The new iPhone 13s and 13 Pros don't always have on displays. They don't have USB type C, and they can't even do satellite calls. As usual, the rumors leading up to today's Apple event weren't a hundred percent accurate. But you know what? That's okay because daddy Apple gave us something we didn't even know we needed. A new phone camera that Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow says will birth a whole new cinema genre with fancy auto-focus.
What? - Shhhh, right now, I just need you to focus on our sponsor. I fix it. Is your battery not lasting as long as it used to? Looking for a new project? iFixit has you covered. Read this blog to know more about their battery replacement kit. Last year, Apple added a new motif to the iPhone pantheon with the iPhone 12 Mini, which joins the iPhone 12, 12 Pro, and 12 Pro Max.
This year, well, you can pretty much take last year's lineup, prices and all, and tick all the numbers up by one. An iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, 13 Pro, and 13 Pro Max occupies almost the same price points. The iPhone 12 and 11 shuffled down to knock the venerable iPhone 10XR off the list, while the iPhone SE gets to stay on probably because it's just so darn cute.
Now, a cynical person might see a lineup that looks just like last year's with the numbers increased by one. And think, gee, there's probably not a ton of new and exciting features that Apple felt would justify a price change, and you'd be dead wrong. You see that notch that's 20% smaller, so check yourself. (woman chuckling) But the truth is across the board, the upgrades this year are a lot more incremental than in years past, just like that number increase.
How does Apple attract its customers?
The overall design of each model is pretty much the same as its predecessor. Although, as we said, the notch is 20% smaller. And the dual-camera system in the non-Pro models now has its lenses placed diagonally instead of vertically, which seems like the Apple equivalent of a waiter serving you yesterday's leftovers with a dramatic flourish. The SOC and every one of this year's iPhone 13 models are the A15 Bionic. With six CPU cores, just like last year's A14 Bionic. Apple calls it the fastest CPU in a smartphone, just like last year, is A14 bionic. Being 50% faster than the leading competition, whatever that is. Apple just loves comparing its new devices to abstract concepts rather than specific products. It's probably their charm.
The A15 bionic in the non-Pro models is a 4-core GPU, while the Pro models get an extra core for graphics performance that's 30% faster than the competition. Again, just take their word for it, okay. Just calm down. And a 16-core Neural Engine will make the new iPhones even better at doing things like identifying plants. Kind of cool, I guess.
Battery life is a bit better, too, with the iPhone 13 mini lasting one and a half hours longer than last year's model. And the 13 lasting two and a half hours long. But the faster performance and better battery life are about as expected as Linus waking up his house with the ridiculous data center. Get subscribed to catch that video, by the way. (Anthony chuckling) That's going to be a thing. But the most significant leap this year appears to be the cameras and new camera features.
Apple has essentially activated the hand-me-down protocol and gifted the iPhone 13 non-Pro models with the same comprehensive and ultra-wide cameras from the iPhone 12 Pro Max. That means a wide camera with a seven-element lens, F1.6 aperture, and the fancy sensor-shift optical image stabilization Apple introduced last year. This only makes me more excited to see how they revolutionized the all-new camera system in the iPhone 13 Pro cameras. And here again, we're looking at incremental changes.
Zoom in your telephoto lens, a brighter ultra-wide lens with autofocus, and a wide lens with Apple's largest sensor ever leading to 2.2 times better low light performance. Now to be fair, those are improvements, and I have no doubt the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max will take some of the best photos and videos of any smartphone ever. But it doesn't make me feel things like when Apple first introduced the notch.
I still remember the chills. It's telling that Apple spent quite some time in today's presentation, taking up a new cinematic mode that looks like auto-focus with some AI thrown in. The phone will automatically rack focus from foreground to background in this mode as the subject looks away or enters the frame. It uses what seems to be a combination of actual auto-focus and AI power blurring. It was enough of a reason to produce the same knives out as short that felt almost dreamlike.
Although that might've also been the processing halo around the actors, the Pro and Pro Max models do have a one truly exciting camera feature this year. Support for ProRes video. Which will give these iPhones some of the post-processing capabilities of cinematic cameras. This is one of the things that may Kathryn Bigelow and this other guy speculate that iPhones will change the language of cinema. I don't know what that means. If you're excited by the unknown, you should order a mystery 21-ounce water bottle from lttstore.com for only $19.99. It's like a fortune cookie.
To be fair to Apple, we have been ragging on them a little bit here. There is one exciting hardware upgrade the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max are bringing to the table. The same promotion adaptive refresh rate displays are seen on the iPad Pros. With the capability to change from 10 Hertz to 120 Hertz, depending on what's happening on screen. Again, this is good, great even I've been waiting for this, but I can't help it feel like Apple grabbed an excellent feature from the iPad and just tossed it onto the 13 Pro and Pro Max to add a little more pizazz. Do you know? I mean, sure. There's now a one terabyte storage option for the Pro models.
This will be great for storing all that progress footage, but good luck transferring it to your Mac via the lightning port. USB 2.0 speeds. Specifically, Apple went out of their way not to show the lightning ports on that thing because they knew that we would rip them a new one over this. The iPad Pro had the USB type C, and in fact, they're doing thunderbolt now. But they're not going to do anything.
Anthony's out of control. -
Overall, the iPhones left us feeling a bit disappointed. I can't help feeling like releases like this one are exacting what the s suffix was for. But apparently, Apple has left that far behind in favor of minute-long monologues about the physical vapor deposition process required to make the sierra blue iPhone Pro look so good. It does look good.
Thankfully Apple shared off some other stuff today that wasn't iPhones. The new Apple Watch Series 7 does not have flat sides, as the leaker said. But it does have a more significant 70% brighter screen, further IP6X dust resistance, and a swipe keyboard for typing.
It'll also detect when you start riding and subsequently fall off of a bike. This is not something I would want to enter into the record, but I can understand that utility there. There were also a couple of new iPads, including a base iPad with an A13 bionic chip and a new ultra-wide 12-megapixel camera so that you can use center stage. And the iPad Pros and iPad ears flat-sided design has finally trickled down to the new iPad mini, which supports a new liquid retina 8.3-inch display, support for the new Apple Pencil, new 12 megapixel cameras, stereo speaker and landscape, and a USB type C port. Wait a second. This iPad has the same A15 bionic as the new iPhones. And it has 5G.
And it will be available in both wifi and cellular configurations. - What's to stop you from just using this thing as a big phone? It's also relatively a bit cheaper, just like repairing your electronics. It's cheaper than buying new. Thanks to iFixit for sponsoring today's video. iFixit wants to help you keep your device powered like they're brand new. iFixit has a wide range of battery replacement kits for your mobile devices. Kits for laptops, cell phones, tablets, smartwatches, and even Nintendo switches.
You don't need to be an expert to repair your own devices. Each kit has a simple as follows step-by-step guide with photos to walk you through your replacement. So why not learn a new hobby while saving yourself some time and money at the same time. Because it's what's on the inside that counts, Kathryn Bigelow will birth a whole new genre of cinema.
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