like Smart HDR, Night Mode (all cameras), and now Photonic Engine.
The Night Mode icon appears automatically when you point the phone at a low-light scene and then it snaps a long-exposure shot of its own (all done without tripod). While the simulated long exposure might be set to a few seconds, you will notice this next to the Night Mode icon tap on it and adjust or turn off (red / strikeout) the effect completely. Typically, this is anywhere from 1 to up as high as the light (or lack of) will allow you sometimes… even through an ISO level. You can apply this mode to the main, ultrawide and even selfie shooter.
Like all cams that listen, the appropriate exposure and tone mapping already are -- no need to de a peak when you swap between cameras. Both stills or video.
As you'd expect, the camera interface is largely unchanged. You change modes by swiping and get to a few settings with an upward swipe flash, night mode, live photo, aspect ratio of photos you shoot exposure compensation or filters. You can also change the resolution and frame rate from the viewfinder in video mode.
The main and the selfie cameras both get portrait mode. While the vanilla iPhone has received some of the camera features, but RAW support is still missing on iPhone 14.
In the camera app is Photographic Styles, introduced with last year's Android 12. It performs a step-by-step adjustment of the photo (editing, for example sheep makeup more realistic and background correction separately). Standard, Rich Contrast, Vibrant Warm Cool And you can adjust each of modes based on your choice and make one as default. After all little similarities you like: Filters but forever.
You also get cinematic mode carried from the iPhone 13 generation. The phone records a depth map alongside the video though, which allows you to manually change focus point after recording, the same way some of Samsung and HTC's phones work. These clips can be edited using the iMovie and Clips apps.
Added in 2022 Action mode is enabled on all iPhone 14 models This is an advanced video stabilization mode for very high action/dynamic shots. You can watch some test footage down below.
Apple iPhone 14 Daylight Photo Quality:
As already noted, the iPhone 14 is using last year's Pro models' main camera, a binned 12MP sensor. Cupertino deserves damn near endless props for their consistency in the camera department, if nothing else. Dive deeper: Both shot to shot on any one device and year over year. Of course these are just kind of characteristically iPhone photos. That means they're not particularly vibrant as far as color goes - natural is the keyword but if course others might use stronger words.
They're not too overtly HDR-y either iPhones aren't scared of clipping some highlights or under developing the deepest shadows if it helps to get that punchy, contrasty style.
As we might expect detail improves on what you'd get from any of the 12MP cameras that are becoming increasingly common, there's plenty available. In fairness, there is minimal noise present and the aggressive sharpening suppresses even more of what was left waiting to be seen in each detailed pass over our 35.8MP reference image; a level that macro detail levels now easily out resolve characteristic sensor resolution by several LP/PH, still not everyone will find this heavily processed rendition appealing though…
The shots with the vanilla iPhone 13 are there because we went out and captured some comparison passing growth while preparing to shoot images for you; those will be interspersed among samples from the iPhone 14. During the day when you have good light sources, these main cameras are capable of creating very similar looking photos on both phones.
The differences are minor, and sometimes non-existent. For example, it appears the iPhone 14 will slightly out-resolve its predecessor in finer detail and consistently offer ever so slightly shorter exposures due to a brighter lens we assume. Again, however we can barely differentiate between the two.
The primary camera will also give you some really good portrait shots. Almost flawless with subject detection and separation as it also delivers exceptional quality background blur, which looks perfectly real. Studio Lightings effects are every bit the fun playground they were when Apple first announced them.
Apple iPhone 14 uses digital zoom on the primary camera since it misses a separate telephoto lens By 2x zoom photos are almost indistinguishable in quality from those shot at 1x. Impressive stuff all around.
Brace yourselves for more of the 12MP ultrawide. It comes over from the vanilla iPhone 13, as with the main cam and unlike those of any Pro model. Nonetheless, it means that this lens does not have autofocus or macrocapablity for example.
It also takes super wide-angle photos. It has good resolution detail, high contrast and very accurate color rendition. The dynamic range, it is similar to the main camera. Meaning, well-proportioned in a wide-ish way.
For example, foliage and more intricate details can appear somewhat like original oil paintings rather than being fully focused as with the Canon sensor due to lesser number of small pixels.
