Visually Indistinguishable from Perfect
Pre-Order (or Not)
When Apple announced the launch of the iPhone 11, and iPhone 11 Pro/Max combinations on September 10th, I recorded my thoughts and observations the same night on my podcast called ‘A Show has No Name’ with my (decidedly less geeky) co-host Rizwan Ahsan. For a rundown of what was discussed, I’ve embedded the episode below.
By the time I managed to investigate the pre-ordering process, delivery dates were already showing mid-October so I decided to try my luck as a walk-in instead. As I showed up to the Apple store two days after the launch (yes 2 days), the line outside was almost long enough to dissuade me but my steps didn’t falter. The Genius I flagged down did confirm that my preferred color (Midnight Green) was not only unavailable at my store, but also out of stock at the 12 nearest stores. There was, however, a silver model in stock. After 10 minutes of reflection over a Haagen-Dazs milk shake, I figured silver was also acceptable. After all, if I really hated it, there was still that 15-day return policy. While I kept an eye on the inventory for the first two days, silver kinda grew on me and I’m not as motivated to return it. Well, there’s still a couple of days left until the return deadline, so I guess the jury is still out.
Design
The iPhone 11 Pro is slightly thicker than the XS and a tad heavier so, in terms of comfort, we are arguably worse off, but it’s an acceptable trade-off if it means more battery life from a single charge (more on that later). Opinion is divided on this, but the matte glass back feels more slippery in the hand than the glossy glass back finish of the last two generations. The matte glass does look better and I can also attest, after using it without a case for the last 10 days, it’s not a fingerprint-magnet. The back is milled from a single piece of glass, which Apple claims is the strongest rear glass ever to be used on a smartphone but I won’t be conducting drop tests any time soon. If you’re in to that sort of thing, CNET did conduct a psuedo scientific test and came away impressed (the youtube image below is misleading).
The beautiful stainless steel frame is unchanged from the last two years and continues to give the higher end models a premium look. The only part of the design that I have a quibble with has to do with the lightning adapter. The iPad Pro went USB-C to USB-C in 2018, so the iPhone 11 Pro should’ve followed suit. This would’ve greatly simplified the charging setup for customers who own both devices. While Apple did finally equip us with a bigger 18W charger (about time, Cupertino) it is USB-C to lightning. I don’t understand this half measure? Maybe Apple wants to seed two years worth of 18W USB-C adapters before they rip off the band-aid and go all in?
Camera
It’s been a decade since famed photographer Chase Jarvis published his pictorial book, ‘The Best Camera Is the One That’s With You: iPhone Photography’. While the book itself may not have been that popular (only 346 Goodreads reviews), he essentially coined the term, which has been been used by tech journalists ad nauseam, advocating the use of mobile phone cameras over more expensive rigs. It’s not far from the truth. While mobile phone cameras are no match for dedicated DSLRs with bigger optics, one always has their mobile phones on-hand. The premise is that a comparatively low quality shot is better than no shot at all.
As smartphones with increasingly respectable CPUs and Optics went mainstream, it led to a paradigm shift in social media consumption — the mobile phone camera became the only camera that mattered. Also, when is the last time you saw someone taking a selfie using a DSLR?
Amidst the increasingly available choice of smartphones, the iPhone has, more or less, ruled. The last time Flickr published their annual device report for 2017, it reported that Apple accounted for 54% of the images taken, followed by Canon and Nikon. The top 3 cameras used that year were the iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, and iPhone 5s.
At the tenth anniversary of the iPhone, Apple upped its camera game even further with the iPhone X, which sported not one, but two lenses. While this was a significant improvement in optics with a larger sensor and dual optical stabilization, the most significant advancement was the use of a standalone image signal processor and software algorithms to make the sum better than its parts. In other words, Apple was using software to process images that would be nigh impossible to take with traditional cameras — in real time. The launch of the iPhone XS last year took this computational photography paradigm to new heights with the A12 Bionic chip, the eight-core ‘Neural Engine,’ and the ISP working in tandem to combine the best parts of multiple exposures for every capture (Smart HDR) and improved depth-of-field simulation while in Portrait mode (remember that slider to adjust the bokeh effect?). In fact, Apple spent more time talking up its camera smarts vs. the optics during the iPhone XS keynote, which was very telling. Computational Photography was here to stay — the new normal.
However, the Pixel 3 that came out shortly after the iPhone XS, introduced ‘Night Sight’, (an option that is manually selected) to better process photos taken in low light. The results were night and day (no pun intended) compared to the iPhone XS. At least in that one measure, Google had leapfrogged Apple, with its better image processing algorithms.
So, it wasn’t a complete surprise when Apple announced it’s own low light solution, dubbed ‘Night Mode’ for both the iPhone 11 and Pro models. The pictures posted in the reviews were jaw dropping and, overall, both models received much praise from the tech blogger community. One of my favorite go-to iPhone camera reviews is from Austin Mann who takes his review model to a different country each year. This year, he took the iPhone 11 Pro to China. I’ve posted his review below — check out the picture of the old man in a boat. Just amazing.
