Will the iPhone 14 Be a Disappointment?

[Karma*Police]

Will it be a disappointment from an innovation/surprise and delight standpoint? Absolutely. But that’s been the case for a while now. The last exciting upgrade was iPhone X, and it took a few generations of boring updates to get there.

Sad to say, most people upgrade now because of need, not because of some exciting innovation coming out of Apple. I’m still holding onto my 11 and will do so until it dies. Prior to that, I upgraded almost every year.

 

[spartan1967]

I would say no, at least when I pay my credit card bill at the end of the next 12 months after it is released.

 

[4jasontv]

Really? Where can I collect my free iPhone 12 Pro please? Sounds amazing!

Are you in the US? Try Verizon, ATT, or TMobile. I am sure there are others but those are the big ones.

 

[coolfactor]

My partner got the iPhone 13 mini and she loves it! It's the perfect replacement for her previous SE. I think Apple is wrong to have both the mini and the SE in the lineup. They compete too much with each other.

 

[coolfactor]

The mini is for people with small pockets. Literally and figuratively 😉

Totally not true. How about people with smaller hands? How about people that like to use a phone one-handed?

The mini is not a cheap phone, it's cheaper.

 

[UK-MacAddict]

Disappointment to who?

My iPhone 13 Pro Max is less than a year old. How many iPhone users upgrade after just a year, or even two? For me it is typically three years between new models, so I'm more interested in the innovations that will be coming with the iPhone 15 and even iPhone 16!

I’ve upgraded every year since the original iPhone in 2007 lol.

 

[Warped9]

For some time now the iPhone seems to have reached a point where they are finessing it in incremental ways from year to year. It might be quite some time before we see some drastic move forward.

The 14 will be a disappointment to those expecting radical advancement from recent generations—it ain’t gonna happen. It won’t likely be a disappointment for those looking to upgrade from an iPhone three, four or five generations old.

 

[dmr727]

I currently have a 12 mini that I still love so I'm not sure I'll pull the trigger on a 14 or wait another cycle, but regardless I don't think it'll be a disappointment. Probably not revolutionary either, but I think it'll be a noticeable improvement. That's about all I expect out of my tech upgrades these days.

 

[The_Martini_Cat]

Currently I have an iPhone 11 Pro. So… The iPhone 14 pro is gonna be a hella upgrade! (note: I don’t currently plug my phone into recharge it anyway, so… I’m not sure why USB-C would be an advantage on that)🍸😹

 

[ceej01]

Skip the 14, get the 15 with USB-C and sideloading, my advice.

I 100% agree. I have upgraded my phone every single year without fail. Perhaps my interest in tech is fading a little, but I can almost say for certain I will skip this year’s iPhone. No USB-C is beyond a joke now. Good on EU Commission for calling out apple on what it is - money grab on proprietary lightning cables at the expense of the consumer. I think Apple will hold off on USB-C on this years phone while they work out how to fill the revenue hole from less lightning cable sales. Again, the consumer has to suffer and wait another ~15 months until then. At one point, this annoyed me so much that I even went through a period of using pixel phones so I would only have to carry a single usb-c cable. Grow up Apple.

 

[Tagbert]

If there is a move to USB-C, one thing that is a bit of a downside is usb c hubs are still a bit pricey.

Compared to lightning hubs? ?

How is this relevant to a switch from Lightning to USB-C on the device?
If you do need one, I see several at $25-35 on Amazon.

 

[Thrutheroofnunderground]

Will the Pros finally have a periscope zoom? If no, then yes. That’s the one upgrade I care about. Not faster SOC, screen refresh rate, etc.

 

[wallaby]

Undoubtedly

 

[lordofthereef]

Skip the 14, get the 15 with USB-C and sideloading, my advice.

What's this about sideloading?

 

[Thebrochure]

Everything after the 4S has been a disappointment for me. That was my first iPhone, and it absolutely floored me. Then Jobs died, and it was like... here is this thing that's got this thing that isn't going to change the way you use your phone all that much but please, buy it anyway!

I've purchased two phones since, the iPhone 6s Plus and the 10s Max, and neither of them were anything close to the revelation that was the 4s.

Man, do I miss Steve Jobs.

 

[mrat93]

13 mini is FTW.

Went from 12 mini to 13 Pro. I miss the size dearly but I love ProMotion more. Also, considering the mini size might be dropped, I figured I might as well get used to the bigger size.

 

[MarkAtl]

I’m not planning to upgrade this cycle but the satellite emergency feature is something beneficial if you’re a hiker. Right now I need a Garmin InReach with an associated plan.

 

[swingerofbirch]

It would be refreshing for a change if they announced, "This is the worst iPhone we've ever released."

 

[Whathappened]

No, it doesn't. I have to assume you don't have one because I use my 12 mini a lot and get two days per charge.

then you don’t use it a lot or you have some alien battery tech inside.
We got a couple of them in my company and every single user says it’s almost impossible to get one day out of it.

 

[BurgDog]

What's this about sideloading?

It is a word that Apple invented that basically has no real meaning except that it is a bad thing that Apple strongly objects to as it costs them money and control of what they permit to run on iPads and iPhones.

Downloading means fetching stuff from another computer, uploading means sending stuff to another computer. Sideloading I guess would logically mean sending stuff from one place on your computer to some other place your computer. Apple uses it to mean the really bad idea of downloading stuff from places that isn't them. Why they invented the nonsense term "sideloading" for that is a mystery but I guess they needed some pejorative label for "bad thing we don't like".

 

[Drisin]

Yawn!.... What.. another iPhone. Let me guess. Faster chip and slowly released camera? Wow.... oh wait there are new colors... oh wait there is Face ID but now we have masks... boy those guys (generally speaking) really have it nailed. They are on .. zzzz. top.... of..zzzzz it... Wake me up when Elon comes out with his phone, it'll probably be the only thing to get Tim Cook fired and finally get some new development rather than a monopoly like Microsoft once had with little to no innovation. ?

 

[dampfnudel]

Will the Pros finally have a periscope zoom? If no, then yes. That’s the one upgrade I care about. Not faster SOC, screen refresh rate, etc.

I thought I would wait for the periscope lens before I upgraded my 12 Pro, but I wonder now how often I would need a 5x optical lens vs. the current 3x optical lens. Based on previous history when I had a camera with 5x, rarely. I would rather get a 14 Pro and then in a couple of years upgrade to the 16 Pro which is rumored to lose the pill/hole. Also any issues that may pop up with the periscope lens design should be resolved.

 

[atomic.flip]

Honestly there isn’t much they can do or are willing to do to innovate in this space anymore. Maybe something in the AR / VR space will come about or some sort of holo projection tech a decade down the line that emits from an Apple Watch Band or some such.

Otherwise it’s just going to be another boring as hell iterative release.

 

[4jasontv]

then you don’t use it a lot or you have some alien battery tech inside.
We got a couple of them in my company and every single user says it’s almost impossible to get one day out of it.

Sounds like yours are defective. But what are you going to do, it’s hard to find good help.

 

[Tagbert]

iPhones have been disappointing since the X (and even the 6). None of them would have been made if Jobs was alive.

The 6 was the first “large” iPhone and a huge success.
The X was the first all-screen phone with FaceID and also a success.
Both were big changes from previous models. Neither one was disappointing and it is a losing game to predict what Jobs would have green-lit or not.