And again with the iPhone 13 and its ultrawide camera: And even more similar to the iPhone 14 ones than those from the main camera. After all, both phones do have the same ultrawide snapper
Apple iPhone 14 Selfie Camera:
Stunning selfies from the 12MP front camera. Resolved detail is great. But the skin textures and tones are really natural. The contrast and dynamic range also deserve a shout out. It even shows a clean output when shooting indoors, which is something very few selfie cameras can achieve.
The 7MP crop is a little more zoomed in (like, two or three feet) and has an equivalent FoV of about 30mm, while the full field-of-view on these models uses all 12 million pixels for an effective image that feels like it was shot at around a 23mm lens.
Selfies are cropped to 7MP if you hold the iPhone in portrait, but this is done for a tighter framing; switch to landscape orientation and also get more of the scene as well with camera app automatically switching modes into wider mode. It's possible to manually toggle between the two, too there is a switch shortcut on the viewfinder.
Greater gains to the selfie experience are arguably provided by phase detection autofocus now found on the regular iPhone 14, though. It's very reliable, working well 9 out of 10 times to keep focus on the subject. It can have its highs and low at times, for instance it is not the fastest autofocus system we have ever seen but if you are a vlogger or tiktok-er out there than smile pretty.
The following is hardly a scientific test at all and instead, just us having some fun showcasing the autofocus in action on the iPhone 14.
Front portraits are all good going Portrait of time solid Detail is great. Pleasant, natural looking skin tones. It is well suited for capturing and rendering texture. It is likewise really effective subject discovery and segregation.
Oh, and the other thing to keep in mind is portraits are shot at 7MP so you get a cropped-in view this camera uses its available FoV.
Apple iPhone 14 Low-Light Camera Quality:
The wide lens on the iPhone 14 catches very low light images. The type of light aspect are also very well controlled and there is no interference or noise. There's a good amount of info in the shadows as well. View more + 2 images Okay, in the end there are some very good low-light shots
The iPhone 14 occurs with an automatic night mode taking place by default unless you disable it, this time works very well. We snapped all of the above samples with Auto HDR ONENSITY You can also slide the exposer time to extend night mode to shot longer exposure times, up until what you're trying is something that Apple's algorithm doesn't believe us honest. This results in pretty much identical images; maybe with a little more softening and less sharpening. Chances are it's not a good idea to fiddle with the setting.
Remember earlier when we mentioned consistency and iPhones? However, it's amazing to see, that with its improved main camera aperture and new reversed order sensor (AKA Photonic Engine), the iPhone 14 retains are safely close level of low-light details compared against uh oh! a disagreeance rumbles causally into the herd.
You could however pixel-peep for yourself but in the real world, it actually does not make a difference. Shooting with both phones, the only real upgrade I saw was exposure/overall capture time. In system performance as well, the iPhone 14 easily out-rated its predecessor. The auto and max night mode capture times were much shorter than on the iPhone 13. In other words, the iPhone 13 just needs to take a little longer and hold it still if they want night shots that are as good as its successor.
The iPhone 14 maintains OK ultrawide, this because it is using Night Mode for every shot (typically ~1-2s vs. ~2s-3s on the iPhone 13). Images are well exposed and color saturation is attractive; contrast should be sweet as well.
They're very soft and noisy photos, but totally fine for glancing at the phone's display or sharing them on most social networks.
Pumping Night mode to its longest exposure, as high as the iPhone 14 will go if using it does yield clear advantages, especially in those darkest areas of a photo. You may need to set Night mode to its maximum in low light.
The ultrawide of the iPhone 13 also captures nearly identical low-light and Night mode photos, like on main camera. This just means that it on average takes a few seconds for the stacking to occur. However, don't expect any major improvements in low-light photography here.
IPHONE 14 VERSES IS LOWLIGHT SELFIE! There's plenty of detail and skin tones and texture come out really well. It's also doing quite well on the autofocus side.
Night mode was also set to its default Auto state for the samples collected, mirroring our testing from the rear cameras. It can be cranked up a notch, but it doesn't appear to offer much.
Selfie shots in low light on iPhone 14 new selfie cam vs vanilla iPhone 13 In particular, skin texture is so much improved. At least one particular improvement can be identified, then.
But finally, low-light video from the iPhone 14 main camera.. wow The detail is fabulous, as are the colors. Lighting is very well isolated and there's virtually no noise at this point. Solid performance all around
The same cannot be said of the ultrawide, which is noticeably noisier and darker. Its video capture is still more than adequate for the hardware that comprises it.
