For those of you that weren't aware, my iPhone 13 Pro got smashed. It remains as such, and in the meantime, I’m using an iPhone 11 Pro that I’ve been kindly lent by someone on my team. It’s made me realize something – the iPhone 11 family was really the peak of iPhone design.

I’ve also been lucky enough to try out an iPhone 14 Pro Max in recent weeks. I absolutely love the features like Dynamic Island and the power at my disposal, but I just can’t help feeling that the design itself has some problems. Problems that I think could be rectified by a return to a curvier time. A more … iPhone 11 Pro time.

The Problem at hand

See, the way that I hold my phone means that my pinkie finger sits under the charging port of the iPhone, supporting the device as I use it. It takes a lot of weight, and the bigger the phone, the greater the weight. The iPhone 14 Pro Max, in particular, weighs a lot. It’s a 240g (or 8.47oz) slab of metal and glass, filled with all kinds of mad gubbins that make it work. That’s a lot of strain for my poor little finger to hold, let alone when you look at the edges on the device that dig into my digit.

Those edges make the iPhone 14 Pro Max look magnificent. There’s a kind of regal splendor to the Purple, and the sharp angles lend the whole affair an industrial feel. The problem with that feeling is that it can become uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable.

The edges of the phone that sit on my pinkie finger are sharp and painful. It digs in when I’m using the phone, and makes scrolling through Twitter a whole lot more horrible than a simple doom scroll. It’s not the worst, but it's not very pleasant.

It’s a problem that’s been around on iPhone devices for a little while. I have the same problem with the iPhone 12 I use sometimes, and while the smaller device is less heavy, it still becomes rapidly uncomfortable. I’m not a fan. It’s not going to make me change to Android, and find a new device that doesn’t have square edges, but it does make me think thrice about buying a new iPhone.

The solution is curvy

Because I would like to go for the Pro Max model next time. The display, for one thing, on this 14 Pro Max is stunningly massive and intoxicatingly beautiful. I just can’t get enough of it – until it hurts my finger, and I drop it on my face while scrolling Instagram in bed. No one likes that.

I use the svelte iPhone 11 Pro again, however, and all my worries wash away. It’s those curves. They’re so smooth, and they leave no sharp edges for my fingers to get caught on. The phone just melts into your hand, as if the screen were always just stuck to your palm. It’s organic in all the best ways, whilst being premium enough to remain an Apple experience.

I firmly believe that the iPhone 11 Pro was the peak of Apple’s iPhone design. It’s a simple device, with no extraneous details to detract from the rest of the device. Those sumptuous curves, that satin glass back panel that sits slightly proud of the stainless steel frame. It’s an experience, and one that I feel is missing from the new iPhone models.

iPhone models now are just a little bit too ‘much’. The camera bumps are almost comically big, and the metal surrounds are gaudier than ever. These are not badly designed phones, but they are, in essence, the very image of excess in the smartphone landscape.

Don’t get me wrong, pulling one of the great monoliths from the box is a reassuringly weighty experience, but it's one that’s not only getting a little old, but also ever more uncomfortable. And honestly, if I have to put up with my iPhone digging into my finger, then Apple had better make a pinkie finger iPhone pillow to take the weight and the pain. Because I don’t think I can do it for much longer.

What should the iPhone 15 look like?

So I’m no designer, but I am a user, and I know what I want. I wouldn’t review tech if I didn’t. First and foremost, I want a return to those lovely, svelte edges from my new beau, the iPhone 11 Pro. Make using my iPhone 15 Pro Max easier on my little finger, and we’re flirting dangerously close to having a deal, Apple.

Trim that camera bump down while we’re at it, because at the moment it’s leaving me in a constant state of iPhone breakage panic. I love how good the cameras are, but it's ludicrous how far these things stick out. It’s not even funny. Bring them in Apple, trim a little off the top so that they fit more easily in a pocket, and so that cases don’t have a ridiculous lip anymore.

I want these things not out of nostalgia, but because my current experience is telling me they’re better. If I was waxing lyrical about the iPhone 11 Pro without using one for a while, then yes, it would be. But I am using one, and it’s simply a nicer experience all around. I just wish it had the internals of the iPhone 14 Pro Max.

