I’ve purchased the best version of the iPhone every year since it was introduced and this is the first year I won’t be upgrading and here is partly why.
The battery in the pro would be less as the Face ID sensors and front facing camera. Have dropped down slightly from the fixed location at the top of the housing. Into a space that had previously been occupied by battery. As you wouldn’t have a battery that essentially had a hole in it so as to encircle the sensors. I’m goin going to assume that they were forced to go with a smaller battery and in turn that the loss of the sim tray was an effort to create some additional room that would allow for a slightly larger battery then would’ve be feasible with it. Enough of a battery reduction that they would’ve shown shorter battery times then the 13 had. I can see the meeting, similar to a movie with NASA, “we need this to fit into there, so what weight can we remove?”
But to be clear about 90% of the reason as to why the iPhone “13S” is so underwhelming is directly related to apple not being able to move forward with their own cell modem and instead being forced to continue with Qualcomm. Apple lost a patent infringement case against Qualcomm forcing them to remain dependent for now. The lack of the rumored price increase is most likely related to Apple having to use the contract they had with last years power hungry and sus modems as any new contract would’ve allowed Qualcomm to fleece Apple, as they had no other option. It’s why you still don’t have Wi-Fi 6E integration. But bother the 13 and 14 series have satellite capabilities, the question is do they activate them on both models. One last positive and this will be delayed until Samsung released their new phones with aptx lossless. But iPhones are already capable of such but won’t be the first to market as no desire for any additional antitrust concerns. But all it takes is a firmware update and the first wireless experience of true lossless will be had. Think Airdrop. 😉