With Garmin devices you can text both ways and it has been shown in many rescues to be a huge advantage at getting the right search and rescue or other team to you faster--they can find out what the situation is and if they need to skip right to a helicopter rescue for example. If I were an avid hiker I wouldn't ditch the Garmin just yet (but hopefully in a year or two we'll see if Apple and others try to compete in the satellite rescue beacon world and offer comparable features).
There are still situations I think sos on iPhone 14 does make sense. Like driving in middle of nowhere without signal and having car troubles.
I would also though agree people may get this false sense of safety, but I’m sure having something is better than nothing and having 2 options is better then 1 and maybe someone else hiking may find an someone who needs emergency help and doesn’t have inreach and able to help. The iPhone isn’t useless as sos device, but I will know I’ll be counting on my inreach on my adventures as my emergency beacon even if I did have iPhone 14.
He does not say this. He explicitly says he did carry his garmin when in Scotland. From the article:
> (for the last week in Scotland, we’ve not had cell service), so I have a Garmin inReach MINI I carry with me
The author's point was that he travels a lot in the US and abroad, and that he will keep his Garmin but use it less and pause his subscription more often.
This is a blog post about the iPhone being reflected upon whilst in Scotland, which makes it a good read. If it were an advertorial, I see how you could jump this critique on it. But it's not.
The author has also replied to my comment saying he wasn't aware that the satellite service was North America and Canada only and that he will make sure to take his Garmin on international trips. My critique was not aimed at the author, but at the marketing materials which need to hammer this point home, even for North American residents such as this author. Based on this evidence, I think it was a pretty justified comment.
"After watching far too many videos comparing the iPhone 13 Pro Max, Samsung S22 Ultra, and Pixel 6 Pro, I decided against the iPhone because of the automatic skin smoothing.[1]
The iPhone 13 Pro Max removed wrinkles, sun spots, moles, hair, etc to the point where the results looked like overprocessed, manually edited photos. This wasn't subtle -- the reviewers commented on it as well.[...]"
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30754912
[1] A responder in that thread took issue with my calling this skin smoothing. Whether this is intentional skin smoothing or overly aggressive noise reduction, the impact on the image is noticeable.
> I do feel many of the images I’ve shot are a bit too processed and/or over-sharpened. When this happens, I’ve been bringing the ProRAW files into Lightroom CC and adjusting the “Apple ProRAW” profile slider to the left to reduce the HDR/sharp look if it’s too much for me.
Now you have to explain what exactly ProRAW files are, how to import them to Lightroom, and how to find the right slider to reduce that effect. What happened to the It Just Works™ simplicity?
…And vice versa, so either way it's a possible fix.
I remember telling someone about this great image sensor on the old OnePlus One a friend gave me years outside of its lifecycle and how it takes pretty amazing photos. I wonder if it was just a function of no image processing, and my steady hand from years of photography and breath-holding practice to manually stabilize my photos.
That's when you have to switch to something with manual controls.
I remember the old Apple guards used to trash the Samsung / Android photo as being unrealistic. How the tide has turned.
The new Apple resembles very little of the old Apple.
I find that the camera of iPhone 8/X looks better than that of iPhone 7. But iPhone XS looks worse to me due to overprocessing, and every iteration after processes more. :(
I just really like the night mode that computational photography brings in, but in every other area it’s a poison pill we’re forced to swallow.
There needs to be a new metric that reflects the whole user journey of using the camera - from figuring out how it works, to taking new photos when one came out bad. How many attempts to get a photo of a serial number label down behind the dishwasher..? Do pictures of the moon look terrible because the lens has fingerprints all over and the user doesn't realise? Can the camera run at the same time as google maps navigation and an audiobook without lag?
> These pains offloading media are not a new issue specific to the iPhone 14 Pro, and I really hope it is solved soon.
I'm surprised that he didn't consider AirDrop as a means of getting photos out. That's how I transfer most of the photos I need to edit on my MacBook these days.
The phone shows up as a camera with photos, as well.
1: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/gvfs
2: https://apps.gnome.org/app/org.gnome.Nautilus/
3: https://nexus.armylane.com/files/Gnome-Nautilus-iPhone.png
But as far as I can tell there are no image-related apps in that list you shared in your number 2 link?