Actually, Apple, scratch all that. Make me an iPhone 15 Pro Max but put in an iPhone 11 Pro Max body. You needn’t sell it to anyone else, just me. Please. And thank you.

The iPhone 11 Pro is finally out, and while it mostly looks a lot like the iPhone XS that came before it, there's a big difference: the camera. The new triple camera setup on the rear of the phone means you'll need a brand new case. Luckily, there's quite a fresh selection of cases ready to be ordered and these are the best cases for the iPhone 11 Pro so far.

Our recommendations

Of all of these cases, I'd go with the Smartish Kung Fu Grip. It's a fairly protective case with a grippy texture that should keep your iPhone in your hand, where it belongs. It's also fairly inexpensive, which is great if you just want a case for your phone ASAP.

If you're a fan of thin cases, Totallee makes some of the best out there, and the colours are always excellent and vibrant. And for something in leather, it's hard to beat Smartish's Wallet Slayer Vol. 2 case.

For 2019, Apple has introduced a new color for its lineup of OLED handsets. The iPhone 11 Pro series includes a midnight green finish for the first time. Because it's oh-so-new, it's our favorite pick and joins traditional powerhouses Space Gray, Silver, and Gold in the collection.

It's not very often when Apple offers a new finish for its top-tier iPhones. We've been living with three colors — Silver, Gold, and Space Gray — for years. This year, we got lucky with the introduction of the Midnight Green model. Much darker than the mintier green iPhone 11, this model should look great on your next hike and also in the office. Just because it's new, however, doesn't mean it's you. We've got some suggestions for who fits best with which color, though the ultimate decision comes down to your personal taste, of course.

It's the new color, and for a lot of us, that's all we need to know. It doesn't even matter whether we actually like the color or not. But don't worry. It's nothing wild. It's an understated shade of green, almost more like gray with a tinted green hue. If you want a little color in your life, but don't want to go down the iPhone 11 path of pastels, this green is easy on the eyes, while still being something worth showing off. If you like being the kid on the block with all the new toys, you'll want Midnight Green to show off your new look.

The Space Gray iPhone 11 Pro is an excellent choice that works well with a range of cases. Understated, yet commanding, it's long been a popular selection for iPhone owners. You might even think of it as the "businessperson's iPhone." It's classic. It's elegant. It's the little black dress of phones. It goes with everything but doesn't distract from your personal style. If you're the kind of person that shies away from flashy fashion but want you iPhone to show off your power moves, the classic Space Gray will match your suit and your workout wear perfectly.

Silver, like Space Gray, is a classic color. This year, the white backside gets a matte finish, and let me tell you, it looks like white satin gloves. If you ever thought white was boring, this beauty will change your mind. It's rich like vanilla ice-cream and clean looking like an Apple Store. It's an Apple design through-and-through. It's got a little bit more of a "wow factor" than the Space Gray, so if you like to turn heads, but don't like to show off, Silver is more your speed. It balances the line between classic and eye-catching.

Gold is definitely the flashiest color of this group. It's definitely a show-off. That gorgeous yellow glint, sparkling at you from afar. If you feel like a queen, this is a queen's iPhone. It's not wild, though. It's more akin to a thin gold necklace or a small pair of diamond earrings. Just enough flash to make people look, but not so much that your friends start questioning your choices. If you want to be noticed, but like to do so in a subtle way ("Oh, me? You noticed my gold iPhone? Why thank you."), the Gold iPhone hits the sweet spot without being over-the-top.

Those wanting to upgrade to a new phone don't have to spend top dollar to get a great iPhone deal, especially not with two huge Woot sales running right now. Over there, you can snag a refurbished iPhone model from just $170 or get for a brand new iPhone 11 Pro with prices knocked down as low as $770.

The brand new iPhone 11 Pro devices are offered fully unlocked and come with a 1-year Apple warranty. Most of the refurbished handsets are also fully unlocked with just a few being GSM-only. These are backed by a 90-day Woot warranty.

$899.99 $1299.00 Save $399 1623157769

Having now been replaced by the 24-inch M1 iMac, Apple's 21.5-inch iMac has been discontinued. That means big savings at third-party retailers including at Amazon where it's discounted by $399.

Prices Vary 1622214797

This sale includes iPhone models, the Apple Watch, iMac and iPad devices, Beats headphones, Apple services, and more. The deals vary by product, so be sure to check them all out now.

