Purple is my favourite colour and according to my mum, it was also the first colour I uttered as a child. Needless to say, that when Apple announced purple as being one of the new colours for the new iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max I was ecstatic!
Apart from a new blue and purple, the Pro models sport darker colours like Space Black, Silver and Gold. But aesthetics aside, the most important question is that, apart from the colour is the phone worth buying and is it really an upgrade from the iPhone 13?
♦ I’ve been using the iPhone Pro Max for almost a month now and the best feature to date is the “Dynamic Island”, a new design that makes the interface easy. A new way to interact with notifications and events, the Dynamic Island is a oblong-shaped cut-out at the top of the phone. Though it does change shape and size depending on the alerts, notifications and widgets you add. The island, which is limited to the iPhone 14 Pro and the iPhone 14 Pro Max, also displays background activities like music, which allows you to switch directly to the app with a tap.
♦ Another new function is the “Always-On” display, which uses a new screen technology that runs the screen in a low-power mode, refreshing the screen only one time per second and reducing screen brightness. Like an Apple Watch, this allows the screen to stay turned on even when the iPhone is asleep, displaying vital information like your colourful wallpaper, widgets, new notifications and the date and time. It looks pretty cool in the dark. However, if you’re phone is in low-battery mode, this does not work. The best thing is that despite being on, the new feature has almost zero impact on the battery and won’t drain it.
♦ The improved camera system has a new action mode for videos that are incredibly fluid. Videos filmed in the new “Action Mode” will adjust the image according to the wobble, movement and shaking. If you’ve had the iPhone 13 before then you’ll also be used to the Cinematic Mode for videos of scenery that enhances the videos to movie-like quality.
♦ Though, I have still to use this feature (and hope not to), the new phones come with “Satellite Emergency SOS”. This feature helps connect to a satellite in case of emergencies when outside cellular or Wi-Fi networks. The innovative technology allows users to share their location via satellite with the Find My app and is useful when hiking or camping in remote areas. Pro tip: the Thai emergency number is 191.
♦ Another much needed update is that translation for the Thai language is now supported and has made work much easier.
♦ The phones also support e-Sims, which means changing Sims while abroad just got easier since its supporting multiple cellular plans on a single device. About time, I say! Insider’s tip: If you buy your phones in the US, note that the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max models have retired the Sim card tray.
Though all the iPhone 14 models come with iOS 16, which brings me to the cons of the phones and update.
iOS 16 update
The iOS 16 is designed to take advantage of the new capabilities on iPhone 14 Pro with a reinvented lock screen. This also means a more personalised lock screen, offering a change in fonts and colours.
However, if you’re me, then I struggled a bit with getting the display on my locked screen to sync with my wallpaper screen and with the colour and font I wanted. Semantics as some may say. If you’re one of those people who can’t make decisions, there is a plethora of inspirational wallpapers to choose from, including a collection of Apple Weather wallpapers that can see live weather conditions as they change throughout the day, as well as astronomy background images to see the Earth, moon and solar system…. Which are pretty cool, if I may add.
With the iOS 16 update, we can now edit messages up to five times within 15 minutes of sending them and unsend messages within two minutes of sending them. Though this only works if the receiver has updated to the latest iOS, too. I had a problem with iMessages as it kept randomly logging me out. Though this seems to have been fixed with the latest iOS 16.1 update.
My one pet peeve, and I realise I am in a minority here, is that there is no longer a “low battery pop-up notification”. The alert appears in the Dynamic Island and requires no action. However, you can have battery percentage on and it shows in the battery panel, which I think is quite cool.
To sum it up and answer the question: is the iPhone 14 Pro Max worth buying? Powerful display, large frame, enhanced pixels, quirky features may all sound amazing though it is the Dynamic Island that makes it worth the fancy upgrade.
The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max are available in Deep Purple, Silver, Gold and Space Black. There are storage capacities to choose from 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB. A lot of space for all those selfies! The iPhone 14 Pro is priced at B41,900++ and iPhone 14 Pro Max at B44,900++ at apple.com/th/store.
As of early November, Apple issued a statement warning investors and customers that the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max will be available in limited quantities. However, the company has expanded iPhone 14 production in India as it ramps up work to reduce reliance on China-based operations. The Indian expansion comes amid tension between the US and China, as well as “iPhone City” seeing a Covid outbreak with lockdown measures that could disrupt operations.