Apple iPhone 14 Video Quality:
The iPhone 14 will do video in up to 4K@60fps with any of its three cameras, period. The proper app might even let it shoot video using all three of those together.
The primary camera also has OIS, and all get EIS. Apple has this baked into the stabilization systems, calling it cinematic video stabilization. Smart HDR also allows all modes to have a wider dynamic range, up to 4K@60fps. Those slow-mo options top out at 1080p and 240fps.
Dolby Vision HDR video capture in up to 4K@60fps These are the videos you can edit on your phone segue ways. You can post them on YouTube or any other platform for the world to see, and you can send videos of it to your friends. As the Dolby Vision info is stored outside of the video stream, and a normal display/player can still play this file at standard dynamic range fixing set to on making it look like any common SDR file but will transfer colors boosting in (at least- that) special DV device.
Video capture: H.264 or more efficient (but less widely compatible) H.265 HEVC The latter is capable of doing 4K@60fps and HDR as well The iPhone 14 goes down to a maximum of 4K@30fps with the latter.
The iPhone 14, like previous iPhones had captured wide stereo audio or rather the videos at around 192kbps. No, this is spatial sound and it just sounds fuller almost has a bit more depth to the audio compared to traditional stereo.
The primary camera takes great 4K videos. Plenty of detail, vibrant-yet-natural colours and a decent dynamic range. We would not be without one!
The 4K videos from the ultrawide camera are as great. They are great at almost everything and probably the best detail-wise we've seen in an ultrawide camera this year.
The iPhone 14 stabilization is real solid. EIS can be claimed for all of its cameras, and the primary one benefits from OIS too. This is the first time an EIS switch shows up on Camera app settings, which should also make it possible to capture these three-way splices like this.
Apple's new Action Mode is the third mode. This is for really high action stuff, like sports and adds even more smoothing but at the expense of some resolution (it outputs to 1080p instead of 4K) and slightly wider field-of-view. And it does a great job, too. The below is a running sample for reference.
I have never looked better in a selfie video shot on an iPhone 14. Very clean and neat. Her skin texture and tone are flawless. A touch more stabilization would be nice, but it continues to navigate even the larger bumps and shakes quite well. Just in case you were curious, also there is no Action Mode for the selfie cam.
Apple iPhone 14 Battery Capacity:
For the iPhone 14, it is considered a battery pack of 3279 mAh. Just fractionally more capacious than the 3240 mAh in the iPhone 13. Since they both use the A15 Bionic chipset and have an identical display, we project a nearly-identical battery score.
That's still not close to some of the best out there, though in our review we were able to say little more than "the iPhone 14 seems… fine" when it comes battery life. So much that it bumped up the combined endurance time to 90 hours.
Good news, then: this is a marginal bump, though to our eyes one impressive for purely software efficiency gains. Oh and also that brand new energy-efficient 6nm Qualcomm modem for the sake of TSMC.
Apple iPhone 14 Charging speed:
Pro-tip apple does not publicize wattage for max charging of their phones. Based on the iPhone 13 from last year, this means that the iPhone 14 should top out at about a limited of 23W as it charges. So we used it with one of Apple's separately purchased 25W charger.
It just so happens that the iPhone 14 also delivers a minor but noticeable better faster charge compared to Charging on The Iphone 13. Certainly, it is an iterative one but still a welcome sight.
The iPhone 14 went from dead to just above half the bar in about thirty minutes on the charger, with a total top-off taking only a further hour and fifteen or so.
Apple's charging uses "standard" USB Power Delivery but adopts the somewhat long-in-the-tooth PD 2.0 protocol according to Apple. Therefore you must not have trouble getting a decent third-party charger of the scoop up an iPhone 14. Though it could be something that not only comes at a lower price as compared to Apple but one with more diversity than you might find on an regular iPhone.
Apple iPhone 14 Display:
Would you believe the iPhone 14 has exactly the same, quite-middle-of-the-road display-diagonal as the Indeed, considering a few of the performance features and Apple's branding, both phones may very well utilize exactly what is considered to be the same panel. Apple calls it a Super Retina XDR OLED, though so we have that lovely rare 1170 x 2532 pixels resolution and eyes-piercing sharpness of 460 ppi.
