The iPhone's camera has always been near the top of the list of the Apple device's standout features, and this year is no different. Today at an event in Cupertino, California, Apple announced three new iPhone models, all of them with redesigned cameras.
It's not the first time Apple has launched more than two iPhones—a regular phone and a supersize version—at the same time. Starting in 2017, with the big reveal of the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and newly designed iPhone X, the company seemed intent on doling out more smartphone options and reserving the most advanced features for the priciest phones at the very high end.
Each of the new handsets—the flagship iPhone 11 Pro Max, the smaller iPhone 11 Pro, and the standard iPhone 11—features a design that looks similar to previous iPhone X models. Sizes will also follow the design of last year's iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR. The iPhone 11 Pro is smallest, with a 5.8-inch OLED screen that packs a few extra pixels and improved (brighter) color; Apple calls it a "Super Retina XDR" display. The standard iPhone 11 is a third of an inch larger with a regular OLED Retina display, and the iPhone 11 Pro Max clocks in with a phablet-ey "Super Retina XDR" display size of 6.5 inches.
All of the displays will have Apple's trademark notch cutout up top, which holds a 12-megapixel selfie camera and the sensors needed for Face ID, Apple's facial recognition unlocking feature. It should ID faces a little better, with a wider field of view and some improved sensors to detect your lovely punim even if you're in an oddly lit place.
The glass on the back contours around the cameras, and Apple claims it's the "toughest glass" in a smartphone. The Pro models will have a soft-touch matte glass design that won't attract fingerprints quite as much.
All three iPhone 11 models are up for preorder this Friday, September 13 at 5 am Pacific. (They hit shelves September 20.) The standard 64 GB iPhone 11 starts at $699 and the 64 GB Pro models start at $999, with a $100 extra charge for the Max version. The 2018 iPhone XR is also still available, now at $599, and the 2017 iPhone 8 now costs $449.
Apple is not shaking up the design of the iPhone this year, but there are some significant camera changes. The rear camera's lenses are situated in a molded square area on the back of the phone. The iPhone Pro models will have three cameras in that square and the standard iPhone 11 will have just two, both 12-megapixel. One of those lenses is a standard lens. Like the Samsung Galaxy S10 and a few other Android phones, the second lens will offer a 120-degree ultra-wide view, letting you "zoom out" 2x and see more of a landscape. The extra camera on the Pro lets you "zoom in" 2x, as well.
To take advantage of the wide-angle view, the black borders on the camera app are now partially transparent, letting you kinda-sorta preview what your wide-angle shots will look like. Apple also added a zoom wheel that lets you zoom out incrementally. And if you hold down the shutter button, you can shoot a QuickTake video—at up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second, like the standard video modes. And you can now edit the exposure, and crop video right in the app.
Night Mode is another feature you might notice. It appears to drastically improve low-light shots, much like Google's Night Sight mode on Pixel phones. The iPhone 11 Pro will also get a software update that will enable a feature called Deep Fusion, which shoots nine images, analyzes them, and fuses them together pixel by pixel. Apple described it unjokingly as "computational photography mad science."
The new cameras also allow for some improved portrait mode shots. The iPhone 11 can add depth effects to more scenarios, like a portrait of your favorite furry friend.
Under its glass and metal exterior, each iPhone has a new A13 Bionic processor, which should offer a decent speed upgrade. Apple claimed that the new chip has the fastest-ever CPU and GPU in a smartphone, and wowed the crowd at Tuesday's event with a show of big numbers to back up the claim. Per Apple, the new chip is capable of 1 trillion operations per second, and holds 8.5 billion transistors.
The new chip is also easy on batteries! The standard iPhone 11 will get an extra hour of battery life and the 11 Pro models will get four extra hours of juice per charge compared to last year's model.
Apple is continuing to experiment with color. This year, the iPhone 11 will come in yellow, green, purple, red, white, and black. The Pro will remain a little too classy for much color, but does have a subtle Midnight Green option.
Small changes, like the addition of Wi-Fi 6, faster LTE, and improved wireless charging are also notable. These phones don't have 5G capability, either—not a big loss since we're several years from 5G being a useful, needed feature in most areas of the country.
Apple's slightly differentiated, "pro"-level iPhones and colorful standard iPhone 11 are coming at a time when sales of the marquee product have been on the decline. In Apple's earnings for the third quarter of the fiscal year, reported in June, iPhone revenue was down 12 percent from the year prior.
Apple is also feeling the heat from Asian phone manufacturers, who have been nibbling at its mobile business from both sides. At the high end, rivals like Samsung have been loading their phones with all kinds of features, and on the low end, there are a lot of surprisingly good phones at competitive prices. Whether a green and purple iPhone and some extra cameras stave off those rivals for another year remains to be seen.
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Updated 12-10-19, 8:10 pm EST: This story was changed to reflect the correct resolution of the iPhones' forward-facing camera sensors.
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