Review | iPhone 14 Pro

Apple has ditched the mini iPhone in favour of a Plus variant. The iPhone 14 lineup consists of a 6.1-inch iPhone 14 and a new 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Plus. Both devices feature the narrower notch found on the iPhone 13 range, sport the same diagonal dual camera setup on the back and the same A15 Bionic chip. This marks the first time that Apple has utilised different chipsets for the standard and pro lines of the iPhone.

While the A15 Bionic is an impressive chip that is easily able to hold its own against the best that Qualcomm and Mediatek have to offer, it begs the question whether you should be getting an iPhone 14 or just buy last year’s iPhone 13?

Both the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus feature Emergency SOS via satellite, an OLED display and the same Crash Detection capability found on the new Apple Watches.

The big iPhone news comes in the form of the new iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max which have ditched the notch in favour of what Apple calls the “Dynamic Island”, which is just a pretentious marketing term for a pill-shaped cutout.

A rather bold design move for Apple, the Dynamic Island is immediately noticeable purely because it isn’t a notch. Apple has chosen to embrace this and has made the cutout a feature in its UI by allowing notifications to expand from it and allowing it to adapt to the app you have running in the background. It sounds weird but makes sense when you see it and leaves you wondering why no other smartphone manufacturer has embraced cutouts like this before.

The part that puzzles me is the fact that iOS 16 has shifted notifications and music controls to the bottom of the device, thereby making them easily reachable, but the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max centers these same notifications and actions around the Dynamic Island which sits at the top of the display.

Whatever Apple’s logic is for this uncharacteristically disjointed experience, it’s clear that the company is taking serious steps to differentiate the standard iPhone as the device for normal, everyday people, while positioning the Pro line as the ultimate content creation device for professionals. The inclusion of a new 48MP sensor on the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max appears to solidify this burgeoning divide and raises the question of how far Apple will take this new approach.

With these new product segmentations, it's clear that Apple is aiming to provide a device for everyone, professional or not, that will work with you and for you no matter where you are.

iPhone 14 Pro from US$999, iPhone 14 Pro Max from US1099,