Apple has unveiled their newest phones, the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro, at its recent “Far Out” event that took place last week at the company’s campus in Cupertino, California. 

Both of the new devices come in a base model paired with a 6.1” Super Retina XDR display, and a Plus/Max model with a larger 6.7” display. These new phones are powered by Apple’s own A15 and A16 Bionic chips, respectively. 

“I think that the iPhone 14 Pro Max is one large leap for the lineup.” NASH senior Wyatt Courville stated.

The iPhone 14 Pro features a refreshed Pro camera system, integrating three lenses at varying levels of zoom, and a main sensor which is responsible for the largest increase in iPhone camera quality ever, coming in at 48 megapixels as opposed to the 12 megapixels featured in every iPhone camera system since the iPhone 6s (2015). The Pro model also has completely changed the iPhone screen this year, getting away from the notch customers have been used to, beginning with the iPhone X (2017), and opting for a smaller pill-shaped camera cutout, named (aptly or inaptly, depending on your taste) the Dynamic Island. This allows the screen to wrap around the front-facing camera. Lastly, the Pro models will also feature an “always-on” display that will never fully turn off, only dim itself, allowing the user to see incoming text messages, the time, and other notifications. 

The standard iPhone 14 models will go largely unchanged from the 2021 iPhone 13; the only major difference is that the 14 will adopt the same processor used in the iPhone 13 Pro, 2021’s higher end model. The standard iPhone 14 will keep the notch from previous models and will not have the newly upgraded 48 megapixel camera system; it will keep the 2-sensor camera system from previous phones. However, it is important to note Apple has not raised prices on the new iPhones this year despite rising technology prices across the market.

The lack of changes from last year in the standard model iPhone 14 has some critics frustrated. Apple has demonstrated yearly that most of the flagship features will continue to be locked behind the Pro paywall.

Students, too, are not unanimously on board.

“The iPhone 14 Pro brings needed updates to the phones, but the standard model is pretty much the same as last year” NASH senior Ryan Meyhofer said.

Others aren’t even impressed by the new Pro model.

“The new screen differences are barely noticeable, and they’re still overpriced” NASH senior Jaiveer Bajwa stated.

Many believe that Apple simply doesn’t innovate enough with their phones any longer, and the lack of new tangible features puts customers in the mindset that buying a phone is more of a necessity than a preference. Based on the trajectory of the last few launches, Apple is slowly improving the iPhone yearly, rather than making big changes over longer periods of time. With more and more attention paid to the innovative new MacBooks and iPads, consumers are left wondering when the iPhone will ever make the same big leap forward, a move that has not been made since the iPhone X.

Both of the phones will ship on September 16th with Apple’s newest mobile operating system, iOS 16, which itself comes packed with new features such as customizable home screens.  Whether those features will please consumers is anyone’s guess.