Hardware

Back in March, I posted about what I wanted to see in the next iPhone. Well, on Wednesday 7th September, Apple announced the iPhone 14, 14 Max, 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max (along with new Apple Watches, but that’s out of scope for this post). So, based on my wishlist, what did the Apple account release? Were they listening to me? Spoiler alert. Nope…

• USB C - Nope… not going to happen this time around.
• External reporting of video: Also looks like it’s a No… It does seem that Filmic has the option of outputting a clean HDMI feed for video, but it also says it’s not good enough (due to compression) for recording externally…
• Better Camera: Yup. Looks like the main camera is now 48MP.
• Recording from external Cameras: Nope. this would have depended on the USB C input…
• Center Stage for Front Camera… This is a partial one… So, I wanted to use the iPhone as a camera for the Apple TV. That does not seem to be an option (yet) but there is the option of using your iPhone as a camera for your Mac. It uses the rear cameras of your phone and supports Center Stage too. I have tried this, and it works, but I don’t have a proper mount for the phone. Hopefully, they get released soon enough.

So, overall, I got 1 of my wishlist mostly fulfilled (i would have liked to see the 48MP shooters on the other 2 cameras as well…) and a partial… We see what happens next year…

I have been thinking recently about what I want to see in the next iPhone. I currently have a 12 Pro Max and I am due for an upgrade around December of this year, which means Apple will have released the 14 Pro Max at that stage. So, what do I want to see in it? This is just a random bloke with some ideas… I have no insider knowledge…

• USB C: this is a big one. iPhones now shoot ProRes Video, and 1 Min of 1080P ProRes is around 1GB inside and 1 Min of 4K ProRes is 6GB. on USB 2 (which is what is used for Lightning) the MAX you could download is 480Mbit/s or 60MBytes/s, so a 1 Min Video will take nearly 2 min to download. Not a massive time, but still a pain. USB C (be it 3, 3.1, 3.11 for Workgroups or whatever they are calling it these days) or Thunderbolt would make downloads a LOT faster, and possibly allow for faster charging and new accessories options (Ethernet, external video recorders (see below), external Storage and more.)
• External Recording of Video: Pro cameras usually have the option of a clean RAW video signal over an HDMI connection for external recording. A nice to have would be allowing the iPhone to do the same. And if it’s not an external recorder, even an external storage device. Think USB C SSD or the like. It probably won’t happen… Apple wants you to buy the bigger storage option and don’t want it to be expandable… But it would be nice.
• Better camera: iPhone cameras are good, don’t get me wrong, but 12MP for the main shooter seems a little small… My main camera, a Canon 5Ds, shoots 50MP images. Yes, it’s a Pro DSLR, but the iPhone is a Pro Phone aimed at Pro Videographers and Photographers… Bumping the main shooter to 48MP would allow 8K video recording too!
• Recording from external cameras, or even other iPhones: Probably not something that would be in an iPhone, maybe an iPad Pro, but as part of that external recording part, being able to hook another camera, say a GoPro or even Canon DSLR up to your device via USB C and start recording in ProRes to internal storage would be very cool. If it was added to the iPad Pro, you could record from multiple cameras with the M1 chip. 1 or more iPhone 14 Pro Max’s hooked to a USB C Hub and hooked to a single iPad Pro, with an external SSD and all video shown on the screen and recorded to the SSD. Throw in a GoPro that does not do ProRes and let the iPad record it in ProRes to disk in real time. Nice workflow saver.
• Center Stage for the front camera, along with a better front camera: I have wanted Apple to add a USB port to the Apple TV to allow you to do Video calls since the pandemic hit, but it probably won’t happen. So, using your iPhone as a camera for your AppleTV is the next best option. Give it a better front-facing camera and enable Center Stage and you will be good to go!

Can’t think of anything else off the top of my head… but that would be enough to start with.