I think the iPhone 13 and 13 Pro are solid phones, has Apple finally turned me?
I mean…it’s not impossible…
So we all know this past week was Apple’s iPhone event. They showed off the new iPhone 13 series, they said it’s the best phone ever, they gave the four new phones (Mini, 13, 13 Pro and 13 Max) a varied set of upgrades with some being much welcome and others being the thing you’ve wanted Apple to have for years, and they had the same price tags as last year. It’s some version of what we’ve been getting for at least the past two years, yet while a large part of the tech community seems to be disappointed with these devices (including some TZP members), I find myself quite content with them. Which brings up the question: as TZP’s most ardent Apple critic, is there a chance that the company has turned me?
If you’ve read any of my pieces from the past few years, you would get why a lot of my friends basically state that I “hate Apple”. While I do hold a large amount of respect for the company and think the tech industry would be nowhere near where it is now without them, I’ve always been opposed to a lot of their policies and approaches to technology. Their belief in restricting user freedom and control for both safety and monopolist reasons, their slower approach to technological innovation because they never want to take risks or push the needle a little more as well as their incessant need to force people to use more Apple products even when they don’t need to just so they can make more profit. It’s behavior that I have called out for years which more recently has started to cause regulators from the EU and USA to criticize Apple’s practices as well. However with the iPhone 13 series I’ve supposedly fallen into the rut that the most devoted of Apple fans tend to fall into: where device upgrades that seem to do the bare minimum and yet Apple fans are thrilled because they finally have features the iPhone has been missing for years. I’m not exactly on the thrilled side of the spectrum, in fact I’ll already say right of the bat that finally adding 128GB as the basic storage option after almost 3 years of it being the standard on even $150 Android phones is a little embarrassing. That and finally adding bigger, seemingly more competent batteries to the iPhones is not an achievement as much as a requirement that devices like the 12 Mini sorely needed.
However, when it comes down to it, Apples phones are definitely an incremental update that seems to be right in line with the times for the most part, and if you’re someone stuck in the iPhone ecosystem, they’re a welcome addition that mostly stacks up for almost every device you buy. The iPhone 13 Mini still retains the unique and sought after form factor of being a small phone that you can actually use in one hand, while packing the same main camera as last year’s 12 Pro Max, making it’s potential low light and video performance some of the best in it’s price range.
The 13 Pro and Pro Max however, seem to essentially be Apple’s greatest claim to the moniker of the “Pro” name as they pack not only the new , finally arrived 120hz “ProMotion” high refresh rate displays (with adaptive scaling) but also the biggest camera system in an iPhone since maybe the 11 Pro Max. Apple’s upgraded all three lenses, allowing larger apertures on all three meaning more light being absorbed (which basically equals better photos on paper) and it bumped up the telephoto lens to a three times zoom. It also improved it’s Ultra-wide sensor to become a macro shooter too, a trick that some Android phones have implemented too and if done wee here, could mean these phone directly match up against the S21 Ultra in a way that the 12 Pro Max couldn’t.
And then there’s cinematic mode, the feature that seems to be a marriage between Apple’s software, AI capabilities and hardware lenses to create what may make video recording and editing on a smartphone a breeze for almost everyone involved (and hurt the professional video camera market in the process). Google has mentioned doing something similar with the Pixel 6 too, but until we see it in action, we’ll have to regard this as our first look into the technique and Apple could make it mainstream the way it did with portrait mode photos. And while cinematic mode isn’t an Apple-centric feature, Pro-Res mode is. This 4K resolution, near RAW recording technique is something professional videographers will love again, though it will definitely be space intensive as even one minute of the resolution will be 10GB. This is why it won’t be available on 128GB models or the 13 Pro, but it’s definitely something else to test as to whether or not it’s worth it and Again, makes the new Pro models arguably the best holders of the title to date.
The only phone that feels a little off center is the regular iPhone 13. Because outside of the same camera, battery and screen improvements that every other phone had, it has almost nothing to set it apart. In fact, if you have the iPhone 11 or 12 and don’t really feel like upgrading this model, the truth would probably be that you don’t have to. The normal 13 is the most incremental of updates, with differences that will probably only show if your really look for them. It is better than previous models, but not in a way that significantly changes the experience like the others. Chances are however that’s still enough, as Apple knows that since this is the model most people will think of, it’s the one most people will buy anyway. It’s just the one I would least recommend.
So have I been turned? Has Apple brainwashed me into following their business model and not expecting better? Well, that comes down to how I would recommend the other phones. Now, this of course is pending a full review roundup, but it basically comes down to this: if you’ve never bought a mini-iPhone but want one, the 13 Mini might be the one for you, though buying the 12 Mini is still a great choice. If You’re a camera nerd or want a phone that can probably approximate the experience of a full-blown pro camera, get the 13 Pro/Pro Max, just spring for a higher storage model too as these have no expandable storage though again, if you have the 12 Pro Max you probably don’t need these again.
And if you’re somehow an Android fan looking to switch, well, look, you probably could, and you might like it, but if you’re pulling out that much money phones like the Galaxy S21 Ultra, Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra and Sony Xperia 1 III could give you the same or a better experience for similar or less money with the flexibility of Android to boot (less reliance on iCloud/the cloud for one) and that makes for a whole different, maybe better experience. In the end however, Apple’s incremental update phones really have caught up to at least most of what is needed by the market right now. They do still have their flaws, after all their charging speeds are a joke now and they don’t even come with chargers anymore. However they might just shake some things up again in the camera department as well as make Google, Samsung and the rest wake up. And for that, I can’t help but respect these phones. You can tell me if that means Apple’s won me over.
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