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iPhone 13 is....What We Expected?

11:51 video

Apple announced the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro. If you followed the rumors, you probably knew what to expect, and whether the updates seem boring depends on what you’re coming from, but there are some really good updates. Skillshare sponsored this video.

Design

It’s familiar: the design that started with the 2018 iPad Pro and the iPhone 12, with flat sides between two pieces of glass, so at first glance it’s hard to tell the 12 from the 13. The notch is about 20% smaller. On the 13 and 13 mini, there’s a new dual-camera module with the cameras in a diagonal layout, and the 13 Pro’s bump is larger to accommodate three larger lenses, “really more of a camera mound at this point.”

The 13 Pro and Pro Max keep the stainless steel design in blue, silver, gold and graphite. The 13 and mini are aluminum, in pink, blue, midnight, starlight and (PRODUCT)RED, which I love: it’s a lot like the red of the iPhone SE 2, not the terrible red of the iPhone 12. The bottom still has a Lightning port: the iPhone and the standard ninth-generation iPad are the only devices besides AirPods still on Lightning, which is a little disappointing.

Displays

The 12 Pro and Pro Max had up to 1,000 nits in regular use and 1,200 nits peak HDR. The 13 and 13 mini match the 12 Pro’s peak with up to 800 nits and the same 1,200 nits for HDR. But the thing most people will be excited about (especially anyone who’s used an iPad Pro) is ProMotion: Apple finally added a 120 Hz adaptive refresh rate to the Pro iPhones, adjusting between 10 and 120 fps. Scrolling adapts to how fast your finger moves, keeping text and images crisp, so you can keep reading while scrolling, and it ramps down to 10 fps on the home screen to save battery. Gamers can get up to 120 Hz. Beyond more battery life, I think ProMotion was the biggest feature request, and I’m super excited.

A15 Bionic

A new six-core chip with two performance and four efficiency cores, a new 16-core Neural Engine and a new GPU. The 13 Pro has a 5-core GPU and the 13 has a 4-core (so the Pro could be about 25% faster at graphics, which I can’t test yet). Apple gave no benchmarks or speed comparisons with previous chips, unlike usual. Regardless, like the A14, it will blow through anything you throw at it.

Cameras

All new sensors, with wide and ultra wide cameras that are faster and brighter than the 12’s.

  • Sensor-shift stabilization, from the 12 Pro Max, on all iPhones this year. The sensor physically moves with your hands’ motion, which I think is the biggest camera feature for most people, since handheld photos and videos get better without thinking about it, in day or Night mode.
  • Smart HDR 4: more accurate colors, a wider contrast ratio and better skin tones.
  • Cinematic mode: uses AI to adjust focus automatically, shifting between subjects like in the movies. You can control it manually, and it records a depth map so you can adjust focus afterward. The demo showed a bit of focus hunting, but it did a good job overall.
  • Photographic Styles: set preferences for contrast, vibrancy and warm or cool, and save them as your default.
  • ProRes video for professionals.
  • The 13 Pro’s 3x zoom lens, and a new macro mode as close as 2 cm.

Battery, storage and price

  • Battery: the 13 mini and 13 Pro get an extra 1.5 hours versus the 12 mini and 12 Pro, and the 13 and 13 Pro Max an extra 2.5 hours. I moved from the 12 mini to the 12 Pro only because of battery anxiety, and another hour and a half might get me through a full day on the mini, so I’ll give it another try.
  • Storage: the 13 and 13 Pro start at 128 GB; the Pro goes up to 1 TB, the 13 up to 512 GB.
  • Price: the same as last year, from $699 for the 13 mini to $1,099 for the 13 Pro (the top is the 1 TB model).

Verdict

Yes, these are expected changes, and that’s good, because incremental changes add up: a great new battery, higher base storage, a whole new camera system with sensor-shift stabilization in every iPhone, and ProMotion making everything feel more fluid. The A15’s performance is still unknown without benchmarks. If I could change one thing, it would be USB-C instead of Lightning, so I could carry fewer cables. For me, the most exciting is ProMotion (I love the smoothness of 120 Hz), but I also want the best camera in my pocket. What are you most excited about?

Skillshare is an online learning community; the sponsor spot recommended Ali Bartlett’s smartphone photography class, which covers setting up your iPhone, composition and framing, tips for landscapes and portraits, and editing. The first 1,000 people who use the link in the description get a one-month free trial of Skillshare Premium.

In this video

  • 0:00 what we expect
  • 1:00 design
  • 2:48 displays
  • 5:14 A15 Bionic
  • 5:13 cameras
  • 8:23 battery, storage and price
  • 9:32 what can you expect from iPhone

Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I may receive a small commission. See my ethics statement.

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