(upbeat music)
- All right, what's up guys?
MKBHD here.
And today we, of course, had Apple's expected,
anticipated September 2021 event.
This is where they announced the new iPhone lineup,
the new iPhone 13s
and a couple of other small things as well.
Here's the thing.
This was a pretty small update overall but, you know,
Apple's events are always these huge grandiose things.
They had tons of drone shots this year.
And of course these amazing transitions,
cinematography and lighting all through the roof,
it looked incredible.
But then it's all to announce like a couple small updates
to a few things so it felt like it didn't quite match.
But I still have a bunch of thoughts on a lot of
the things they actually did talk about.
Plus some stuff you might not have caught
from inside the keynote.
So this is all of that in one place.
So they actually started with the iPads.
So we got a new refresh baseline iPad.
Honestly, it's still the best deal
in the entire tablet world in my opinion.
It is basically the same on the outside,
it's the same 10.2 inch size,
the same design and that famous $329 price.
But with refresh insights you got
a new A13 bionic chip inside and there's also
a new 12 megapixel ultra wide selfie with center stage
just like the iPad Pro.
So even more than the iPad mini,
this is the number one entry point
for most people getting their first iPad.
It's still the most popular iPad and yeah,
pretty minor updates, small stuff.
But again, to get iPad iOS 15, 64 gigs of base storage
and like a pretty tried and true designs, it's fine.
We'll make a lot of headlines
but that's the easiest tablet to recommend.
But then we also did get a new iPad mini as well.
It's been a while since they refresh this,
but this would be the biggest redesign
or the biggest refresh of the day,
just because this was the redesign outside and inside.
It's basically now a tiny iPad Air.
So full metal jacket in four new colors and some nice curves
at the corners as you'd expect.
Still a single camera at the back now
but with a camera bump this time.
The last iPad mini did not have a camera bump
and that's a new 12 megapixel camera along with
a new ultra wide at the front with center stage as well.
It's got an eight 15 bionic inside even though
they didn't say it on stage
and also new 5G support in the mini.
The star of the show though is definitely
the new 8.3 inch display with thin bezels
that fits in the palm of your hand.
And also USBC in this one as well.
So that means now all of Apple's iPads have different chips
and they all now have USBC except for the baseline iPad,
which still has lightening.
And it's kinda interesting.
Now if you look at the lineup, it's clear that
the iPad Air needs another update because now
the iPad mini officially has a better newer chip
and better insides then that iPad Air.
But generally I'm like a little bit torn
on if I actually want this mini or not.
I really like the small form factor.
I've liked it for a long time.
But I'm gonna miss 120 Hz not being there,
is a 60 Hz iPad and I love the 120 Hz on the iPad Pro.
And I think that's gonna be the reason I stick with it.
But other than that, the mini is looking really good.
And we'll talk more about 120 Hz in a second,
don't worry but then we got onto the Apple Watch.
We got Apple Watch series 7.
Now we might've seen some of those rumors floating around
about maybe a square design that was just not happening.
It's not true.
So we have another Apple Watch in the same shape as before
but this is mostly just
a bigger screen update happening here.
So the bezels all the way around are 40% thinner than
the series 6 and the screen now does curve
and sort of flow over the edges a little bit,
right up to the metal body.
And they really highlighted this.
They made a big deal about it.
And there's lots of other stuff about the watch
that's either the same or wasn't talked about as much.
It looks like the same sensors, maybe the same chip
as far as I can tell, same buttons
and the same digital crown.
I like the way the bigger screen looks
but I want to see it in person.
I'm not sure how to feel about it yet.
And it's not even a durability thing
like I beat up the Apple Watch all the time.
It's never cracked, never broken,
never even really scratched that much.
I play ultimate in it, I land on it.
It's in the dirt and turf all the time, it's fine.
And the new one actually has harder ceramic and hard glass
on the outside but it's more of how it'll look.
And we've seen this shape for a while,
with the reflections all the way around,
the sort of curved outsides of the Apple Watch.
I feel like curving the display all the way to the very,
very outside like this and bring in texts and things like
that all the way to the outside.
While you can fit more on the screen,
might reflect even more and make some of
that stuff harder to read.
We'll see though.
I mean, I'm planning on getting my hands
on everything I talk about in this video.
So if you wanna see the review of the Apple Watch
when it comes out, it'll be here pretty soon.
Definitely get subscribed but yeah,
Apple Watch pretty minor updates, same shape,
just slightly bumped on that screen.
It also charges 33% faster with an included USBC charger
and the larger display is also a bit brighter
so it should be more visible more often.
Oh, they also added shared workouts in Fitness+.
So basically if you're on FaceTime and you have share play,
they added Fitness+ workouts to share play.
So you can work out with someone across the country
with an Apple Fitness Plus workout.
But what I really wanted them to add is group competitions.
You know, the competitions where you close your ring,
Apple, the one thing I want from a new Apple Watch update
is just to have group fitness competitions.
That's all I ask.
But then, okay, we finally get to the phones,
the real update a lot of you were here for,
which is a lineup of iPhone 13, iPhone 13 mini,
iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max.
So most of what we've been seeing develop turns out to
be correct, which is that the iPhone 13 series looks
a lot like the iPhone 12 series, but with two main updates
worth talking about, the display and the cameras.
So with the display, all of the new iPhones
have brighter screens for visibility and HDR.
A thousand nits on the iPhone 13
and 1200 nits peak on the 13 Pros.
And they all have a 20% smaller notch.
So all the same face ID hardware's up there,
same selfie camera and all that.
