iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro
Apple today introduced iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini, the next generation of the world’s best smartphone, featuring a beautiful design with sleek flat edges in five gorgeous new colors. Both models feature major innovations, including the most advanced dual-camera system ever on iPhone — with a new Wide camera with bigger pixels and sensor-shift optical image stabilization (OIS) offering improvements in low-light photos and videos, a new way to personalize the camera with Photographic Styles, and Cinematic mode, which brings a new dimension to video storytelling. iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini also boast super-fast performance and power efficiency with A15 Bionic, longer battery life, a brighter Super Retina XDR display that brings content to life, incredible durability with the Ceramic Shield front cover, double the entry-level storage at 128GB, an industry-leading IP68 rating for water resistance, and an advanced 5G experience.
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Customers can get iPhone 13 for $33.29 (US) a month for 24 months or $799 (US) before trade-in, and iPhone 13 mini for $29.12 (US) a month for 24 months or $699 (US) before trade-in[…]
I’m glad to see the base storage increase to 128 GB. I hope the iPhone mini stays in the lineup. It’s unfortunate that there’s still no good way to unlock it while wearing a mask, unless you have an Apple Watch. I would have loved to see Touch ID on the power button or under the display.
Apple (MacRumors, Hacker News, Slashdot):
Apple today introduced iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in a smartphone. Redesigned inside and out, both models introduce an all-new Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion featuring an adaptive refresh rate up to 120Hz, making the touch experience faster and more responsive. The pro camera system gets its biggest advancement ever with new Ultra Wide, Wide, and Telephoto cameras that capture stunning photos and video, powered by the unmatched performance of A15 Bionic, more powerful than the leading competition. These technologies enable impressive new photo capabilities never before possible on iPhone, like macro photography on the new Ultra Wide camera and up to 2.2x improved low-light performance on the new Wide camera. New computational photography features like Photographic Styles personalize the look of images in the Camera app, and both models now include Night mode on all cameras. Video takes a huge leap forward with Cinematic mode for beautiful depth-of-field transitions, macro video, Time-lapse and Slo-mo, and even better low-light performance. Both models also offer end-to-end pro workflows in Dolby Vision, and for the first time, ProRes, only available on iPhone. iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max also include 5G with more bands for better coverage, big improvements to battery life for the best battery life ever on iPhone with iPhone 13 Pro Max, new storage capacity of 1TB, and the Ceramic Shield front cover, tougher than any smartphone glass.
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Customers can get iPhone 13 Pro for $41.62 (US) a month for 24 months or $999 (US) before trade-in, and iPhone 13 Pro Max for $45.79 (US) a month for 24 months or $1,099 (US) before trade-in[…]
I’m not sure what to make of the touted camera improvements. It seems like Apple always says stuff like this, and most years it feels like a small improvement compared with the prior year. But every once in a while it really is a big leap.
Normal person summary of iPhone 13 Pro
- 1.5-2.5 hours more battery life
- super fluid animations
- light blue
- macro photos
- Portrait Mode for video
- smaller notch
- better cameras
Previously:
Update (2021-09-16): John Gruber:
Last year, the 12 Pro Max had a better camera system than the 12 Pro. Only the 12 Pro Max had the sensor shift optical image stabilization, and only the 12 Pro Max had a 2.5× (as opposed to 2×) telephoto lens. This year, both Pro models have identical camera systems. (And, like last year, the regular iPhone 13 and 13 Mini share the same camera system as each other.)
The iPhone 13 Pro camera modules are entirely different from the non-Pro 13 and and 13 Mini, though. Not just the existence of the new 3× telephoto, but the 1× (wide) and 0.5× (ultra wide) cameras are better on the Pro models.
Updated table of all recent iPhone sizes & weights. Heaviest iPhone ever!
All of the iPhone 13 models are heavier than their iPhone 12 counterparts, likely due to the larger batteries that are inside and the thickness increase. Weight comparisons are below.
I want to call out Apple’s incremental improvement in battery life. The last couple of years, Apple seems to be on a mission to extend iPhone battery life. The fact that they tacked on 1.5 hours (iPhone 13 mini and iPhone 13 Pro) or 2.5 hours (iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro Max) should not be underestimated. That’s an impressive addition—and if you’re upgrading from a three- or four-year-old phone, the battery life of a new model will be even more impressive.
Please enjoy getting 4K ProRes off your new iPhone using AirDrop or USB 2.0 via Lightning.
🤦♂️
Update (2021-09-17): Tim Hardwick:
The iPhone 13 lineup features new low-power displays, a more efficient A15 chip, larger batteries, and more power-efficient components, all of which make for dramatic improvements when streaming, as the numbers above show.
For example, Apple claims that when streaming video, the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max last nine hours and 13 hours longer than last year’s equivalent models, respectively. Taking the same metric, the battery in the iPhone 13 mini manages 13 hours, which is longer than even the iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Here’s what I’m most excited to try out in the new camera system when I get my hands on it next week.
Apple’s accessory design guidelines have not been updated with these phones yet. But if the webpage rendering is anything to go by, the bump is now over 50% of the width of the back glass and over 25% of its height.
And, apparently, the phones don’t lay flat in Apple’s cases.
4 Comments RSS · Twitter
Yeah very minor ‘improvements’
Happy to keep my iPhone 7 for another year.
Touch ID is a major factor for me not upgrading.
[…] today seem like a continuation of that pattern.1 But as you read through the press release or launch coverage, one thing that seems apparent is how much of the changes are on the inside. Sure, they have […]
The one thing that strikes me, is that after all that crowing about Apple's CPU uber-dominance, and the bold predictions the sky was the limit, A15 isn't much of an improvement.
Perhaps engineering talent does matter after all, much more than the Apple brand name or organisation. Many Apple CPU engineers went to Nuvia and Rivos which are reportedly doing well. It also suggests that the low hanging fruit provided by HBM is exhausted.
Also OLED across the board again, which means people sensitive to PWM flicker (headaches, etc) can't use them.
The only LCD options now are the old iPhone 11, and the SE. The 11 will eventually disappear, and my worry is the iPhone 13 mini will eventually replace the SE. Might not have a choice than a midrange LCD Android phone when that happens :/.