$103.99 $129.99 Save $26 1621604395

Change how you use your iPad with the Apple Pencil. This stylus lets you use your iPad as a notepad, a canvas, or a drawing board for all of your ideas. Today's deal saves you 20% instantly at Verizon.

$599.99 $699.00 Save $99 1621519150

Updated in late 2020, the Mac Mini has Apple's M1 chip that combines CPU, GPU, and machine learning for faster performance, better graphics, and an all around streamlined device. This version has 8GB RAM and a 256GB solid state drive.

From $329 1621244196

Apple Watch Series 6 models are available for some of their best prices ever right now. The lowest price is on the red 40mm version which is $70 off with 44mm and cellular models seeing discounts of up to $91.

Apple's iPhone 11 and 11 Pro models were announced in fall 2019 with the iPhone 11 being pitched as the phone for everyone, and the 11 Pro adding some extra features on top that hardcore phone users would appreciate.

The iPhone 11 Pro runs Apple's A13 Bionic chip with third-generation Neural Engine and features a 5.8-inch Super Retina XDR OLED display. There's a front-facing 12MP TrueDepth camera with Face ID and a triple camera array on the back that includes 12MP wide and ultra-wide lenses, plus a telephoto lens for optical camera zoom up to 10x. All of that is wrapped in a stainless steel and textured matte glass body.

The phones on sale start at $769.99 for the unlocked 64GB model, down from a $999 retail price and roughly $900 price elsewhere, though you'll find bigger savings on the 256GB and 512GB variants which are up to $250 off compared to Amazon prices.

For the largest display, go for the 6.5-inch iPhone 11 Pro Max. There's only one configuration on sale at Woot — the unlocked 512GB model — but it's offered for $250 less than you'd pay for a locked model at Amazon.

Note that the iPhone 11 Pro deals are only available for Amazon Prime members. Now is a great time to grab your free 30-day trial if you're not already a member with Amazon Prime Day right around the corner. Amazon Prime will also score you free shipping at Woot in addition to all of the usual perks such as the Prime Video streaming service, free books, music streaming, exclusive deals, and more.

$899.99 $1299.00 Save $399 1623157769

Having now been replaced by the 24-inch M1 iMac, Apple's 21.5-inch iMac has been discontinued. That means big savings at third-party retailers including at Amazon where it's discounted by $399.

Prices Vary 1622214797

This sale includes iPhone models, the Apple Watch, iMac and iPad devices, Beats headphones, Apple services, and more. The deals vary by product, so be sure to check them all out now.

$103.99 $129.99 Save $26 1621604395

Change how you use your iPad with the Apple Pencil. This stylus lets you use your iPad as a notepad, a canvas, or a drawing board for all of your ideas. Today's deal saves you 20% instantly at Verizon.

$599.99 $699.00 Save $99 1621519150

Updated in late 2020, the Mac Mini has Apple's M1 chip that combines CPU, GPU, and machine learning for faster performance, better graphics, and an all around streamlined device. This version has 8GB RAM and a 256GB solid state drive.

From $329 1621244196

Apple Watch Series 6 models are available for some of their best prices ever right now. The lowest price is on the red 40mm version which is $70 off with 44mm and cellular models seeing discounts of up to $91.

In the refurbished iPhone sale at Woot, you'll see several recent devices from the iPhone 8 to the iPhone 11 series with prices from just $170.

These are offered Grade A refurbished meaning they will bear only minimal cosmetic imperfections and function like new. Woot covers them with a 90-day warranty in case of any issues.

For those looking for a really affordable upgrade or a first phone for a young one, these make great picks and will work with the network of your choosing without needing to get into a long-term contract.

If it's time to upgrade your phone to something better but you don't want to spend top dollar to get the latest iPhone 12 Pro, going for a recent previous-gen device can help you save some cash. Woot is giving you the opportunity to do just that with a one-day sale on the iPhone 11 Pro.

The sale offers brand new and fully unlocked devices with as much as $250 off the regular cost for these phones elsewhere. The handsets come with a 1-year Apple warranty and will work with the CDMA or GSM carrier of your choice without locking you into any sort of long-term contract.

$899.99 $1299.00 Save $399 1623157769

Having now been replaced by the 24-inch M1 iMac, Apple's 21.5-inch iMac has been discontinued. That means big savings at third-party retailers including at Amazon where it's discounted by $399.

