- [Joanna] Greetings from a non-dynamic island,
which is now home to Apple's Dynamic Island.
Yes, This little area on the new iPhone 14 Pro screen
is called the-
- The Dynamic Island.
We've designed this new space to be highly adaptive.
- And that's exactly how I like to think of this space,
Rat Island, a private island off the coast of the Bronx.
And no, there are no rats, as far as I can tell.
I did see a creepily kind of friendly crab.
But I didn't paddle all of the way out here
just to poke fun at Apple's product name.
The bird poop on the island's pretty dynamic!
(dramatic music)
An island is a perfect place, though, to put the iPhone 14,
14 Pro, and Pro Max to the test.
There is scenery to test the cameras,
especially the 48-megapixel camera on the Pros,
there are islands
to explain why the Dynamic Island is more than just a joke,
and real action to test the new Action Mode.
Where'd my hat go?
I was sitting on it!
Okay, time to test some phones.
Let's start with the screens on these devices.
The iPhone 14 and the iPhone 14 Pro have 6.1" displays.
The iPhone 14 Plus
and the iPhone 14 Pro Max have 6.7" displays.
I don't have the iPhone Plus here today
because it doesn't ship until October.
On the surface,
it may seem like the screens on the non-Pros
and the Pros are just the same,
but this year the story is much deeper,
like this water.
The Pro models have an Always-On display,
which means you can just glance down at your phone
to see the time and other important info.
No need to tap it.
See, here it's off
and now it's on.
To be fair, Android phones,
like this two-year old Pixel 5,
have had this a long time.
I like the feature a lot
and haven't noticed it taking too big of a hit
on the battery life.
Apple says the brightness on the Pros has been increased,
making it easier to see in direct sunlight, but...
Is it raining?
It's raining.
Rain.
Of course it's raining.
To be fair,
I didn't notice much of a difference in sunlight either.
But the biggest difference
is that the Pros have the Dynamic Island.
Apple shrunk down the notch area here,
which holds the selfie camera and Face ID tech,
into this pill-shaped area, or island.
But what Apple did with the software is really clever.
It's actually not too different from this island.
See, this island gets smaller and bigger,
depending on the tide.
Presumably at low tide,
you'd have more space for picnics or napping.
Apple's island does the same.
It expands to show extra information.
For instance, swipe up when you're listening
to a song or podcast and it goes into the island here.
Hold down on it and you can get to the controls.
Same happens with a timer.
Set a timer for five minutes
- [Siri] Five minutes, counting down.
- [Joanna] Tap on the icon and you can open up the full app.
I really love it when you're on a phone call.
You even get these little wave forms here.
I'm wondering if you'd sell the island to me.
- [Alex] (laughs) No, I'm not really selling the island.
- I want change the name to Dynamic Island.
- [Alex] (laughs) Okay.
It might be quite difficult to rename an island.
It's been called Rat Island for over 100 years.
- I take back my offer.
I don't want to buy it.
- [Alex] (laughing) Okay.
- The whole thing feels far less gimmicky than I expected
and is really helpful when you want to multi-task
and jump between apps.
Next stop, cameras.
The iPhone 14 models have two cameras,
a main and an ultra-wide.
The main has a better sensor that can capture more light.
We'll come back to that soon.
The iPhone 14 Pro models have three cameras,
an ultra-wide, telephoto for getting a closer shot,
and a main camera with a whopping 48 megapixels.
There are two places where you can see the benefit
of the 48 megapixels.
First, it allows for a new 2X zoom option.
It's really a crop in on the 48-megapixel main camera.
Then there's the 3X option,
which is the true telephoto camera.
Second, when you're shooting
in Apple's more advanced Pro Raw format,
you can take 48-megapixel images.
It's really great for taking big landscape shots like this.
Just look at all that detail in there.
And compare these two cropped in shots.
The iPhone 14 Pro captures more detail.
Now, of course, outdoors,
iPhone photography has been great for a while.
Now it's in low light
that Apple promises some of the biggest differences
with these cameras, including the regular 14.
In my low light tests,
the main cameras on both the 14 and the 14 Pros were better,
but I wouldn't say so much better than the 13s.
You really have to go back to an iPhone 11 or 12
to see the improvements.
All four of the iPhone models have Action Mode,
a new video recording feature to stabilize your video.
You can turn it on right in the camera app.
Action Mode, commence.
I'm stuck.
Test one, rockin' in the boat.
Action mode, on.
You can't see much of a difference in the canoe footage,
but on the motorboat, it's certainly more stable.
But also when you enable it,
it pushes you to the ultra-wide camera.
On land, footage with Action Mode was also a bit better,
but, again, the regular iPhone video
is already pretty stable.
And our final stop, all the features I cannot test.
So, say I didn't have any cellular service out here
and my canoe drifted away.
I'd be able to use these phones'
Emergency SOS via Satellite feature.
That is if it was November,
because that's when it comes out.
These phones have the ability to contact satellites
and send messages to emergency services.
The phones also have car crash detection,
which uses sensors to detect a severe crash
and then notify emergency services.
Canoe crashes, not registered.
Action Mode off.
So, say you were stranded on a desert island.
Which of these iPhone 14 models should you bring?
Usually I'd say that depends on what you want
and what you need,
but this year, between the new screen stuff
and the additional camera improvements,
the Pro models have way more appeal
than just one extra camera on the back.
Of course, if the Dynamic Island doesn't appeal to you,
you could just spend some time out here.
Hey Siri, are you there?
- [Siri] I'm here.
- It's just us now.
- [Siri] I'm not sure I understand.
- Oh, right, I have so many Siris.