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iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro: Apple improves the cameras and turns the notch into an island

Sep 7, 2022

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Apple launches the iPhone 14 in 6.1 and 6.7 inches. iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus offer longer battery life, faster A15 Bionic and better cameras. The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max have major innovations with “Dynamic Island” instead of a notch and a new 48 MP camera. With satellites both connect.

Brighter OLED display for the iPhone 14

There was no successor to the iPhone 13 mini at the far-out event; instead, Apple is now also using the sizes of 6.1 inches and 6.7 inches previously reserved for the Pro series for the cheaper smartphone, each from one to 1,200 cd/m² bright OLED display, which retains the classic notch of recent years in the upper area, but now accommodates a new selfie camera with a larger 12 MP and aperture f/1.9, which has been expanded to include an autofocus for the first time.

Bigger pixels for the main camera

A new wide-angle camera moves in at the rear, which remains at 12MP but now has 1.8µm pixels and offers a wider f/1.5 aperture, which should improve the camera's capabilities, especially in low light. Apple calls the new pipeline for processing the recordings “Photonic Engine” and generally promises better results. On the one hand, optical image stabilization with sensor shift is used for image stabilization, on the other hand there is a new action mode especially for video recordings, which is intended to use the entire sensor, i.e. it carries out a crop on it via digital stabilization.

A15 Bionic with 5-core GPU

Under the hood of the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus is still the A15 Bionic from 5 nm production, as suspected in advance, but this time the cheaper model also comes with the one known from last year's iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max Chip with full Penta GPU expansion is used, which offers 25 percent higher graphics performance. The CPU and other key data of the chip are already known from the previous year.

Satellite communication for emergencies

In the area of connectivity, the satellite communication already expected for last year is added. The smartphone does not have the usually thick antenna of a satellite phone, but has to be aligned directly in the direction of a satellite outdoors. Apple has integrated an alignment assistant for this process. The mode is designed for emergencies and not normal communication with the smartphone, so that only short messages can be sent. For a number of emergencies, Apple provides ready-made messages to choose from to get in touch with an emergency center even faster. Ground relay stations can convert the messages into regular calls to contact departments that do not support text messaging. The service will initially only be offered free of charge for two years in the USA and Canada with the purchase of an iPhone 14.