This year’s iPhone will likely be a bit more stratified than usual.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman claims that Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro will get a massive camera update, with the phone’s main (wide) sensor being bumped up to 48-megapixels. If accurate, this would be one of the biggest upgrades Apple has made to the iPhone, which has had a 12-megapixel main camera sensor since the release of iPhone 6s in 2015.
However, Gurman says only the Pro models will get the 48-megapixel camera, while the regular iPhone models will have a 12-megapixel main sensor. Also, for the first time, only the Pro models will get Apple’s new A16 chip, while the regular variants will either have the A15 (the same chip that powers the iPhone 13) or some variant of it.
Apple typically adds several big upgrades in terms of camera hardware on its Pro models; in the last couple of iterations, the difference was that the Pro models came with an additional telephoto camera on the back. But the standard and the Pro iPhone typically had the same (or very similar) main, wide camera; if Gurman’s report is accurate, this will no longer be the case.
There will be other changes to Apple’s phone lineup. The iPhone mini will likely get the axe this year, with the lineup consisting of the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Max, iPhone 14 Pro, and the iPhone 14 Pro Max. The key takeaway here is that this will be the first time the non-Pro version of the iPhone gets a version with a 6.7-inch display.
Gurman also says that this year’s iPhones might get satellite connectivity, a feature that’s apparently been in the works for several years now. Again, this feature will not be about iPhone users making satellite calls; Gurman says it will be designed to report emergencies.
Finally, according to the report, the new version of Apple Watch will also get this feature, though it may not happen until 2023.