I want to start with a disclaimer – since I upgrade my phone every year, the delta of improvement is much smaller than for most people who upgrade every 2 years or even less often. Despite that, I still think the iPhone 14 Pro Max is a fabulous device worthy of an upgrade.
Coming Home – Again?
I’ve named the iPhone XS Max review – Coming Home. After that, I’ve stuck with larger iPhone models until iPhone 13 Pro. Since the difference between Max and non-Max models was only in the screen size, I decided to get a smaller phone. The main issue was – it was not possible to use Pro Max phone with one hand. After a year of use, I’ve got mostly disappointment out of that decision. The smaller size means also a smaller battery and with a heavy use, the Pro phone would last half a day for me. What I also realised during extended use – it is not only the sheer size, but the weight that prevents me from using even Pro phone one-handed. After a couple of months, I was certain that the next phone will be the bigger one again, since it’s mostly worse in numerous instances and doesn’t solve the only problem I have with a Max size.
Dynamic Island
It is almost a mantra in the tech review space – you shouldn’t buy a hardware product based on the promise of future improvements. iPhone 14 Pro is partially such a product. The main hardware feature – the Dynamic Island, that is very neatly combined with the software, is still not fully used by the app developers. And it’s considering me receiving a phone a month after it went on sale and using it for another month.
The situation is much better than on a launch day – there are a lot more apps that use Dynamic Island in some way, but they are mostly independent apps from indie developers or startups. They are also very 1.0. I didn’t see any surprising use still.
The ones I use daily are, of course, media apps like Apple Music and Overcast, as well as food delivery app – Wolt. Actually, the most I used the Dynamic Island was during vacations. It was nice seeing the navigation while using the phone, and Flighty live activities were wonderful, working even with Airplane Mode turned on.
I’m still waiting from someone to find an interesting and creative use, but still, it is a great feature already.
Always-On Display
There are plenty of takes regarding this. People are mostly used to the Android style always-on display, which is black with time and some icons for apps or notifications. What Apple has done is entirely different. After seeing it in a presentation and later reading first reviews, I’ve had a thought – was it done just to be different, and will I also turn it off like so many people? After some time using it, I can confidently say that it is a remarkable feature and I love using it.
On my lock screen I have time, 4 complications below it (two from Oura ring, Carrot Weather and Activity) and Fantastical complication above the time showing my next event. This allows me to more freely choose Apple Watch complications, since some of them are on the phone screen, so I can more easily use fullscreen California face. It also allows me to glance and see the mosts important information for me.
While traveling in Europe, I like using Apple Maps for navigation by foot and now more so, since the always-on display is … always on. I mean, even when you click the Power button to dim the display, the map stays there instead of the lockscreen.
I have two issues with the new display. First, it’s quite difficult to figure out the situation with sleeping. I have a Belkin charger where the iPhone is attached magnetically in standing position, so when the display dims, in the dark it illuminates the whole room and that is a problem. The only easy way I found to turn off the display was to turn on Sleep Focus, which is fine, but not easily discoverable.
The second issue, I have is constant accidental unlocking and touching in the pocket, and I strongly believe the always-on display is somehow at play here. I didn’t have this issue before, I don’t have this issue with iPhone 13 mini in another pocket, but with this phone, it accidentally unlocks itself so much, that I noticed.
Still, all the positive things outweigh the concerns, so I keep using the Always-On Display and recommend everyone to try to stick with it for some time.
Camera
I love the new cameras. The main sensor was great, so I don’t think plenty of people will notice the change to 48 MP sensor. Although, if you use RAW, you will see much greater results. The update I love the most is the new 3x lens. I was in love with a telephoto lens on the 12 Pro Max and used it all the time. But after upgrading to 13 Pro, I was very disappointed. It was just bad, constantly giving me blurry low-quality photos. I only later realised, and then read an explanation of my theory in the Halide review of the phone, that you had to wait before shooting with a telephoto lens. What happened was, if you turned on the telephoto lens and immediately shot a photo, the phone didn’t yet change the lens, so was shooting with the main one and cropping the shot, which resulted in a low-quality photo. So, you had to choose 3.5x, wait a second or two (you could even see the lens switching on screen) and then shoot. That solved most problems, but it still wasn’t as good as 12 Pro Max telephoto lens. This year, though, it is back in play. I started to enjoy the telephoto lens again, it’s such great focal length, that I use it almost daily.
Conclusion
It is a great upgrade, even after just a year. I fell in love with the telephoto lens, again. I love the always-on screen and live activities together with the Dynamic Island.
Likewise, I also love my return to the Max size – the battery lasts the whole day, much more information or video fits on the screen. It’s easier to edit photos on the bigger phone.
Oh, and this year I went with a silver color – I’m mostly done with black tech, had a gold one before and didn’t care for a purple one, since it’s mostly not a color, in most lighting it looks brown, grey, but not purple. So got a silver/white one. It looks nicely with all the cases or skins and matches my silver Apple Watch, but next time I would probably return to gold.