Prices Vary 1622214797

This sale includes iPhone models, the Apple Watch, iMac and iPad devices, Beats headphones, Apple services, and more. The deals vary by product, so be sure to check them all out now.

$103.99 $129.99 Save $26 1621604395

Change how you use your iPad with the Apple Pencil. This stylus lets you use your iPad as a notepad, a canvas, or a drawing board for all of your ideas. Today's deal saves you 20% instantly at Verizon.

$599.99 $699.00 Save $99 1621519150

Updated in late 2020, the Mac Mini has Apple's M1 chip that combines CPU, GPU, and machine learning for faster performance, better graphics, and an all around streamlined device. This version has 8GB RAM and a 256GB solid state drive.

From $329 1621244196

Apple Watch Series 6 models are available for some of their best prices ever right now. The lowest price is on the red 40mm version which is $70 off with 44mm and cellular models seeing discounts of up to $91.

Apple's iPhone 11 and 11 Pro models were announced in fall 2019 with the iPhone 11 being pitched as the phone for everyone, and the 11 Pro adding some extra features on top that hardcore phone users would appreciate.

The iPhone 11 Pro runs Apple's A13 Bionic chip with third-generation Neural Engine and features a 5.8-inch Super Retina XDR OLED display. There's a front-facing 12MP TrueDepth camera with Face ID and a triple camera array on the back that includes 12MP wide and ultra-wide lenses, plus a telephoto lens for optical camera zoom up to 10x. All of that is wrapped in a stainless steel and textured matte glass body.

The phones on sale starts at $769.99 in the sale for the unlocked 64GB model, down from a $999 retail price and roughly $900 price elsewhere, though you'll find bigger savings on the 256GB and 512GB variants which are up to $250 off compared to Amazon prices.

With the level of savings offered at Woot, you could easily bag an iPhone 11 Pro case or a set of Beats headphones and still have money to spare.

Note that the iPhone 11 Pro deals are only available for Amazon Prime members. Now is a great time to grab your free 30-day trial if you're not already a member with Amazon Prime Day right around the corner. Amazon Prime will also score you free shipping at Woot in addition to all of the usual perks such as the Prime Video streaming service, free books, music streaming, exclusive deals, and more.

If you're wanting to upgrade your phone to something better but don't want to spend a fortune to get the latest iPhone 12 Pro, going for a recent previous-gen device can help you save some cash. Woot is giving you the opportunity to do just that with a limited-time sale on iPhone 11 Pro devices.

The sale offers brand new and fully unlocked devices with as much as $250 off the regular cost for these phones elsewhere. The handsets come with a 1-year Apple warranty and will work with the CDMA or GSM carrier of your choice without locking you into any sort of long-term contract.

$899.99 $1299.00 Save $399 1623157769

Having now been replaced by the 24-inch M1 iMac, Apple's 21.5-inch iMac has been discontinued. That means big savings at third-party retailers including at Amazon where it's discounted by $399.

Prices Vary 1622214797

This sale includes iPhone models, the Apple Watch, iMac and iPad devices, Beats headphones, Apple services, and more. The deals vary by product, so be sure to check them all out now.

$103.99 $129.99 Save $26 1621604395

Change how you use your iPad with the Apple Pencil. This stylus lets you use your iPad as a notepad, a canvas, or a drawing board for all of your ideas. Today's deal saves you 20% instantly at Verizon.

$599.99 $699.00 Save $99 1621519150

Updated in late 2020, the Mac Mini has Apple's M1 chip that combines CPU, GPU, and machine learning for faster performance, better graphics, and an all around streamlined device. This version has 8GB RAM and a 256GB solid state drive.

From $329 1621244196

Apple Watch Series 6 models are available for some of their best prices ever right now. The lowest price is on the red 40mm version which is $70 off with 44mm and cellular models seeing discounts of up to $91.

Apple's iPhone 11 and 11 Pro models were announced in fall 2019 with the iPhone 11 being pitched as the phone for everyone, and the 11 Pro adding some extra features on top that hardcore phone users would appreciate.

Both, for example, have the same A13 Bionic chip with third-generation Neural Engine. Each model also has a front 12MP TrueDepth camera, and 12MP Ultra Wide and Wide camera lenses on the back of each device.