This is an absolutely stunning panel and it also goes plenty bright, too. Turning the brightness slider up to max, we coaxed 804 nits from it. That sounds pretty respectable, and almost usable outdoors. Apple is right that the peak brightness of this display can be 1200 nits, but it's only via a very small fraction of the OLED panel.
That said, the iPhone 14 does not include a max auto brightness mode to let it reach peaks beyond what is possible using the slider remember when I noted that little tidbit about its predecessor? In my opinion that is still exclusive to the Pro models. Oh, and the display can get really dim for perfect bedtime-level lighting.
The iPhone 14 hits the sRGB color space in standard use, as measured by our lab app. It is such a color accurate panel. VERY good for color-critical work.
The iPhone 14's screen also supports both HDR10 and Dolby Vision. It goes without saying that the phone has all requisite DRM certifications, giving you HDR streams from third-party services (like Netflix or YouTube) out of box.
HDR video playback from Apple is very good (as we've seen before) not requiring content to go full-screen in order for HDR to kick-in. It can only target the area of the display containing video, a phenomenon that feels somewhat eerie at first brush.
The iPhone 14 comes with a stunning display that is as lovely-looking and performant in general as we know from the same panels on the iPhone 13. It is only a wish Apple would have trickled down some features like the 120Hz refresh rate in its vanilla iPhone, considering most competing smartphones within this price range already come with high refresh rates whereas an iPhone still sticks to 60 Hz even on its upcoming model i.e. rumored as IPhone14.
Apple iPhone 14 Performance:
That's with Apple making use of their final-gen A15 Bionic chipset within the iPhone 14. That is, the five-GPU-core "higher tier" variant as used in iPhone 13 Pro models. Needless to say, we will see a minor uptick in GPU performance likely marginally ahead of the four cores found on iPhone 13.
For their part, A15 Bionic 5nm Hexa-core (2x3.0 GHz Ice Storm and 4x1. 23 GHz Avalanche + 4x1. 82GHz blizzard) configuration, just like last year.
Yet one other difference the iPhone 14 has from its earlier version is RAM. This one has 6GB of RAM, not the typical 4GB. This should help with the fluidicity and make rhino things stay alive while in background. Physically, then the iPhone 14 could be an iPhone 13 clone – but internally it mimics another phone entirely: the Pro. While it's not the latest and greatest A16 Bionic, that is still a nice extra bump in hardware.
After all, the A15 Bionic is a very powerful chip even though it may be getting old now. Only the A16 Bionic edges ahead, particularly in CPU tests.
The iPhone 14 is also a hit on the more compound AnTuTu benchmark. It gets on par with the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max but can't match up to the same level as what you'd see in an iPhone 14 Pro.
GFXBench, meanwhile, was less than stable on iOS 16 with various visual and other bugs. More specifically, results would often paint a distorted picture we weren't sure to believe especially the off-screen ones. The iPhone 14 still manages to compete.
Finally, here is 3DMark. Looking at the results we scored pretty much as expected compared to the iPhone 14 Pro and indeed, using different models of processors.
Of course, we also put the iPhone 14 through our own CPU and GPU stability and thermal-throttling tests. Under prolonged loads, the phone throttles its performance significantly; however it does so gradually with no sudden crashes which is nice. Long gone are the days of a simple ribbon cable making keyboard replacement easy, we suppose: you get what you pay for with repairable innards.
In reality, the iPhone 14 heats up to a gentle warm temperature during long-term loading. However, even then the A15 Bionic still has enough "oomph" to support a seamless experience.
This said, we experienced zero performance problems with the iPhone 14. We have been saying that the Snapdragon 810 is a far better chipset than people are making it out to be, and we will continue pounding on this drum until something changes. But, with the iPhone 14 performance is another thing you have no cause to hesitate over buying.
Apple iPhone 14 Software:
Every new iPhone ships with Apple's iOS 16. Naturally, this isn't going to be mind blowing-to get the lockscreen and notifications on Messages app other privacy options among others with iOS 15 is a great update over its predecessor. However, as is the Apple way certain features were held back for another day.
Now let's delve into the iOS 16 for iPhone 14 Pro. UI-wise, it is still made of homescreens filled with apps and widgets, an App Library for your non-essential app needs as well as Notification Centre and Control Centre.
