Video Review: Four Days With the iPhone 14 Pro Max

[SFjohn]

The Esim is kind of dumb if you pick up in Apple Store with trade.

The transfer sends a text to your old phone and since you have to Apple you’re out of luck and have to contact carrier

If I was to pick up in the Apple store for a trade, I’d have them oversee the transfer of the e-sim.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

I had the iPhone 13 Pro Max...I'm not really seeing the full benefit yet of upgrading and hoping the dynamic island will play more of a role. I did decide to turn off my "always on." I just didn't find it much help or necessary and my battery does drain slightly faster with this phone and the new software. I like the home screen customization and hope they will allow for more widgets to be added than what it currently provides.

I’d give it a few more days. The battery drain was pretty heavy the first few days when I got mine and I thought it was the always on screen, but turns out it was probably just doing indexing and it lasts a lot longer now. At least for me turning off the always on didn’t do much so I turned it back on.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

I've seen a lot of people have issues with PrePaid plans transferring to eSim. Some it worked no problems, others had to put a call in to make it happen. Pro Max is amazing!

Fortunately went very smooth on mine. My prepaid carrier had a nice app that guided me through the process. Probably took less than a minute despite being on launch day.

 

[SFjohn]

We are dealing with bleeding edge technology, and of course there’s some pain, especially on the first day. No system is ever perfect. In retrospect (from this thread) I can see it would have been helpful if Apple was to message that to ease this transition, 1) Make sure you’re running the latest iOS and 2) If your iPhone is eSIM compatible to make the change beforehand. Then set up your iPhone 14. Hopefully people can use this info to make their transition easier. 👍🏻

 

[I7guy]

The Esim is kind of dumb if you pick up in Apple Store with trade.

The transfer sends a text to your old phone and since you have to Apple you’re out of luck and have to contact carrier

While it may not be convenient for some, Apple allows 14 days to bring the old phone back.

 

[Attirex]

It didn't work. Everything appeared like it was going to work, but I kept getting an error telling me to contact Verizon. Now the fun part.

update: It was painless and took less than a 5 minute chat with Verizon to port over the esim

PHEW. Congrats! Glad it worked! I read the first para and was sad lol.

 

[arazeleternal]

Porting over to eSIM for me on US Cellular took a couple tries, but in the end it wasn’t too bad.

Anyway, I love my 14 PM in space black. Very fast and responsive, screen is silky smooth. Coming from my 12 pro, it has been a very pleasant experience. I don't mind the weight of it. I hold my iPad Pro 12.9 inch all day with the bottom supported on my stomach or lap and the top with my hand. The AOD is a great feature and so is the dynamic island.

 

[/macuser]

If I was to pick up in the Apple store for a trade, I’d have them oversee the transfer of the e-sim.

They didn’t offer to do that. I assume if I asked they would but I honesty didn’t think it would send a text message if the old phone is traded in. They should have mentioned that.

 

[gund1234]

I am E-sim on my 13 Pro Max here in the UK and it was done within 10mins. Super easy.

Carriers have to work on making this easy, in US it was a pian.
t-Mobile customer here.
When i get a new phone,
i have to call T-Mobile, send them IMEI# for new phone.
They will first disconnect service for old phone and then an hr later i get a mail with new QR code.
Experience should be same as physical SIM.
Customers should have an option to transfer eSIM from old phone to new phone.

 

[gund1234]

The pro max is 1/4 of a kilogram ,can you imagine that ?

they should make it with titanium, this would reduce weight.
But that would be expensive though.

 

[Rukes]

Actually, I love the ease of eSim whilest traveling abroad! Just enter the code or use the app and I’m up and running in a literal minute. Before I had to search for a store (that is open!), fill in a lot of forms, wait for the sim, use the sim tool (which you always lose) to replace the sim card, activate it... All in all it took many hours to get things going. I am glad those days are over. It does of course depends on which countries you vist. But for those ‘sim-only’ countries I carry a cheap spare Pixel from a few year’s ago🤓

Exactly, I have no clue why anyone who travels would ever want a regular sim aside from lots of huge hassles.

eSIM you keep your number for everything and pick what country you are going to from a list of eSIMs you have stored for data. Here’s me in Indonesia right now.

 

[SFjohn]

They didn’t offer to do that. I assume if I asked they would but I honesty didn’t think it would send a text message if the old phone is traded in. They should have mentioned that.

You know what they say about assuming… 🤕

 

[thalegold]

Dynamic Island. I know! Everyone HATES the notch but we don't have a clue how to remove it. Hmmm. Let's make it a little smaller but then we will make it really big when annoying notifications and things come in!! They will buy the phone thinking the notch is smaller but then as they use it, the notch will grow big, bigger, BIGGER! All depending on what it wants to show. Wuahahahaha!! They will think it's new functionality!! Rather than us covering up that we don't have a clue how to remove it!!! Yes, I know they already have widgets. I know they already have notifications. This is worse though. It's always in their face. 24/7. Hahahahaha!

 

[FelixDerKater]

Thus far the battery seems inferior to the 13P.

 

[black_knight]

This is anything but a relaxing fireside chat. I typically enjoy Dan's reviews, but his anti-eSIM rant in this video is embarrassing. I went from a physical SIM to an eSIM on ATT in all of about 5 minutes. The process worked seamlessly, as it did for everyone I know who received their new phone last Friday. If you're going to use a small discount carrier with your top-of-the-line iPhone, I'm not sure why you would expect that to be easy.

