iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max are here: taking the Pro to the Max!

The Pro iPhones got a slew of significant upgrades over their non-Pro siblings. For another year in a row, the 120 Hz ProMotion screen tech is held hostage by the Pro line, with the regular iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus capping out at 60 Hz refresh rate. But that's not all. In a nutshell, here's what's new for the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max:

Got all that? Cool! Let's dive deeper:

Apple really likes to stick with the same design for years on end — this may irk you if you are a techie that's always on the hunt for something fresh and new. However, people that rarely upgrade their phone do find comfort in the fact that their 4-year-old device still looks like the newest one.

But enough tangents, let's get to the meat and potatoes — the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max look a lot like their predecessors. Flat rectangles with soft corners, fully flat, stainless steel frame sides, and a triforce of camera lenses on the back. Some dimensions are different, of course, as the camera module now houses a bigger camera sensor. So no, your old iPhone 13 Pro cases won't fit.

The screens is where you will see another design change — the dreaded notch that houses the Face ID sensors is now gone... Replaced by a pill-shaped (a sideways "i" to be more exact) cutout that houses the Face ID sensors. However, Apple has went above and beyond to include that cutout in the interface and user experience.



The display area around the cutout can show custom widgets and other elements, which are context based. For example — the area will expand to show you playback controls and artwork when you are listening to music. It can be used as an ever-present widget that shows what's happening in the background, or it can be used to enhance apps. Since it's an OLED display, when the pixels turn black, they seamlessly expand the area surrounding that cutout.

Apple calls this the "Dynamic Island". And dynamic... it looks to be!

On to actual display features — the screens of the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max are, again, OLED panels with a 120 Hz refresh rate. These looked great on the iPhone 13 Pro and we have no doubt that they will be fantastic again. But what's new here is that the iPhone 14 Pro screen can hit a maximum brightness of 2,000 nits, so it remains perfectly visible even under direct sunlight.

And the Pro models now have always-on screens thanks to the LTPO panel being able to drop refresh rates down to 1 Hz. This is the same tech that Apple utilizes in Apple Watch models with always-on capabilities and has also been used by Samsung, Google, LG, Asus, and many more Android phone manufacturers for some years now. The techie crowd has been pining for an always-on iOS update for at least a couple of years now, and it seems we are finally getting it.



Of course, Apple will always try to do something "the Apple way" before introducing it. So, the always-on screen feature here allows you to have your actual favorite wallpaper always on-screen. Granted, it's dimmed, so you don't drain the battery. But it breathes new life to the "aways-on" concept.

Every year, new Pro iPhone models put a huge emphasis on evolving camera features. They have the telephoto lens for optical zoom to set them apart from the non-Pro variants, yes. They also have the LiDAR sensors for accurate Augmented Reality measurements and applications. But, this year, we also get an all-new sensor.

Apple has upgraded the main wide-angle camera of the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max to a 48 MP one (from 12 MP in lower models). Apple promises a massive upgrade to low-light and Night Mode photography, thanks to binning the pixels on the sensor in groups of 4 — we still get a 12 MP photo, and since the pixels are grouped together, they create clusters of extra-large pixels that can collect more light and data with less noise introduced.



When shooting ProRAW, you get access to the full 48 MP for a super-fine picture and better post-production opportunities. Additionally, the camera uses software trickery to achieve "optical-quality" 2x zoom, adding an extra step between the main 1x (24 mm) and the telephoto 3x (77 mm) that we've had before.



Apple's software for post-processing photos has evolved to the new Photonic Engine — an upgrade of Deep Fusion that works much like Google's HDR+ — it takes multiple photos when you press the shutter button and combines the best exposed pixels for every area of the frame. The iPhone 14 Pro does 14 trillion operations per photo, just for one snap. This mostly improves the low-light photos, by a huge margin (as per Apple's promises).

The ultra-wide camera is also getting some love, as its sensor has also been increased in size. This should allow you to capture low-light photos and video with similar quality to the main camera, thus reducing any "jump in quality" issues as you swap lenses in the same scene.

The new Action Mode is on both the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro, supposedly making shaky footage super-smooth without the need of a gimbal. We've seen similar tech in the LG Wing before, but weren't impressed back then. Needless to say, we can't wait to see what Apple has done here.

Even the LED flash has gotten a power increase — it's obvious that Apple is working hard to improve the one place where mobile cameras still suffer somewhat, and that's low light.

On the selfie side, we still get a 12 MP sensor, but with a wider lens aperture — F1.9. Also, the selfie camera now has autofocus, so we should get better-exposed and more detailed pictures out of it.

Processor and memory

For the first time in... well, ever, the Pro iPhones will differ from the non-Pros in terms of what makes them tick. The new Apple A16 Bionic chip is exclusive to the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, while their cheaper siblings will stick to last year's A15 Bionic.

So, what's new? Apple's new chip is built on the 4 nm process — the latest and greatest development for silicone building, making chipsets more energy efficient. The GPU has gotten a major boost, with a 50% more memory bandwidth and we expect the iPhone 14 Pro to, again, be on the top of the performance foodchain.

As for storage tiers — we know how Apple seemingly hates on-device storage. The entry-level tier of the iPhone 14 Pro will start off with 128 GB of storage at $999. The next tiers are 256 GB, 512 GB, and all the way up to 1 TB. As with the iPhone 13 Pro series, it's recommended you spring for at least a 256 GB model if you intend to use the video camera a lot — the smallest model does not allow you to shoot ProRes video in 4K.

We've been following the development of iOS 16 through its public betas for a few months now. Well, it's finally complete and ready to be pushed to an eligible iPhone near you!

So, what's new? Here's a quick list:

And many more — check out our full iOS 16 recap here.

The new Pro iPhones have just been announced. Pre-orders kick off on the 9th of September, shipping begins on the 16th of September.