They've just finally compressed it a bit to make the notch
a bit smaller, give you some of
that screen real estate back.
And then the 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max have finally done it.
They finally added 120 Hz display to these Pro phones
and I kind of suspected they would do this,
but they've done it.
It's a promotion display.
And it's actually a variable refresh rate from 10 Hz
all the way up to 120 Hz.
And this is interesting because this is now
a real differentiator between the 13 and the 13 Pro.
And we'll see if regular people like actually notice
the difference and really want to upgrade for the 120 Hz.
I think a lot of people will notice
but this will be the real test.
And then also you might be thinking, oh, okay,
how's the battery life gonna be?
Now that we're expecting a brighter,
120 Hz display on the Pro phones?
But it's good to know that Apple is actually expecting
a slightly better battery life from one and a half to two
and a half hours of use, better depending
on which phone you get.
Which is good, I mean, I'm gonna have to put
these phones through their paces and see what
that actually turns into with my real world use.
But it's good to see it they don't expect
the battery life to go down.
So that's the display then there are the cameras.
So lots of stuff here per usual.
Obviously, you can see there is a slightly new layout
with those dual cameras diagonal from each other this time.
And the camera bumps are definitely a bit larger,
especially with those Pro phones.
Look at the cameras again,
pretty thick now, not gonna lie.
But the 13 and 13 mini have new dual cameras,
both still 12 megapixels, both with larger sensors
and larger apertures all around.
And sensor shift optical image stabilization
on the main sensor.
In theory, this is great.
There should be a bigger sensor plus better stabilization
to give you much better, low light
and should catch up to the competition but we shall see.
But then the 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max appear to
have matching cameras this year
and they are all better than the regular 13.
So it's triple cameras again.
They're all 12 megapixels again and they're all
with wider apertures than every camera on the 13
for even shallower natural depth of field
and even better light gathering.
So also the telephoto lens is 3X this year up from 2.5X
and all the cameras have night mode now.
So I'm pumped to test these new cameras.
Obviously with new hardware
and a new generation image signal processor,
it should be both better photos and videos.
Also the new ultra wide can shoot macro photos now
but what I'm really most excited about is actually some
of the features they announced in video mode.
So video on the iPhone I've already said is I think still
the best in any phone but to the new features,
they've added are two new video features.
And those are cinematic mode and ProRes video.
So the cinematic mode has a bunch of focus tricks
and tools to help video shooters better control focus.
This is something a lot of people play with on
the iPhone camera all the time.
There's a smooth focus racking
and an AI based depth detection that lets you adjust
the level of fake blur and focus rack between subjects
in a way that smoothly moves that blur.
It sounds really cool in theory but basically
I'm watching Apple's demos and I've watched them back now
a bunch of times and Apple's demos are typically
the absolute best case scenario of what you can expect
the phones cameras to be capable of.
But these to me didn't look that good.
Now maybe I'm pixel peeping, maybe I'm expecting
a little too much out of
a tiny smartphone sensor and lenses.
But the focus racks still hunted a little bit sometimes
like any other normal smartphone tap to focus.
And of course, when you go from a really close up shot
to a really far one, focus racking you can see the edge
of the frame move because the iPhone's lenses
are not par focal but I'm definitely nitpicking here.
This is Apple claiming a better focus control system
with the iPhone camera, gotta try it
and I'll definitely report back.
But that's something I'll be diving into.
Then the other thing I mentioned was ProRes.
So we can now shoot with the Pros 4K 30 FPS ProRes video
on the iPhone, unless you get
the 128 gig baseline pro iPhone, in which case only 1080.
So instead of moving the baseline storage up to 256,
they just literally disable this one feature
and it's kind of brutal.
I guess maybe there could be
a really good technical reason for it.
Maybe the 128 gig chips aren't reading
or writing fast enough to shoot 4K 30 ProRes.
Maybe they're just like scared you'll fill up
your storage too fast on 128 gigs.
And they just wanna disable the feature.
Either way it seems like they should explain.
But that's really the major iPhone updates with the screen
and the cameras this year.
Aside from that you do have new specs.
The new A15 bionic chip is in all these phones with
a 5 Core GPU in the Pro phone
and a 4 Core in the regular.
There is also a slight battery bump like I mentioned,
it's physically bigger batteries.
And the new iPhones are actually a tiny bit thicker
and a little heavier than last year
to accommodate that same ceramic shield, same IP 68,
same flat side materials as last year.
So you're looking at 699 for the iPhone 13 mini.
729 for the iPhone 13, 999 for the 13 Pro
and 999 for the 13 Pro and 1099 for 13 Pro Max.
And since I know you were wondering, just so you know,
it's 1599 for the fully maxed out, one terabyte,
iPhone 13 Pro Max, you're welcome.
So yeah, a bunch of small upgrades overall.
I think the iPad mini might be the biggest upgrade
but on the phones, you know, I'm pretty confident without
even handling the phones yet that you probably don't need
to run out and get an iPhone 13
if you already have an iPhone 12.
But that 120 Hz on the Pro phones, I'm into it obviously
and I really like a good 120 Hz screen.
But we'll have to see, that might be a good reason
for people with older iPhones and maybe even up to an 11
or 12 to think about the Pro phone.
We'll see all this stuff pretty soon.
Let me know if want you wanna see in the reviews
in the comment section below.
There's a lot of stuff that I haven't mentioned
that's just even a little tiny stuff
that'll be on the spec sheet.
Let me know what you wanna see in those videos
but either way subscribe to see those when they come out
and that's been it.
Thanks for watching, catch you in the next one, peace.