That was my experience as well. ATT physical to eSIM and took all of a few minutes.

 

[svish]

Good video. Like the dynamic island on the new Pro models.

 

[mattopotamus]

They didn’t offer to do that. I assume if I asked they would but I honesty didn’t think it would send a text message if the old phone is traded in. They should have mentioned that.

I specifically asked to keep my old phone during the trade in process to attempt a sim transfer. They were good with it.

 

[mattopotamus]

they should make it with titanium, this would reduce weight.
But that would be expensive though.

I saw some people suggest that, and apparently titanium is not good with heat distribution so may not work.

 

[4odomi]

Apple on Friday released the new iPhone 14 models, and MacRumors videographer Dan picked one up on launch day. He's been using the iPhone 14 Pro Max non-stop since it came out, and over on the MacRumors YouTube channel, has shared his initial thoughts on the day-to-day experience with the latest iPhone.

Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.​

Dan's mini review highlights his issues with setting up the eSIM, the usefulness of the always-on display, the functionality of the Dynamic Island, how the new 48-megapixel camera fares, and more. Make sure to watch the video, and stay tuned to the MacRumors website and the MacRumors YouTube channel because we have more in-depth iPhone 14 video content coming, plus Apple Watch Ultra and AirPods 2 coverage.

Article Link: Video Review: Four Days With the iPhone 14 Pro Max

It's a pretty poor review imo, if you haven't tested it properly, than you shouldn't come to any conclusions! The upgrades are bigger on 14 pro's than they were last year on 13 Pro and they were substantial. Not sure why the big downer on eSims, well overdue, the only downside is that it's US only and Apple can't take advantage of the space they've freed up, seems the only people having problems, are those with third party providers, cheap & good service just don't go hand in hand, surprised as a tech influencer you not aware of that 😳

 

[4odomi]

no word on battery ?

Mrimtheboss has done his tests, the 14 Pro is about 25 min better than 13 Pro and the 14 Pro Max is about 15 min worse than 13 Pro Max

 

[4odomi]

Picking up a pro max today, and I am very curious how the transition to e-sim is going to pan out. I have Verizon prepaid with a phsyical sim at the moment. I tried to be proactive and reached out to Verizon yesterday, and they said it should work without an issue, fingers crossed.

If you're not with a cheap third party network, you'll be fine, it's a nothing issue being stirred up as usual by the so called tech experts, for click bytes 😏

 

[4odomi]

I've seen a lot of people have issues with PrePaid plans transferring to eSim. Some it worked no problems, others had to put a call in to make it happen. Pro Max is amazing!

The only people having problems, are the ones with cheap third party networks, also even if you have to put in a call (which I've had to do on occasions with a physical card) it's hardly an issue!

 

[4odomi]

Got a 14 Pro and immediately regretted it when I picked it up, the thing is just too heavy. And for a handheld device that is a big deal. Everything else is wonderful, the screen is smooth and bright, the camera's amazing. But for holding, texting and reading, what I do 99% of the time, it's just uncomfortable.

It's a shame the regular 14 lacks so many features but it's what I had to change to.

I thought the same, when I upgraded from 12 pro to 13 pro 🤣 you'll soon not notice

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

they should make it with titanium, this would reduce weight.
But that would be expensive though.

Expensive ,and I think titanium isn’t good for heat dissipation ,which is already a problem with the current iPhones so…

 

[4odomi]

Love that a quarter of the video is him complaining about Esim and how it doesn't work very well or that he waited in queue so long to get help with it. When all of this is just attributable that he is on some small, no-name carrier without the resources to handle an Apple launch.

And no offense to those carriers... The big carriers struggle every year with the Apple launch.
Among all the digital ink that’s being spilled around eSIMs, there seems to be one general misconception that keeps coming back and back: People think that having no SIM slot is very inconvenient for international travel and that American operators will profit because you’ll be forced to use roaming on your US iPhone.
In my experience, that couldn’t be further from the truth. I have gone on more than 15 trips in the past 18 months. I visited eight different countries and used free roaming where my SIM card allowed it, but bought a prepaid data eSIM in four countries: Belgium, Switzerland, Turkey, and Canada. And my personal verdict is indisputable: eSIMs are a win for travelers.
But we really didn't need his rant about esims and how carriers aren't ready for them. By his own admission, he went to a Verizon store and had everything up and running in minutes.

Moral of the story: go with a small carrier at your own risk. It is literally the risk everyone takes with every product involving a small company: they have less resources. Maybe that's worth it to you for some other reason, but don't complain about it when it doesn't work out for you.

I do International travel and having only an esim is going to be a pain. But, I am more than happy to deal with it because I am ready for physical sims to go the way of the dodo.

Problems with International travel is a myth, created by the so called tech experts and their ill informed followers.

"Among all the digital ink that’s being spilled around eSIMs, there seems to be one general misconception that keeps coming back and back: People think that having no SIM slot is very inconvenient for international travel and that American operators will profit because you’ll be forced to use roaming on your US iPhone.
In my experience, that couldn’t be further from the truth. I have gone on more than 15 trips in the past 18 months. I visited eight different countries and used free roaming where my SIM card allowed it, but bought a prepaid data eSIM in four countries: Belgium, Switzerland, Turkey, and Canada. And my personal verdict is indisputable: eSIMs are a win for travelers."