There are many reviews about the latest iPhones, mostly comparing them to the competition from Google and Samsung, which is what is entertaining and gets the most clicks. There are quite a few that compare them to previous iPhones too, and as someone who has upgraded to the latest one every year since the iPhone 6 below are some of my thoughts comparing the 14 Pro Max to the previous iPhone iterations.
The Display
Love it! The notch is gone and the Dynamic Island looks great, but the brightness especially when outdoors is very noticeable and I am all up for it. Visibility of the screen, when used outside in sunlight used to be a problem in older iPhones, and I am happy to report that problem, is long gone.
Dynamic Island
This is where all the fun (and focus) is this year. I love it, but it’s very limited in what it can do. With iOS 16.1 once the APIs are opened up to allow developers to play with it I expect it to be more useful. This is no fluke like the touch-bar, it’s something that both Apple and the developers are excited about. The Dynamic Island also looks fresh and new compared to the notch, and it’s a clever way of finding a solution to a problem, a feature not a bug if I may put it that way. Android phones have had pills and camera holes on the display for a while now, this is exactly that but turned into a feature and the selling point for Apple's latest and greatest.
Ever since iOS 13 I have always had my phone on dark mode but with the 14 Pro Max I have set it to change automatically, meaning during the day the UI is on light mode and at sunset, it switches to dark. This I did solely did because I actually like the Dynamic Island pill on the top of the UI. Else when there is nothing happening in most apps it looks as if there is nothing there, sort of the notch on the older phones vanishing away in the dark UI.
The Always on Display
This was something I was really looking forward to but I am still not sure if I am a fan, After a month of using the phone I often find it distracting as if a notification just popped up. This is of course because of how my brain has tuned to work — the last 11 or so years I have had an iPhone non of them had always-on displays. I want to like this feature because it is unique in its own way, no other smartphone does something like this and I don’t want Apple to take the Android-like approach to this. I think in due time my brain will adapt.
One thing I like about the Always on display is that when I walk into a dark room I don’t have to tap the ‘where is my iPhone’ button on my Apple watch. The iPhone display is already lit up bright enough to see what time it is.
The Camera System
The number one reason I buy an iPhone every year is that I like to call myself an iPhone Photographer. The front-facing camera is a significant upgrade compared to the 13 Pro Max. The 3 camera’s on the back are very similar to the 13 Pro Max, but as soon as you zoom in you see the difference. The 48-megapixel camera (as expected) retains much more detail when zoomed in. So if you are a photographer who likes taking photos in the raw format this is simply great.
My favorite iPhone camera lens has always been the “telephoto” lens, there is something about the zoomed-in perspective that makes me think about framing a shot. But this lens has always been the one that seems to have the worst quality relative to the other lenses in the camera system. And this year this lens stays unchanged from the 13 Pro Max, but not all hope is lost. Apple’s new Photonic Engine system does some magic under the hood that the telephoto lens, especially when shot on ProRAW retains much more information which helps when editing photos.
I haven’t played around much with the Ultra Wide lens or even macro photography but I do believe the Photonic Engine would do its magic there too. And I haven’t put video to good use either, I have noticed that cinematic mode focuses on subjects faster but haven’t used it much on either the 13 Pro Max or the 14 Pro Max. But all you need to know about video is that the iPhone is miles ahead of the competition, it’s like the Android party has stopped trying.
Crash Detection
I haven’t used this feature and I hope I never have to. And dear reader, I hope you never have to either. But it gives me peace of mind that my phone can call emergency services if needed, or if I am ever on a rollercoaster.
Battery Life
Battery life is sadly not on par with my 13 Pro Max, is this due to underlying issues in iOS 16, or is it due to the always-on display, or is it that I am using the light mode on the UI (meaning more pixels in the display have to light up), or is it due to the display getting extra bright outside? I do not know, but it's not as good as the 13 Pro Max used to be. But that said, I still can easily go thru a day with a single charge as long as I am not using the camera/GPS a lot.
