For those who purchased a brand new iPhone 14 or iPhone 14 Professional, you most likely like it. For those who’re ordered a Pixel 7 Professional, you’ll love that too. You don’t must learn a bunch of opinions to know that Apple’s present iPhone lineup is its strongest ever or that Google’s latest handset brings good, significant adjustments and a digital camera system unmatched on another smartphone.
After all, I might’ve written the identical factor final yr. And the yr earlier than that. Greater than another machine, smartphones are perpetually a piece in progress that someway at all times really feel like they’re not fairly completed: The iPhone 12 Professional was lacking ProMotion, the 13 didn’t have an always-on show, the Pixel 6 Professional was lacking Face Unlock.
And your new iPhone 14 or Pixel 7, pretty much as good as it’s and as a lot as you like it, continues to be a yr or two away from being good. And it at all times shall be.
The identical however totally different
The Pixel 7 Professional appears to be like lots like final yr’s mannequin, with a digital camera bar on the again and small hole-punch for the selfie digital camera. It appears to be like good, but it surely feels extra like a compromise than the top of a decade of telephone design.
The identical may be stated of the iPhone 14. Apple has basically used the identical design for 3 years, and whereas it’s recognizable, it’s additionally beginning to really feel a bit stale. But it surely’s arduous to pinpoint the way it might change and not using a radical breakthrough. Just like the Pixel 7, the digital camera wants a bump, the display screen wants a digital camera cutout, and the bezels can’t be lowered rather more.
No matter telephone you decide will really feel unfinished regardless of what its maker can have you imagine. We now have goals of cameras which can be flush in opposition to the again, bezels which can be invisible, skinny sheets of glass that really feel like paper. Possibly we’ll get there in 2030 or 2041, however for now, smartphones are in an limitless cycle of catchup and one-upmanship that looks as if it can by no means finish.
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Wait until subsequent yr
Apple is at all times a few years forward in terms of iPhone growth, so whereas we’re shopping for the iPhone 14, engineers are engaged on the iPhone 16. That’s a part of the rationale why Apple at all times appears to carry again options. With every iPhone technology, you’ll be able to level to a serious characteristic that must be there however isn’t.
In addition to, it’s not like Android telephones aren’t catching up too. One of many Pixel 7’s premier digital camera options is Cinematic Blur, which is mainly a carbon copy of the iPhone 13’s Cinematic Mode. The identical goes for Macro Focus, which was launched on the iPhone 13 Professional final yr.
iPhone followers and Pixel followers will argue that the options are totally different, however that’s probably not the purpose. Telephones are taking part in a simultaneous recreation of catch-up and one-up that will get repeated every year, and there’s at all times going to be one thing that one has and the opposite doesn’t. For instance, the iPhone 14 Professional has a telephoto lens, but it surely’s inferior to the one on the Pixel 7 Professional or the Galaxy S22. That’s most likely coming with the iPhone 15.
One of many Pixel 7’s marquee digital camera options is mainly Cinematic Mode.
After years of 12MP photographs, the iPhone solely simply bought a 48MP digital camera. Excessive-megapixel cameras and always-on shows have been staples of high-end Android telephones for years, and Apple might have given them to us at any time over the previous few updates. However that’s not how the sport works. Apple and Google are by no means going to present us greater than the precise characteristic set calculated to maintain us glad sufficient to purchase the most recent mannequin, however unhappy sufficient to need to improve the next yr.
Possibly the Pixel 8 will get a Dynamic Island characteristic. Or the iPhone 16 will get Google’s Magic Eraser and Photograph Unblur. Possibly one thing just like the digital camera bar involves iPhone in some unspecified time in the future or the Pixel will get a flatter design.
When you discover your new iPhone 14 Plus, options for the iPhone 16 are already being finalized and unlikely to alter a lot between now and 2024. And by the point they arrive, there shall be one thing else the iPhone doesn’t have.
