Apple unveils iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus with A15 Bionic, eSIM and iOS 16

Tech giant, Apple, on Wednesday, revealed a host of new products, including its new iPhone 14 lineup, Apple Watch Series 8, Apple Watch Ultra, Apple Watch SE and Airpods Pro.

The Cupertino-based company announced at its September 2022 event that its new iPhone 14 lineup will have upgraded cameras, iOS 16, crash detection and emergency SOS capabilities. The company revealed that the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus will use the older generation A15 Bionic chipset, on the other hand, the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max will feature a new A16 Bionic processor.

iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus

The new iPhone 14 will have a 6.1-inch display while the iPhone 14 Plus will feature a larger 6.7-inch display. Both devices will come with Super Retina XDR OLED displays and also feature the durable Ceramic Shield front cover.

The iPhone 14 and 14 Plus will both use a dual-camera system which includes a 12MP main camera and an Ultrawide camera. There is a new 12MP TrueDepth camera on the front for selfie duties. The front camera now gets autofocus capabilities for the first time.

Apple claims that its new Photonic engine will provide a huge leap in low-light performance from its new iPhone 14 lineup. “Through a deep integration of hardware and software, Photonic Engine improves mid- to low-light performance for photos across all cameras: up to 2x on the Ultra Wide camera, 2x on the TrueDepth camera, and an impressive 2.5x on the new Main camera,” wrote Apple on its blog. “Photonic Engine enables this dramatic increase in quality by applying the computational benefits of Deep Fusion earlier in the imaging process to deliver extraordinary detail, and preserve subtle textures, provide better color, and maintain more information in a photo.”

Dual-camera system upgrades and features include:

• A new Main camera with a larger ƒ/1.5 aperture and 1.9 µm pixels, enabling photo and video improvements in all lighting scenarios for better detail and motion freezing, less noise, faster exposure times, and sensor-shift optical image stabilization.

• A new front TrueDepth camera with an ƒ/1.9 aperture that enables better low-light performance for photos and video. Using autofocus for the first time, it can focus even faster in low light and capture group shots from farther away.

• A new Action mode for incredibly smooth-looking video that adjusts to significant shakes, motion, and vibrations, even when video is being captured in the middle of the action.

• The Ultra Wide camera, offering a unique perspective for wider shots and improvements to low-light photos with Photonic Engine.

• An improved True Tone flash that is 10 percent brighter and has better uniformity for more consistent lighting.

• Cinematic mode, now available in 4K at 30 fps and 4K at 24 fps.

• End-to-end Dolby Vision HDR, available only on iPhone.

In addition, the new iPhone 14 lineup will now get crash detection features. The company said, “With a new dual-core accelerometer capable of detecting G-force measurements of up to 256Gs and a new high dynamic range gyroscope, Crash Detection on iPhone can now detect a severe car crash and automatically dial emergency services when a user is unconscious or unable to reach their iPhone.”

The new iPhone 14 lineup will also get the Emergency SOS feature which will enable users to contact emergency services when outside of cellular or Wi-Fi coverage. This SOS feature will be available only for users in US and Canada with a free 2-year subscription. The company did not reveal when it will be available for everyone else.

The biggest change the new iPhone 14 brings to the ecosystem is the full eSIM capability. The new devices will not have physical SIM trays and will rather feature dual eSIM. For now, the eSIM variant is only for US users. The global variant will still get physical SIM trays like its older siblings.

The iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus will feature iOS 16. The brand new OS will bring new features like a redesigned lock screen, messages, live text and visual look up.

The new iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus goes on sale on September 9. The vanilla iPhone 14 starts at around 800 USD and the bigger iPhone 14 Plus starts at 900 USD. The company has yet to reveal the price of the new devices for Indian users.