I don't think I've plugged an iPhone into my MacBook other than to charge on a trip since the last time I was into jailbreaking and was running checkra1n.
Given that they still sell iPhone 14 with regular SIM cards, why wouldn't they allow that option in the US ¯\_(ツ)_/¯!?
Floppy disks. Java. Disk drives. Headphone jacks. This is Apple’s M.O.
So for Apple to pitch this as "wow, it's a new system where instead of just putting in a sim card you have to grovel to your carrier to set up your phone", it hardly strikes me as better UX.
My partner lost his phone (and SIM) recently and I was able to transfer his T-Mobile line to a different iPhone in a few minutes using eSIM. It was totally automated using the T-Mobile website — enter the IMEI then scan a QR code with iPhone camera.
I saved a trip to the store to get a new SIM card and didn’t have to talk to a human.
Not having to talk to sales reps or go to stores is a big win for customers. Granted, this is mostly hypothetical at this point but it is coming.
another counterpoint: I just got back from a trip in Europe and had to swap my sim card back when we landed. I forgot to ask for the small (and easily losable) tool they give you to pop open the tray, but luckily my SO had an earring that was able to fit.
It's not in their best interests to allow friction free price shopping.
(Lightroom won’t let me share both my edit and the unedited original but the blueish picture was taken at almost the same time and had the same general look as the edited picture.)
I’m not sure who would like the unedited version of the picture but I get weird color issues like this all the time on my mini. Here’s another one of my kid:
For anyone who has a doubt, I testify that my kid is not red and those cliffs were not blue.
Worst thing is it’s totally unpredictable when the issue is gonna crop up. It doesn’t happen in every picture. I don’t know what someone would do with a camera like this if they didn’t know how to edit to fix the colors.
The other one seems like a bug. Could always go complain about it.
Compelling upgrades would be: another small variant (or smaller than 14 pro at least), something foldable (maybe, if done really really well), significantly improved battery life, bike computer functionality (CarPlay for bikes), or significantly improved performance (in a few years, maybe the 12 mini will be noticeably slow in 2024).
The curse of releasing devices with hardware that’s 3-5 years ahead of the competition in delivered performance (not just feature checklists) is that unless you wait 4+ years, new models don’t always feel like upgrades.
I’m using an iPhone X here in 2022 and honestly other than the battery life being a bit lower than usual, the phone is super snappy, even on these latest iOS releases.
It’s basically 5 years old and it’s still doing amazingly well.
Apple has gotten a lot of flack for releasing “new” hardware and software features that aren’t really new or groundbreaking. I’m starting to see the genius in their planning. The slow trickle of improvements (I like how you call them “S revisions”) are for the sake of momentum, the long term survival of the company. Especially when Apple is already battling the longevity of their own products. I’m rounding off Year Two of my iPhone 12 Pro Max and will likely squeeze out a third year.
I haven't thought about "carplay for bikes" but as e-bikes get more sophisticated, it may make sense.
Wall St demands iPhones. Any trip-up from a supply chain issue would kill the stock. I’m sure the company is being very conservative.
My interest in hardware revisions has only grown in recent years, particularly in mobile devices. I’m not gonna go rush off and buy a new iPhone, I’m quite pleased with my 13 Pro Max and upgrading now would feel horribly wasteful. But I’m continually awed by advancements in mobile camera technology, and whenever I do upgrade it feels as much like magic as when I got my first newer game console (NES -> SNES) as a kid. But to be clear, my interest here is almost completely in the camera, and I pretty much view my phone as a really nice camera with convenient computing and network affordances included for some almost inexplicable reason.
To a lesser extent, recent advances in chips has also had me pining to upgrade a perfectly good laptop which again would feel wasteful to do now, but I expect when the time comes it’ll feel similarly revelatory even if that’s more incremental just because I’ve been upgrading the same sorts of things for much longer.
It’s okay, probably even good, that you don’t feel the same way about the device upgrade treadmill. A slower upgrade cycle would be objectively good for a lot of more important things. I’m not going to try to convince you a new iPhone is something you should want even for “free”. Just offering personal perspective why I find the new one exciting even if I’ll skip it.
All still work great.