For the past two years, I’ve used Princeton U. as a testing ground for low light photography and this year was no different. However, this year’s photo session was conducted with reference shots from both the current and last years model for comparison purposes. The results were pretty astounding but I’ll let the pictures do the talking.
Frankly, I’m more excited about Night Mode compared to the new ultra wide-angle lens. Maybe it has something to do with not yet finding my ‘Aha’ moment. That said, I did take some experimental shots. Here’s one of the Empire State Building (note that Night Mode did not come on for this) and one from Long Island City looking towards the Manhattan skyline.
‘Deep Fusion’ is another exciting new camera feature that Apple announced. Unlike ‘Night Mode’, it wasn’t released in to the wild just yet. As of this writing, it was seeded to developers and folks on the public beta program as part of iOS 13.2. It’s supposed to use AI to improve the sharpness of photos (pixel by pixel in medium to low-light environments. Think, not as bright as day but not low enough for ‘Night Mode’ to switch on. I can think of a few instances…
Oh, I almost forgot — Apple also upgraded the front camera to 12MP (better selfies and FaceTime calls) and is also offering the ability to take slow-motion selfies or as they call it ‘Slofies’.
Battery
As I mentioned in my review of the XS last year, I was able to use it all day on a single charge and still have, on average, approx. 20% battery remaining before I put it on a wireless charger overnight. This year’s improvement is pretty significant and partly attributable to a slightly bigger battery. For one unscientific test, I completely drained the battery from 100% to 0% over the course of 38 hours. I’ve also been eying the daily night-time cutoff prior to using the wireless charger and the phone has been averaging around 50% of battery life still left in the tank! This seems to be in line with Apple’s claim of an additional 4 hours of battery life for the iPhone 11 Pro. As I type this on a weeknight at 10:35 pm, my battery is at 70% and I almost did a double-take. It just goes to show how Apple has brilliantly optimized the battery. A special shout out to the system wide ‘Dark Mode’ (introduced in iOS 13) which, on an OLED screen, also helps conserve battery as black pixels don’t have to be lit up like an LCD. As a by-product of this insane battery performance, I’ve yet to use the included 18W power adapter. My wife, who doesn’t follow good battery management, did end up plugging in her dead iPhone 11 at 6 pm on a weeknight and was almost floored when she realized that her phone went to 97% in about an hour and change.
Display
While the X and the XS were termed ‘Super Retina’, the iPhone 11 Pro/Max screens have the moniker ‘Super Retina XDR’. The most significant improvement seems to be that the new models can go much brighter — 1200 nits for HDR content, compared to 625 nits for the previous generations. What this means in real life is that if you’re watching a movie/show in HDR, it’s more prominent since 625 nits wasn’t bright enough for HDR to shine on a mobile screen. For comaprison, LG’s high-end 2019 OLED E9 peaks out at 790 nits whereas my 2016 model goes up to 730 nits for HDR content. And there you have it folks — the iPhones 11 Pro/Max has a better screen than my TV. Consider this para from DisplayMate’s review of the iPhone 11 Pro’s display:
The iPhone 11 Pro Max excels due to its impressive Absolute Color Accuracy (0.9 JNCD), which is Visually Indistinguishable from Perfect, and is very likely considerably better than any mobile display, monitor, TV or UHD TV that you have. So photos, videos, and online content and merchandise will appear correct and beautiful.
Face ID
Apple claims Face ID is 30% faster and works at more angles/distances. I can’t verify the claim on angles. It’s the same as before — I still have to lean over if the phone is lying on a flat surface. As far as speed is concerned, it does seem faster but not as mind blowingly fast as when we transitioned from the first gen of Touch ID to the second. Regardless, I continue to be a big fan of this authentication method.
Audio
Apple claims better (spatial audio), which I also can’t verify. Any difference in audio between the XS and the 11 is not perceptible to my ears. It still passes my ‘listening through a shower’ test with flying colors though.
U1 Chip
Prior to the keynote, the blogosphere was buzzing with rumors about a feature Apple was going to enable via a new ultra-wideband chip (dubbed U1) that would allow users to track tagged items to within 10 cm. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Tile offers a similar solution but uses bluetooth, which is not as precise. To be fair, Tile also uses crowdsourcing, which is cool but you need a huge user base for it to be really effective.
You know who has a huge user base?
While Apple did include the U1 UWB chip, it (sadly) did not announce a tracking service. Instead, it introduced faster AirDrop functionality between iPhone 11 users (meh) and promised that the U1 chip is “going to lead to amazing new capabilities.” Whether these new services are going to be unlocked in the next two months or two years, is hard to tell. Regardless, they have future-proofed the iPhone 11 to a certain degree.
To wrap-up, this was yet another year of solid updates. The improved (smart) camera alone is worth the upgrade while the longer battery life is the proverbial icing on the cake.
