That didn’t take long. There were a lot of folks that wanted an option to hide wallpaper on their iPhone 14 Pro’s Always On screen. They’re about to get it.
As a brief check-in, the Always On screen is still handy. Now, my eyes look down at my phone for the time, next appointment, and other details without a second thought. I’ve set mine to change based on Focus Mode, and I dig it. I’m not seeing any problem with battery life, but my vertical stand doubles as a MagSafe charger, so I’m cheating a bit.
Here’s a short video sharing my iPhone 14 Pro unboxing and some initial impressions. I’m testing the camera system now and will have a separate video up for that soon… This is a post for MacSparky Labs Members only. Care to join? Or perhaps do you need to sign in?
One of my favorite reviews with each new iPhone is that of Austin Mann. Austin always takes the new iPhone someplace interesting (this time, it’s Scotland) and takes some amazing pictures with the new iPhone Pro while pointing out its strengths and weaknesses. Austin’s iPhone 14 Pro camera review is now up.
This time, he spends a lot of time explaining the advantages of the 48 Megapixel sensor and where its limitations are. He also has thoughts on the three camera sensors. If you are interested in iPhone photography, don’t miss this one.
Today a lot of early reviews dropped for the iPhone 14. I read a lot of them. The best, in my opinion, are from Matt Panzarino and Marques Brownlee.
The reviews are all positive. The features that seem to stand out the most are camera performance and the Dynamic Island, where Apple took a negative (the notch) and turned it into a delightful user interface element. I’m getting my phone Friday and looking forward to checking out all the new features.
The rumor mill is at it again. For some time now, it’s been apparent that the new iPhone Pro will be using cutouts instead of the notch found on previous iPhones. Leaks indicate it is something like a sideways lowercase “i”.
Image from 9to5 Mac
It’s always looked a little funny to me, and I wondered what on earth they’d do with the very few pixels between the two notches.
Now we have an entirely new set of rumors that they’ll paint those pixels black, effectively connecting the two cutouts to make one long rounded rectangle. The only thing they’ll light in those pixels is the indicator lights for active audio and video recordings.
Image from 9to5 Mac
If true, this makes a lot of sense. I think it looks better this way, and the indicator lights right next to the camera lens hopefully make it more apparent what function they serve. (I suspect a lot of iPhone owners have no idea why those lights show up on their iPhones.) This is one more example of how rumors can lead Apple enthusiasts astray. So many people were upset about the two cutouts looking awkward and silly. Apple likely had the plan to connect them all along.
In terms of additional screen real estate, this new cutout doesn’t really give us much more than we had with the notch, but it does show progress and is one more step toward getting rid of notches and cutouts altogether.
