The new iPhone might save your life

The new phone will auto-alert emergency services if you've been in a crash.

The new phone will auto-alert emergency services if you've been in a crash.

Overnight, Tim Cook hosted Apple’s famous September at Apple Park in the US, announcing a range of new gadgets, including iPhones, Apple Watches and AirPods Pro 2.

As expected, there was a new iPhone 14 with decent evolutionary updates, mainly focussing on the camera and safety. Alongside the standard 6.1” iPhone 14, there is a new 6.7 Plus model which, thanks to the inclusion of the A15 Bionic chip which featured in last year’s iPhone 13 Pro models, the Plus is basically an iPhone 13 Pro Max with a slightly less fancy camera system at a lower price.

iPhone 14 display. Picture: Apple

The biggest updates to the base iPhone 14 are around a redesigned camera system, which includes a new Photonic Engine which further improves low light photography by applying Deep Fusion earlier in the process. Deep Fusion is a process that basically stitches together a bunch of frames into one photo to better show colour and texture.

There are also new safety features, including crash sensors, which also feature in the Apple Watch Series 8 and Ultra lines, and can detect when you have a car crash and call emergency services on your behalf. The other safety feature is the ability to connect to satellites to send a message to emergency services when you’re away from any mobile phone coverage. It will only be available in the US and Canada for now, but it will presumably be coming to Australia at some point.

The iPhone 14 will alert emergency services if you're in a crash. Picture: Apple

The star of the phone show was, of course, the iPhone 14 Pro Max, Apple’s flagship iPhone which has replaced the dreaded front camera ‘notch’ with a Dynamic Island. While the announcement of the name ‘Dynamic Island’ drew laughter from the assembled crowd of journalists and influencers from around the world, the actual feature itself is a good idea. It takes a much-derided dead zone and turns it into an informative hub and the centre of on-screen notifications, while further providing an incentive for iPhone users to upgrade to the Pro model.

Carolina Milanesi, President of technology analyst firm Creative Strategies, agrees that while the name is unfortunate, it’s an important feature. “I wish they called it something else because everybody was like wow, when we were watching the video and then they said the name and everyone laughed,” she said. “But what it does is it shows Apple taking something and rethinking it. I think it's very clever, and it really does make the phone feel different compared to previous models.”

The iPhone Pro camera system also got a massive upgrade, including a new 48MP main camera with a quad-pixel sensor, which will make general photos look better, allow a better 2x zoom experience, and also tie better into pro-level workflows. 

Another major improvement for the Pro model is the much anticipated Always On Display, which has a refresh rate of 1Hz and dynamic dimming which will dim the brightness of the display without messing up the colour tones of your wallpaper. Plus, the peak brightness of the screen will be 2000nits, meaning you’ll be able to better read texts in bright sunlight now.

Of course, the Pro models also get the new Photonic Engine, Crash Detection and Emergency SOS (the satellite thing). For the chip, the iPhone 14 Pro gets the A16 Bionic chip. Considering the fastest non-iPhone still isn’t as fast as the A15 Bionic chip, the A16 Bionic will be a further boon for iOS gamers and creators.

Emergency satellite location detection. Picture: Apple.

Noticeably absent from this year’s event was the iPhone Mini, which debuted with the iPhone 12 and had a 5.4” screen. Clearly sales were not strong enough to support it alongside the budget iPhone SE, so this year’s theme is bigger is better.

While the temptation is to compare this Apple announcement with the Samsung Galaxy Z foldable phones released last week, Milanesi cautions against it. “You’re talking about mass market vs early adopter foldables. It’s a very defined audience for Samsung, so you’re talking about a different approach to the market and a different segment as well. Here it’s more obvious, the power of the portfolio and how they’re going to either get more people into the ecosystem, or get people to upgrade.”

Of course, no iPhone event is complete without Apple Watches and this year there were three models on show: The Apple Watch SE, Apple Watch Series 8 and the brand-new Apple Watch Ultra.

The big change with the SE is that it now has a few more features of the Apple Watch Series line, including fall detection and the S8 chip.

Apple Watch Series 8 has been upgraded with Crash Detection (in addition to Fall Detection), a new temperature sensor (primarily aimed at retroactively recognising ovulation), better battery life, and a new low power mode.

The Apple Watch Ultra, is the big watch headline, though, taking what Samsung was trying to do with the Samsung Galaxy Watch5 Pro and bringing it to the next level. It’s an Apple Watch with everything the Series 8 has, plus a 49mm screen, more rugged body, a new action button, new bands designed for extreme sports, a 36 hour battery life, a 60 hour battery mode and a dive computer. It’s aimed squarely at hardcore athletes who go beyond “simple” marathon running, but it’s also great for people who want a bigger watch screen and a longer battery.

Apple also released a series of new Apple Watches. Picture: Apple

Milanesi thought that at $1299 ($899USD), it was priced surprisingly low. “I thought the price point was lower than it could have been like. If they wanted to have gone to $999, nobody would have been shocked. So, the price point to me signals that they want to get to both of those markets, the ones that are spending on the highest of the Garmin range, and the ones who want a device that does everything for them.”

I’ve had my hands on the Apple Watch Ultra and I was surprised by how similar it was in weight to my aluminium Apple Watch Series 7. I had expected it to be much heavier. It’s also certainly much larger and will take some adjusting to, but looked good on a range of wrist sizes.

The other product announced is the follow up to the hugely successful AirPod Pro range. Rumours had suggested that the new model wouldn’t have the famous stems, however the stems are both still there and smarter with new capacitive gesture controls to adjust volume. The second generation AirPods Pro ($399) feature a new H2 chip which allows for better noise cancelling, custom Spatial Audio and intelligent switching in the new Adaptive Transparency mode. There’s also a new low-distortion audio driver and custom amplifier for richer bass. The battery will also last for 6 hours instead of 4.5 (for as long as possible).

In the lead up to the event there had been all sorts of rumours swirling about the potential announcement of an AR/VR headset, new iPads, new Macs and new AirPods Maxs. While I strongly doubt that we’ll see anything about the AR/VR headset until the next WWDC next June at the earliest, iPads and Macs should be announced in another event next month. Given the three-year update cycle of the AirPods Pro, I would guess AirPod Max will be next September/October.

These products are available for preorders from Friday, with most of the new iPhone available in store on Friday September 16.

Alice Clarke travelled to Cupertino as a guest of Apple.