iPhone 13 Pro No Photonic Engine on iPhone 13 Pro?

[huanbrother]

Agree. And I should caveat my comments with spectacular for a smartphone. Agree - even my 10-year vintage dSLR with Canon L-glass blows away what can be accomplished with a smartphone sized sensor and glass.

Thing is, when I want to "do photography" I use a camera. When I want be present in the world and capture moments and memories, I use an iPhone or a point and shoot. I no longer carry a point and shoot because the iPhone does such a good job at taking snaps. They are frequently better than I can get on other devices and by "better" I mean that they are more pleasing to look at right off of the device.

Apple's marketing keeps setting up the expectation that these Pro phones will beat out dedicated hardware. And they just don't do that. I mean look at the iPhone 8 announcement video from 2017 (below). At the time I thought I was going to throw away thousands of dollars worth of Canon lenses! And then I looked at the pictures, which were nice, but even my RX100 remained in my pocket for vacations.

And so we arrive at iPhone 14 Pro Photonic engine. I have no doubt it will be better than iPhone 13 Pro without the Photonic engine. But I'll bet money that in most situations, I'm pretty sure that I would be hard pressed to tell the shots apart. Yes - there will be some pics that I can't get without a Photonic engine but probably not that many.

The iPhone 13's lack of a Photonic engine isn't, therefore, going to be a compelling reason to upgrade. I will wait for reviews, but they are going to have to be night and day different for me to think that this year's camera is worth the upgrade for my casual use.

---
The iPhone 8 Intro video camera hype!

Agreed.

And please note that the first round and even the second round of reviews are heavily regulated by Apple.Inc, the reviewers MUST follow strict review guidelines or they will not receive the products first hand next year, which is critical for their view numbers during new product launch.

We may see unbiased comprehensive reviews in maybe upto 1 - 2 months after the launch day, be patient, I'd say.

 

[ian87w]

Another "stage manager" scandal?
I mean if the feature is only available on the 14 Pro, sure, maybe it requires the A16. But if the A15 on the iPhone 14 can do it, I don't see why the 13 Pro couldn't.

The same with Action Mode. That is just EIS via software.

 

[vince789]

This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, we've seen this happen time and time again

For example other camera software features like Smart HDR, Night Mode, and Deep Fusion were not brought back to 1 year old iPhones either

No there were no hardware limitations, Google/Samsung brought back similar features to 1-2 year old phones

Unless you believe Apple's A12 GPU is weaker than Qualcomm's 821 or 670 GPUs (the 2 year old OG Pixel was updated with Night Sight, and the cheaper Pixel 3A was released with Night Sight)

 

[ian87w]

This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, we've seen this happen time and time again

For example other camera software features like Smart HDR, Night Mode, and Deep Fusion were not brought back to 1 year old iPhones either

No there were no hardware limitations, Google/Samsung brought back similar features to 1-2 year old phones

Unless you believe Apple's A12 GPU is weaker than Qualcomm's 821 or 670 GPUs (the 2 year old OG Pixel was updated with Night Sight, and the cheaper Pixel 3A was released with Night Sight)

Back then, it’s kinda permissible since the latest iPhone always had the latest chip. One could argue that the features require the latest A chip.

But now since the regular 14 actually uses the same SoC as last year’s 13 Pro, well, gotcha…

But yeah, it’s Apple. Nothing’s new here. At least they didn’t try to come up with technical excuses like the stage manager.

 

[JPack]

This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, we've seen this happen time and time again

For example other camera software features like Smart HDR, Night Mode, and Deep Fusion were not brought back to 1 year old iPhones either

No there were no hardware limitations, Google/Samsung brought back similar features to 1-2 year old phones

Unless you believe Apple's A12 GPU is weaker than Qualcomm's 821 or 670 GPUs (the 2 year old OG Pixel was updated with Night Sight, and the cheaper Pixel 3A was released with Night Sight)

It's not only with the camera, you also see this with other features. For example, iPhone 6S introduced Raise to Wake when it was obvious iPhone 6 could do the same as it has a pair of low power accelerometers and gyroscopes.

Many people convinced themselves that camera feature X always requires the latest SoC. Now that the curtain has been pulled back, some people are disappointed.

 

[ian87w]

I wonder why the journalists and YouTubers are not asking Apple now on why, like they did in stage manager. 🙄

 

[vince789]

Back then, it’s kinda permissible since the latest iPhone always had the latest chip. One could argue that the features require the latest A chip.

But now since the regular 14 actually uses the same SoC as last year’s 13 Pro, well, gotcha…

But yeah, it’s Apple. Nothing’s new here. At least they didn’t try to come up with technical excuses like the stage manager.

I don't agree with that excuse, Apple always claims to be years ahead of Android SoCs (which is true, e.g. big lead in CPU and decent lead in GPU)

Yet Google managed to bring Night Sight to phones with Qualcomm's 821 or 670, which are obviously much weaker than Apple's A12

But yea, there's absolutely no excuse for the iPhone 13 Pro which has the same A15 as the iPhone 14

 

[Tsepz]

If you try to access the "iPhone 13 Pro/ Pro Max Spec" page (https://www.apple.com/iphone-13-pro/specs/) by Apple, you'll find yourself being redirected to Apple's main page.

Apple just really don't want people to search for clues why 14 with the same hardware is getting the new algorithm while the 13 Pro/Pro Max are left behind.

You get the 13 Pro Max tech specs here now:

iPhone 13 Pro Max - Technical Specifications – Apple Support (UK)

support.apple.com

 

[DanielG97]

I said this on the iPhone subreddit, and I’ll echo the same sentiment here. It’s for no reason other than for Apple to sell their new phones; same story, different day. That said, it IS a little annoying that the 13 Pros, devices that could easily support this feature, as well as AOD, don’t. You can’t tell me that these monstrously powerful smartphones can’t do what their successors can, despite being nearly just as powerful. It’s just software, that’s it.

That said, the photos that I do get on the 13 Pro Max are typically very nice (with some quirks and annoying niggles here and there). And, I have my dedicated DLSR to make up for whatever limitations the iPhone has, and for when I’m really trying to shoot seriously. It will be interesting to see just how big, or small, the differences and improvements will be in 14 Pro pictures vs 13 Pro pictures.

Will it be a night and day difference? Or, will it be a pixel peeping, have to pause the video to reaaally see the changes, situation? We’ll see in short order! Though, it’ll also be interesting to see if those differences will be expounded when the photographer is using proraw on the 14 Pro.