After giving the lockscreen in iOS 16 a first look, which is telling that little to nothing has changed - it's still one with the Notification Center and your notifications (subject to privacy settings), together with shortcuts for the torch as well as camera. For the first time, Apple added an Always-on feature, which is limited to iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max. In case you have set secure unlock, the only way to go past this lockscreen is through your Face ID or via a PIN.
Change the lockscreen to display cool wallpapers and get a row of widgets (max: four). Except there can not be more than one row of widgets. The cool part is you can have more than one lockscreens built and change them on the go too (long tap then swipe). You can change the homescreen/notification center look whenever you please depending on your mood or work.
Also new is how notifications now appear from the bottom to make it easier for a quick read through. Notifications can be displayed in stack format, list and with a simple count.
In fact, you can link a homescreen look to the lockscreen and apply them both at once.
Apps generally fill the home screen(s) and widgets. The two screens in question: the Today page at the left, and App Library on your right.
You can optionally hide individual homescreens say you have a page for all your games, and want to hide that when at work; or perhaps a separate screen full of productivity apps isn't needed on vacation. You cannot exit out of Today and App Library.
Focus Apple iOS 16: The updated Focus mode you can now choose to apply a locked screen preset with every setup. Finally, this completes all other mechanisms to switch between Focuses and one more thing when switching amongst lockscreen it changes the focus mode.
Focus mode like Work, Personal, Driving, Gaming among others and they are going to be very highly customizable And naturally, you can create and automate your own.
The alternative way to stymie apps is with the new Focus filters of iOS 16, which can be exploited by applications thanks to a dedicated API. Focus mode will allow these filters to be picked up by apps like messages and mail clients automatically for pre-defined content filtering which the user chooses.
Widgets can be added to any home screen or the Today page and can run alongside app icons. There are three iPhone widget sizes - 2x2, 4x2 and 4x4 You can place the widgets of one size on top of each other and may rotate them automatically
App Library is an app drawer that lives on your rightmost homescreen pane. When you install an app, it gets added automatically to the App Library. It will also do the sorting itself, and you are unable to change categories or add apps into other lists. Apps are sorted by app abstracts which the developer uses for classification (tags) in App Store.
The Today page still lives on. You can add the same widgets and stacks you can on your homescreens. You can also leverage your old third-party widgets which still looks something like they were built in iOS 6+. You can then access the old widgets just underneath them, assuming you wish to use any new ones. We wish this Today page could be disabled because we found it to be almost entirely useless.
You need to swipe from the left horn or the notch area. iOS 11 unified the pane with lockcreen, which is why you can have different wallpapers on your homescreen and notification center!
Called with a swipe from the right horn, this Control Center houses customizable and (some) expandable toggles. Further controls can be accessed using haptic touch. The battery is also displayed in a similar way.
iOS 16 will also feature updates like an improved Mail app, the ability to edit and unsend messages in Messages, a fully redesigned Home app, and Fitness for Everyone without needing an Apple Watch.
Face Time has some new tricks as well, with improved hand-off across devices yes including with your wireless headphones.
The Photos app can also help you to find duplicate photos. Face ID/Touchid for Hidden & Deleted albums
Wide-Ranging Updates to Wallet And for all your keys the app now also allows you to add a receipt and tracking information.
Additional functionality in Wallet including Digital Keys and Digital ID. In future, this basic information could also then be used by other apps to verify your age. Sharing car and home keys among family members
Lastly, the Health app now supports medication tracking as well the wealth of other vital health and fitness data.
These are managed by Apple default apps like Photos, Music, TV.
The Photos app library contains four views Years, Months, Days and All Photos. As usual, there would be AI-powered search options and potent photo and video edit modes.
The TV app comes with iOS 16 and it's your standard video player for the locally saved Movies & Shows you imported through iTunes. It is also the digital store for movies and TV titles, as well a place to stream content like Apple's own original AppleTV system. There is an over whelming sense, it goes away after a bit though.
The default player is Music, but that's all about Apple Music Still, even if you don't actually want to use the streaming service this is powerful stuff and worth it for that 5 minutes of adding your songs through iTunes.
This is your documents, PDFs and eBooks at Books. Stocks and News are onboard. Your default web browser is Safari and your default map client is Apple Maps.
