Apple officially announces the iPhone 13 lineup: the iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max. It’s got a faster A15 Bionic chip, three all-new cameras, and a super improved display with up to a 120Hz ProMotion high refresh rate display that can go as bright as 1,000 nits. The iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max come in the same 6.1 and 6.7-inch display sizes as the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max. The new devices feature a smaller notch that should allow for more space in the iOS status bar. The brighter Super Retina XDR display features ProMotion for refresh rates from 10Hz to 120Hz.
Apple says the phones have an all-new three-camera system. The ultrawide should offer better low-light photography, and the telephoto now goes up to 3x zoom, enabling 6x optical zoom across the three cameras. All three cameras now have night mode, and there’s a new macro mode for photographing subjects at just 2cm.
On the software side, Apple has announced new photographic profiles, which look like they work a little like traditional camera filters with an added dose of computational photography. On the video side, the cinematic focus feature announced for the iPhone 13 will also be available on the 13 Pro and Pro Max.
Internally, both devices are using Apple’s new A15 Bionic chip, which offers the familiar CPU and GPU speed increases compared to last year. Apple also says the chip should be faster for machine learning tasks. Due to the efficiency of the A15 Bionic and a larger battery, the iPhone 13 Pro’s battery life lasts more than 1.5 hours longer than the iPhone 12 Pro and the iPhone 13 Pro Max lasts 2.5 hours than iPhone 12 Pro Max.
This is the third year Apple is splitting its flagship phone lineup into regular and “Pro” devices. Last year, however, many reviewers noted that there wasn’t much of a difference between the iPhone 12 Pro and the iPhone 12. Yes, the 12 Pro had an extra telephoto camera, lidar sensor, and more RAM and base storage, but its basic design, processor, 5G capabilities, and similar OLED display if not identical, to the regular iPhone 12. The iPhone 13 Pro starts at $999, while the iPhone 13 Pro Max starts at $1099. iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max pre-orders open on Friday 17 September, with devices first arriving customers on Friday, 24 September.