Here are all of the important new features shared by the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro
There’s more that separates the “pro” and “non-pro” iPhones this year, but also several new features that are common to both.
In the aftermath of Apple’s recent “Far Out” event earlier this month, much has been made about just how different the two new families of iPhone are. So here I want to focus on going over all of the features that are shared by both the iPhone 14 and the iPhone 14 Pro lines. There’s quite a few things actually.
Safety: Crash Detection and Satellite SOS
Both the iPhone 14 line and the iPhone 14 Pro line get two new safety features this year. The first is crash detection. If an iPhone owner is involved in a car crash, the iPhone uses a series of data points to recognize what has happened, and alert the user that it will automatically call emergency services unless the user dismisses a countdown manually. It makes the determination that a crash has occurred via “sudden speed shifts,” “abrupt changes in directions,” “cabin pressure changes,” and “loud sound levels of impact.” That’s software rendering a data judgement based on the data it’s getting from the microphone, accelerometer, compass, and barometer.
Satellite SOS is one of the signature features of this year’s new iPhones, and was certainly the inspiration for the “Far Out” name for this Apple event, but it’s an odd feature in that hopefully you’ll never need it, and indeed the overwhelming majority of iPhone users will never use it. Like ever, even across all future generations of iPhone. What this is not is a way of accessing the internet when you’re out of range of a cell tower. That’s worth mentioning because T-Mobile and SpaceX made a splash recently announcing a bold plan to use SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network to extend voice and data capabilities to T-Mobile customers. But that’s not coming until next year when SpaceX brings their version 2.0 satellites online.
Apple’s satellite connectivity announcement is far more limited and far more focused. It’s specifically for scenarios in which an iPhone user needs emergency help when they have no other way to contact anyone. Hikers, skiers, and other extreme outdoors enthusiasts are likely to be the most common users of this feature. Unlike SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, Apple is using traditional high altitude communications satellites with limited bandwidth. You won’t be able to make a voice call with this service, or pull up a web page. Furthermore, Apple had to do some work to compress the text messages that this feature sends to make it work in a reasonable amount of time. And because you have to be pointed at satellites which move quite quickly, the iPhone will guide you in pointing your iPhone at the satellite and keeping it pointed there as the satellite moves across the sky. In areas where emergency services don’t have the ability to send and receive text messages, Apple will have relay centers that act as middlemen between the stranded iPhone user and emergency services. Apple says this will be free for the first two years, but I’ll be curious to see if they ever actually charge for it. You’ll probably never use this feature, but it’s a nice peace-of-mind addition that will absolutely be used to rescue stranded people.
I also have to think this is the first of many future integrations between the iPhone and satellites. Elon Musk even said on Twitter recently that he’s had discussions with Apple about working with them on satellite connectivity. For now you hope you never have to use either satellite SOS or crash detection, though statistically you’re far likely to need the latter at some point during your life.
Action Mode
All new iPhones get a new videography mode called Action Mode, which greatly improves video stabilization in situations where the iPhone is moving around a lot, such as when you’re shooting video while running or walking. All of the reviews I’ve seen show this to be a really well-done feature, with the big caveat that it doesn’t work well indoors because it needs a lot of light to work well since it’s doing a lot of cropping of the image.
Photonic Engine
This one gets pretty jargon-y, so let me use Apple’s own words to describe it. This copy comes from Apple’s page on the iPhone 14 Pro, but this is a feature shared with the iPhone 14.
Then we added the all-new Photonic Engine, our game-changing image pipeline. It allows Deep Fusion — which merges the best pixels from multiple exposures into one phenomenal photo — to happen earlier in the process on uncompressed images.
This preserves much more data to deliver brighter, more lifelike colors and beautifully detailed textures in less light than ever.
I’ve seen a lot of speculation about whether this is something that specifically required a hardware change, or if it’s purely a function of the camera’s software stack, and I haven’t seen a clear answer on that from Apple. Bottom line: better photos in various lighting conditions, especially in low-light scenarios.
Front Camera
Apple knows that with the rise of TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and of course FaceTime, the front camera on an iPhone is increasingly important. For some users it’s the most important camera. All new iPhones now have a larger aperture on the front camera at f/1.9 versus last year’s f/2.2. This should improve low light shots from the front camera. This year the front camera also has autofocus for the first time, and it also takes advantage of the Photonic Engine technology.
eSIM-Only
Apple has been supporting eSIM since the iPhone XS in 2018, but up until now they’ve also included a traditional SIM tray. As a reminder, eSIM is an internal component that enables your iPhone to communicate with any cellular carrier that supports the feature. With all of Apple’s new iPhones this year, there is no physical SIM card/tray, at least for U.S. models. U.S. iPhones will only support eSIM going forward. I’ve been using eSIM on my iPhone 13 for a few months, and I personally prefer it. There’s something about a physical SIM that feels unnecessarily antiquated to me. It is something that’s going to take getting used to though. There’s certainly something undeniably simple about popping a new SIM card into your iPhone when you need to change carriers, even temporarily. However, you can change or even use multiple carriers with eSIM. But this is something that most of us are going to have to get used to after decades with SIM cards. Longterm I think as carriers and customers adjust this will become as simple as using a removable SIM card.
I’ll have more content focused on the new iPhones next week, including what’s unique to the iPhone 14 and what’s unique to the iPhone 14 Pro. If you’re not already subscribed for free to Your Apple Update, you can do so below.