The 13 is DRASTICALLY faster. The OLED screen looks far far better than the old LCD, and because the chin and forehead are gone it’s significantly bigger despite the similar case size. The 13‘s battery life is supposed to be significantly better despite more demanding software than the 7’s battery life was when it was brand new. The cameras are barely comparable quality wise.
That’s a top end 2016 phone compared to a medium+ end 2021 phone. And the difference is incredible.
If you go back to 2010 that would’ve been the first retina phone, the iPhone 4. With it’s little 3.5” display. At this point it almost looks like a different device.
I was excited when I got the iPhone 13 Pro because of the LiDAR ToF sensor and being able to utilize Apple’s new object capture API. I was also excited to have a zoom lens, as my old phone (iPhone 7) did not have one. These were all things I had a clear use case for, so it makes sense I was excited for the upgrade.
I think it’s okay to not be excited when you don’t have a reason to be. Don’t assume that means you’re old and jaded.
I have a pal who has a baby coming and I reminded him to make sure he gets his iPhone upgrade program replacement done in time.
My mom's partner, I ask him to keep his updated because these are photos and video of my mom who won't be here forever.
Not only do these devices capture the most consistent, high fidelity data, you almost have to try to screw up having the data automatically backed up.
The cost of keeping the devices updated is relatively low, and the device switch process has improved __every__ year. New devices require new OS's which get the most attention and latest patches, etc.
Still fantastic technology no doubt, but certainly not the wow of 10 years ago.
For all the pixel count, no company ever talks about pixel size (physical) and the noise characteristic as a result or the effective resolution. The imaging chip has not gotten physically larger between iPhones, I assume, so the pixels are just dividing the same light into more sites. Is this better?
People who don't know will just assume that 48 MP, well that's better than a Sony A7RIII now, right? Of course not.
If he was to explain what determines image quality, why not also demand that he explains aperture, focal length, etc.? It's just not aimed at that public.
Considering Apple's marketing focuses so much on the camera, and they have so much experience in the domain, I'm kind of shocked they continue to be so disappointing.
Perhaps it's a style decision.
(I certainly haven't tried playing with RAW, that's beyond my level of care.)
As a very amateur photograph that doesn't want to carry his DSLR all the time I considered getting it for the 48MP but after reading the review and seeing what would be most of the pictures I would take (the 12MP ones), it's a hard pass.
What’s not to like about the camera on the 13?
The one downfall was that when I broke my screen this year, the replacement was so costly that I ended up switching to a friend's unused older model iPhone for now. I may still repair it at the end of the year...
My understanding is that it's even worse than that, as the 48MP sensor isn't a regular sensor but a Quad Bayer sensor. While there are some benefits over a 12MP sensor, based on what I've read it seems that the image quality is more comparable to a 12MP sensor than to a 48MP sensor. So cropping to 2x would match a 3MP sensor.
That's currently the main reason why I'm planing to keep my 12 Pro a little bit longer. A 2x lens seems more useful than 3x to me and if the assumption above is correct the 2x quality on the 12 Pro should be better than on the 14 Pro. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a lot of discussions regarding this topic, but there's a YouTube video that comes to a similar conclusion: https://youtu.be/u9sJb_E6h5E?t=588.
This is a first world problem: the flash that appears in their flagship Live Photos photo/video feature has ruined some great vacation photos that were hard to take.
I don't know if this is fixed in the iPhone 14 / iOS 16.
The local file storage and backup capacity requirements for 48MP are going to get crazy. I may only shoot in 48MP in rare cases when I really want the super quality and normally leave in 12MP mode.
Nowadays we have stupidly large amounts of storage available. I recall my Commodore 64 ...
It all ... depends. Do you want the flexibility to be able zoom in or not? Do you want to long term store your photos or not? If you can't be bothered with storage management and don't need very high resolution then dial it down and off you trot but you do have a choice.
All that matters in technical quality of cameras is dynamic range. That is related to sensor size, more specific to pixel size that has ability to absorb light. It is simple physics.
Those who need camera sensor quality should check this charts: https://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/PDR.htm
They’re actually binning the pixels back down to the same resolution as before and only using the extra size to enhance sharpness and dynamic range. You only actually get higher resolution if you shoot raw.
My drone is like this — it has an internal hard drive, but it's way more flexible and convenient to shoot to its optional micro SD card.
Dxomark does very thorough comparison tests. I will wait for their results.
