Even though the iPhone 14 Pro Max brings several significant hardware improvements over the iPhone 13 Pro Max,
the new phone looks and feels remarkably similar to the last generation. Overall dimensions are virtually identical save for a few millimeters and grams, and the same “Ceramic Shield” (reinforced glass)
and stainless steel sides wrap around the new model. All the buttons and the alert slider are in the same spots as before.
In other words, if you’ve held or seen up close an iPhone 13 Pro Max. (heck, even an iPhone 12 Pro Max), the 14 Pro Max will feel very familiar.
“Display”
The 6.7-inch OLED display is noticeably brighter this year, with the ability to get up to 2,000 nits in brightness.
This is the brightest display in any smartphone yet. and it’s so bright that when you’re using it indoors, you probably won’t need to go above 25% brightness.
For most of these product shots, I actually had to lower screen brightness to 10-15% just to ensure the screen wouldn’t appear blown out (too bright) in photos.
“A16 Bionic”
The iPhone 14 Pro Max runs on the Apple A16 Bionic, it’s a 4nm, six-core SoC with 16 billion transistors (1 billion more than the A15 Bionic)
and it is simply the most powerful chip in mobile, beating anything in Android, including the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1.
The A16 Bionic consists of two performance cores and four efficiency cores.With a five-core GPU and a 16-core Neural Engine.
Perhaps more importantly, Apple increased the GPU’s memory bandwidth by 50%, which helps the new ISP (image signal processor).
What does this all mean in real-world usage?
To be honest, for most normal smartphone users,
it does not mean all that much. We are at a point where mobile silicon has gotten more than powerful enough for most people.
If you’re like most people whose smartphone usage is social media, emails, texting, and light gaming,
the A16 Bionic of course keeps everything running fast and smoothly. But so can the A15 Bionic, A14 Bionic, or Qualcomm Snapdragon 888.
Where you will see the benefits of the A16 Bionic is when you do intensive tasks,
like using the iPhone 14 Pro’s new Action Mode or Photonic Engine. (more on this in the camera section later), or if you’re exporting videos or using AR applications.
It’s great to be future-proofed though.
“Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max Software”
-Apple’s software synergy across devices is still best-in-class
-The Dynamic Island right now is mostly visual flair, but it likely will bring practical benefits later
“Dynamic Island”
Ever since Apple introduced the iPhone X with the notch, it has been a topic of much, much debate. Most people hated it at first
and other brands poked fun at it, but guess what? Within a year, almost every Android phone released post-iPhone X had the notch.
And while hardcore Android fans still crack jokes about the notch. The tens of millions of notched iPhones out in the real world prove the average consumer doesn’t particularly care.
To Apple’s credit, it never wavered on the notch. Instead of trying to hide it via a digital bezel the way some Android phones offered,
Apple went the other way and told developers not to try to hide it, but to leave it alone. With the new island cutout, Apple has taken it another step further by asking everyone to look at it.
Within 30 seconds of setting up the new iPhone 14 Pro Max
When I got to the Face ID registration screen — the island had already caught my eye.
In past iPhones, the page to scan my face just shows up as the next page in a series of setup screens. Here on the 14 Pro Max, a rectangular box drops from the cutout.
The animation is buttery smooth, the drop of the face scan box feels like it has gravity, as if the island was a tired traveler dropping a suitcase on the ground.
Once the iPhone is set up, the Dynamic Island will often shift in size depending on the task you’re doing. Anytime Face ID needs to kick in, for example, the island expands horizontally.
When I start a song on Spotify, as I swipe out of the Spotify app to do something else.The app flies into the island,
which then expands slightly to show the album cover art on the left side and a small music wave bar that thumps along to the tunes.
As a former hipster music geek who collected records and attended. Coachella before it went mainstream, seeing a tiny album art on a personal device brings a smile to my face.
“Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max Cameras”
-48MP main camera and new Photonic Engine improves low light performance
-Jaw-dropping video stabilization and fluidity when switching between lenses
What’s new with the cameras?
-48MP main camera, a larger sensor for ultra-wide and selfie
-3x telephoto remains the same
The new 48MP wide (main) camera brings several benefits. The first and most obvious benefit is it allows Apple to apply pixel-binning to its photos. Which essentially packs four pixels’ worth of light information into one.
This results in better performance in low light, without resorting to night mode as much.
The second benefit is we can also shoot RAW files (or as photographers call it. “shooting in RAW”) using all 48 million pixels.
RAW files are uncompressed, lossless files that keep all the data a camera sensor is capable of capturing. Apple calls their RAW files “ProRaw,” by the way.
The third benefit is that the more pixel-dense main camera allows Apple to crop into the middle section of the sensor to produce what Apple claims is a “2x optical telephoto” shot.
Three lenses, four focal lengths
The iPhone 14 Pro Max’s main camera system has three lenses covering the ultra-wide (13mm), wide (24mm), and 3x telephoto (77mm).
The wide lens is slightly wider than before (going from 26mm to 24mm), but otherwise, having three optical focal lengths has been the case since the iPhone 11.
Apple is advertising a fourth optical focal length, a 2x zoom (48mm). That crops into the main camera sensor to produce a “lossless optical 2x zoom” shot.
“Comes in Exciting Colors:
-Space Black
-Silver
-Gold
-Deep Purple
“Capacity”
-128GB
-256GB
-512GB
-1TB
The animated interface makes the phone feel more reactive and alive. The pill-shaped dynamic island grows and expands in a fluid fashion,
bringing together system alerts and on-going tasks with the potential to transform how the phone works.
The always-on display with the redesigned lock screen from iOS 16 feels similar with its live notifications and widgets.
But both features need developers to buy into Apple’s ideas and to update their apps to make them really sing.
For now the notch is a handy place for Spotify, timers and other bits to live.
The animated interface makes the phone feel more reactive and alive. The pill-shaped dynamic island grows and expands in a fluid fashion,
bringing together system alerts and on-going tasks with the potential to transform how the phone works.
The always-on