Premium features on the iPhone 11 Pro include a telephoto lens on the back, a Super Retina XDR display, which is OLED and provides for better resolution and HDR video playback. The Pro model also includes an optical camera zoom up to 10x versus the 5x for the iPhone 11, and a slightly better battery. There's even a 512GB option on the Pro model.

Design-wise, the iPhone 11 Pro makes use of a textured matte glass and stainless steel design. By comparison, the iPhone 11 uses glass and aluminum.

The iPhone 11 Pro has a 5.8-inch display and starts at $879.99 in the sale for the unlocked 64GB model, down from a $999 retail price and roughly $900 price elsewhere, though you'll find bigger savings on the 256GB and 512GB variants which are up to $150 off compared to Amazon prices.

For the largest display, go for the 6.5-inch iPhone 11 Pro Max. There's only one configuration on sale at Woot — the unlocked 512GB model — but it's offered for $250 less than you'd pay for a locked model at Amazon.

With the level of savings offered at Woot, you could easily bag an iPhone 11 Pro case or a set of Beats headphones and still have money to spare.

Shipping at Woot generally costs $6 per order, though you can score free shipping there by logging in with an Amazon Prime account before checking out. If you've never been a member before, you can start a free 30-day trial to score free shipping at Woot and Amazon, along with access to perks such as the Prime Video streaming service, exclusive members-only discounts, and more.

What you need to know

• Apple's quality control had a bit of a moment and an iPhone 11 Pro with a misaligned logo shipped to a customer.
• The rare iPhone 11 Pro reportedly sold for $2700.

Apple's quality control is normally pretty on point but mistakes do happen. So, when an iPhone 11 Pro popped up with a misaligned Apple logo, someone took notice. So much so, that someone actually paid $2700 to get their hands on it.

That's according to a new tweet by Apple watcher @ArchiveInternal, with the extremely rare iPhone said to have sold for the surprisingly large sum of money. The Twitter account didn't go into detail as to who paid the money or where the transaction took place, though.

At least it's the only color anyone should be buying an iPhone 11 Pro in – Midnight Green!

Apple surely has mistakes like this winky logo pop up more often than you'd think, but the fact it made its way through quality control is the most interesting thing here. With millions of iPhones sold every year Apple normally does a surprisingly good job of making sure they're good to go before leaving the factory. Not so much this time, apparently!

Rare or not, I'm not sure I could spend this kind of money on a wonky iPhone. Not when you can spend less than half that and get the best iPhone Apple has ever made!

What you need to know

• An iPhone 11 Pro has survived a 30-day dive into a frozen lake in Canada.
• The iPhone came out unharmed and worked perfectly.

An iPhone 11 Pro has survived a month at the bottom of a frozen lake in Canada.

As reported by CTV News (via 9to5Mac), Angie Carriere was celebrating her 50th birthday ice fishing in Waskesiu Lake, Saskatchewan. Funnily enough, she was just telling her daughter to be careful with her phone when she accidentally dropped hers into the lake.

Carriere says that "there's nothing on the phone that doesn't work. It's amazing."

The iPhone 11 Pro has IP68 water and dust-resistance certification which means it should be able to withstand a dunk in the water for up to 2 meters down for 30 minutes. It is not, however, technically supposed to survive a month-long residence at the bottom of a frozen lake.

If you plan to take your new iPhone 12 into the water, check out our list of the Best iPhone 12 Waterproof Cases 2021.

Thankfully for Carriere, her iPhone 11 Pro pulled off something much more impressive than what is advertised.

When it comes to buying a new iPhone, carrier deals can be one of the smartest ways to make the purchase. Rather than shelling out a thousand dollars for your new device, buying through a carrier like Verizon Wireless allows you to make monthly payments and lessens the impact of the purchase on your bank acount — not to mention there are some stellar deals to be had if you're keeping an eye out.

Thanks to a weekend-long flash sale at Verizon, now's the time to buy if you've been wanting to get your hands on a new device. Among several new deals is an offer that can score you $1,000 off the iPhone 11 Pro when you buy another at regular price with monthly payments while adding a line on an Unlimited plan. Considering the iPhone 11 Pro costs $999.99 when purchased brand new, today's deal means you'll be scoring the second phone for free. This offer is available to new and current Verizon Wireless customers, though be sure to shop soon as the deal ends this Sunday night.