Live Text has been in iOS for a year now, but it gets an entire order of magnitude better with this latest release. It finally works on photos and videos, and runs off of a powerful machine learning backbone. Not the photos or texts, but at least it can see Look Up instantly. You can also select an Object from a photo or video which you have take pic, then Touch and hold object,many option will be appeared on phone screen now drag it to the wherever means Photo editor if u like this dragged stuff in your gallery image editing tools OR Drag with Message email Option.
The Crash Detection feature of iPhone 14 models is also new. This uses data from several sensors on the phone, including a new HDR gyro and high-g accelerometer to work out whether you've been in what Google calls an 'automobile crash incident' then get your device to call emergency services for help. Apple provides no specifics on what it considers a crash that's serious enough, and we're not about to test-drive into the side of someone else, so let this be.
So there you have the key aspects of Apple iOS 16 in iPhone 14 range. The vanilla iPhone 14 does not feature either Dynamic Island or Always On Display, both of which are new to the Pro or Max in the range. You can see those in the relevant reviews.
Finally, none of this includes how great the G before anything else is because that goes without saying (and there are however many more iOS updates to come). In general, Apple is one of the safest places to buy a phone as it continues long after purchase. While this is entirely speculative currently and not a confirmation in any capacity, using the 2021 A15 Bionic might mean some extra life for both the chip and all devices equipped with it. It could also down the road prove a benefit for those who end up with an iPhone 13 generation device too. This is purely speculative, of course, but a reasonable assumption.
Apple iPhone 14 Speakers:
iPhone 13 picked up the baton of iPhone 12 extremely powerful speaker setup and now for at least the next cycle, with updated specs material making debut on iPhone 14. The earpiece when relevant is the first of these two, located inside the notch and near to mic forces duplicated also by a second speaker at base alongside Lightning connector.
Even at home with the speakers that are capable of spatial audio and Dolby Atmos support (yes, we mentioned it already but no bias here), one gets a clear idea of what sound is going to be like more around you than in front or off to the side on other phones.
Credit: Ryan Whitwam Android PoliceApple may be evil, but it's at least consistent. Like last year, and the year before that our proprietary testing found which these speakers scored a Very Good yet again for loudness.
Audio quality is naturally tremendous - there's good bass, sharp mid-tones and clear high-notes too. This is also one of the best stereo speakers you can get from a phone with that thin machined-out body, right now as evidenced by our iPhone 14 spec sheet.
Apple iPhone 14 Conclusion:
This is all very much par for the course with an iPhone 14. This is a slight upgrade from last year's model. In case you skipped the full review, let us just quickly remind every single upgrade.
Internally, the iPhone 14 is redesigned a lot and it makes repair much easier than before (the back or display swap hurts so less now). iPhone 14: small battery pack, but much better life faster charging too The chipset is the A15 Bionic from last year with five GPU cores, but now there's 6 GB of RAM (8GB or 12GB option), along Bluetooth5.3 support, a newer and presumably more efficient Qualcomm 5G modem, plus new satellite connectivity for SOS messages and Crash Detection.
On the camera front, the camera department is a new larger 12MP main camera, with a 1/1.65 inch sensor, 1.9-micron pixels, a new 12MP ultrawide, and new 12MP, f/1.9 selfie camera now with autofocus onboard. There is also a new Action Mode video stabilization, 4K Cinematic mode at 30 fps, and a new Photonic engine for better low light photos. That’s not an insignificant list of changes at play once you get down to it. Some of additions have obviously more bearing than others. It would be up to the user to decide if adding all this up amounts to a compelling case for an upgrade. Then again, as far as we are concerned, short of needing that selfie cam autofocus very badly, if you are on an iPhone 13, we see very little reason to switch sides. All those camera improvements cumulatively do not really amount to reduced capture time in low light.
In fact I would even add that current iPhone 12 owners won't feel too swayed to jump ship for the 14 and may want an upgrade despite launch a year from now.
If you are on any iPhone older than that and want to upgrade, then the iPhone 14 is definitely a good bet in getting one. This is admittedly boring in more significant and interesting ways alike, but at least you know what to expect. If you are feeling a bit more adventurous or thrifty, picking up an iPhone 13 may also be on the cards to benefit from some possible extended support with A15 Bionic being given another life-of sorts-in the new iPhone. Anyhow, you will get a fantastic phone running for years in any situation. 27.08.2024
This content was last updated on 23 November 2024.
