After the release of another iPhone last week, let’s look at what is in store later in the year
Last week, at the Peek Performance event, iPhone 5SE was released. It’s an important phone for Apple. It is their entry phone, at £419, and, it is thought, will win over many customers for them from Android. Based on iPhone 8 complete with a Home Button, the form factor is old, yet the internals strong.
iPhone 5SE
The SE purportedly stands for Special Edition, yet it would be more apt if it were known as the Simple Edition. It will do everything you want of a phone, but without the bells and whistles that you may have become accustomed to. It has the fastest chip of any phone at that price point, now housing the A15 Bionic chip. The very same chip that is in the current array of iPhone 13 and 13 Pros’. The camera is actually decent, to be frank. Again, being a lower end phone, it has no night mode or a 2x button and only one rear-facing camera. But, it has a 4.7 – inch Retina HD display with True Tone, fantastic Haptics and even basic 5G capabilities as well. The video camera is a class leader, again at this price point. It is aimed at a certain kind of user, and for them, it has all the functionality they would ever want or require.
So, the 5SE will do its job ever so well, and neatly occupies a niche spot in the market, and one Apple does not want to relinquish any time soon.
But, the exciting phone release of the year, is yet to happen. iPhone 14.
iPhone 14 and what we know
The phone event itself, may still be some six months away, but already, from highly respected sources, we seem to have a fair idea as to what we can expect, good, bad & ugly.
Currently, in development under the code manes D27, D28 for the 14’s and D73 & D74 for the Pro’s, we expect just four phones in this year’s lineup. We will have the iPhone 14 and 14 Pro, then 14 Max and 14 Pro Max. What you may have noticed there, is the complete absence of the mention of the Mini. That’s right, if you are one of the sub-cult that love iPhone 13 Mini, then best you buy quickly, as the 13 will be the last Mini sold by Apple. Folks have voted with their credit cards, and they just don’t like them, so bye-bye!
Displays
There will be just two screen sizes this year. A 6.1 – inch and 6.7 – inch screen. These displays will be the same size as the current phones on the regular 14’s, but will be taller on the Pro phones. The reason for that, is to accommodate the much talked of notch & pill design layout at the top of the display.
One of several changes between the two phones will be clearly visible on the front of the phones. Numerous rumours have suggested that with no notch, the new hole will be used for the Face ID projector, while the pill-shaped cutout will apparently be for housing the front facing camera and Face ID infrared camera. The speaker grille will remain embedded in the top bezel. Speaking of bezels, the latest raft of renders recommends that hey could be slimmer and even less noticeable.
The two regular 14s will be sticking with the same notch as we now have. The notch and pill is strictly for the Max phones.
Camera bump
Last September, Jon Prosser had reported that the 14’s would be deeper this year. That would have been to facilitate a bigger battery and also meant the camera bump on the back would no longer protrude. Going by the latest CAD files, however, shown here, it would propose that not any longer be the case. It would now seem that the device looks pretty much unchanged from the iPhone 13 Pro, with the triple-lens array housed in a camera bump that protrudes from the chassis.
Chips
Rumours have this week been making a loud rumble as to there, this year, being a marked difference between the two chips in the range of 14 iPhones.
It is, for the first time in almost a decade, that two different chips could be used in the 14 & 14 Pro, over the 14 Max & Max Pro. The last time we witnessed two chips used in the same years release of iPhone was with the iPhone 5S and 5C – one having the A6 chipset and the other the A7.
If sources are to be believed, then the standard 14s will be unchanged with the current A15 Bionic chip inside. Only the Max phones will have the latest chip. On this point, it is worth making note, however, that a precedent does exist. Apple currently has two different versions of the A15 chip, one of which has an extra GPU core and 6 GB of RAM, which is used in 13 Pro models. All this year’s iPhones will have 6 GB of RAM, which means Apple could use the high-end version of its A15 Bionic chip in the entry-level iPhone 14 models. It is not beyond reason to think the company may call the chip A15X. They have done this previously with iPad, back in 2020 when calling the chip in that tablet the A12Z. Apple has also done this with Apple Watch Series 7. That watch has the same CPU as the Apple Watch Series 6, but the chips named Apple S6 and Apple S7 due to minor internal SOC alterations.
Among those lending credence to these suggestions are Mark Gurman, and Ming-Chi Kuo. The reasons are actually unclear as to the real culture behind this change of direction by Apple. One could argue that it is due to the ongoing chip shortage, or, if you were of a more sinister mind, that the Californian company simply want to make more money! By taking this route though, one thing seems for sure, and that is we will be seeing a large, 6.7 – inch phone come in at under £1000 for the first time. It could be priced around £800, so good news for us, the consumer.
Satellite rumours
Last year, you may recall, just before the autumn iPhone event, reports suggested that Apple had been working on satellite communication features for upcoming iPhone models. Those rumours have gone cold, that is, until now. 9-5 Mac reported that Apple is still working on satellite communication for iPhone, but it remains unclear whether the technology will be developed in time for this year’s phone event in the fall.
Internally, given the codename ’Stewie’, this satellite innovation would eventually mean iPhone, could be capable of sending text messages over satellite when no data or GPS is available.
So, that is all I have so far by way of rumours and rumblings. What about you, though? Have you heard anything that I have missed? What are you really hoping for from iPhone 14 later this year?
Free Wallpapers
Lastly, if you fancy some lovely new wallpapers for your iPhone, taken directly from the phone we spoke of earlier, the 5SE, then here you go! Grab them from this link. I have then on my Mac’s and phone, and they look just spectacular!
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Originally published at https://www.talkingtechandaudio.com/blog on March 16, 2022.