Ever since 2013, when Apple first introduced multiple iPhones, the tech giant made it clear that the larger phones had that one extra feature the phones on the lower rung didn't.
The 6 and 6s Plus had optical image stabilisation while sharing everything else with their smaller siblings, the 7 Plus was the first iPhone with dual lenses and introduced portrait mode, while the iPhone X was the first phone with an OLED screen and came with the now ubiquitous notch. The iPhone Xs and Xs Max, the 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max were different in that, barring the screen size, everything else was the same.
However, Apple fell back on its old habits with the iPhone 12 Pro Max boasting better cameras, but then again, feature parity was restored with the 13 Pro and Pro Max.
This year, however, Apple is making an attempt to delineate its Pro lineup from its non-Pro lineup.
For starters, the latest A16 chipset will power only the Pro lineup this year — the base iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max/Plus are predicted to house last year's A15 Bionic, albeit with two extra cores.
Apart from that, just like last year, the Pro lineup this year will continue to offer a higher, variable refresh rate and possibly an Always On Display, while the screens of the non-Pro lineup will continue to be locked in at a 60 Hz refresh rate.
Further, the infamous notch is set to make its exit this year, at least from the Pro lineup, to be replaced by a pill-shaped cutout and a hole punch cutout. The pill-shaped cutout is said to house the Face ID technology, while the pill-shaped cutout will house the FaceTime camera, according to both Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and supply-chain analyst Ming Chi-Kuo.
Also, the 14 Pro series is tipped to come with larger cameras — a 48-megapixel sensor, to be more precise. This, if true, will be a massive departure from Apple's insistence on using 12 MP sensors for the past seven generations.
Battery improvements, performance boosts, etc, will get a boost as they do every year.
But do not expect the Pro series to come cheap. If anything, the Pro lineup is said to get a $100 price bump, with the iPhone 14 Pro starting at $1,099 and the 14 Pro Max starting at $1,199 — this is to further differentiate it from the non-Pro iPhones, which are expected to be priced at $799 (iPhone 14) and $899 (iPhone 14 Plus/Max).
(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)
First Published: Aug 29, 2022 4:27 PM IST
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