Today's deal is only available on the 64GB model of the iPhone 11 Pro. Then again, if you're about to be a new Verizon Wireless customer and switching from another carrier, there are several other free phone deals at Verizon to consider. One offer could score you the 64GB iPhone SE completely free — all you have to do is add a new line on an Unlimited plan. Select non-iOS devices are eligible for this offer as well.

Verizon has several excellent accessory deals available for a limited time too, including an offer that can lets you save $150 on the Beats Studio 3 Wireless Headphones and another that's taking 50% off power accessories and 25% off cases & screen protectors. Be sure to take a look at the rest of Verizon's latest deals when you get the chance and check out before Sunday night hits!

What you need to know

• Apple has released a new "Shot on iPhone" video.
• "Vertical Cinema" takes viewers through classic film genres in a new way.
• They also released a behind the scenes video along with it.

The iPhone 11 Pro proves that mobile cinematography is possible, even in vertical mode.

Apple has released a new "Shot on iPhone" video called "Vertical Cinema". The film is created by Damien Chazelle, the director behind "La La Land" and "Whiplash," and reimagines classic genres in a new way.

Apple has also shared a behind the scenes video into the making of the film, titled "Making Vertical Cinema." The video features award-winning Director of Photography Linus Sandgren and other designers.

What you need to know

• Apple has released its latest "Shot on iPhone" video.
• "Shot on iPhone 11 Pro - Hockey Tape" takes the iPhone onto the ice.
• The video was shot by to professional NHL athletes.

Apple has released an icy new "Shot on iPhone" video.

The latest video, titled "Shot on iPhone 11 Pro - Hockey Tape", puts the iPhone in the hands of two NHL players using nothing but hockey tape to get all kinds of different shots.

In an interview with The Athletic (via MacRumors), Stone says that Apple mostly left the filmmaking up to the two athletes, allowing their personalities to shine through the lens.

You can check out "Shot on iPhone 11 Pro - Hockey Tape" below.

If you're wanting to upgrade to one of Apple's latest iPhone models but you don't want to spend a fortune to get one, looking at refurbished devices is often the way to go. These save you spending top-dollar on a phone outright from Apple or getting locked into a lengthy contract with a carrier.

Woot is running a one-day sale on Apple's iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max models right now that offers the top-of-the-line devices from just $770. This sale is slated to end tonight, though specific configurations may well sell out sooner than that. If the phone you want is in stock, you definitely want to get your order in while you still can.

$899.99 $1299.00 Save $399 1623157769

Having now been replaced by the 24-inch M1 iMac, Apple's 21.5-inch iMac has been discontinued. That means big savings at third-party retailers including at Amazon where it's discounted by $399.

Prices Vary 1622214797

This sale includes iPhone models, the Apple Watch, iMac and iPad devices, Beats headphones, Apple services, and more. The deals vary by product, so be sure to check them all out now.

$103.99 $129.99 Save $26 1621604395

Change how you use your iPad with the Apple Pencil. This stylus lets you use your iPad as a notepad, a canvas, or a drawing board for all of your ideas. Today's deal saves you 20% instantly at Verizon.

$599.99 $699.00 Save $99 1621519150

Updated in late 2020, the Mac Mini has Apple's M1 chip that combines CPU, GPU, and machine learning for faster performance, better graphics, and an all around streamlined device. This version has 8GB RAM and a 256GB solid state drive.

From $329 1621244196

Apple Watch Series 6 models are available for some of their best prices ever right now. The lowest price is on the red 40mm version which is $70 off with 44mm and cellular models seeing discounts of up to $91.

Apple's iPhone 11 and 11 Pro models were announced at the same time late last year with the 11 being pitched as the phone for everyone, and the Pro adding some extra features on top that hardcore phone users would appreciate.

Both, for example, have the same A13 Bionic chip with third-generation Neural Engine. Each model also has a front 12MP TrueDepth camera, and 12MP Ultra Wide and Wide camera lenses on the back of each device.

Premium features on the iPhone 11 Pro include a telephoto lens on the back, a Super Retina XDR display, which is OLED and provides for better resolution and HDR video playback. The Pro model also includes an optical camera zoom up to 10x versus the 5x for the iPhone 11, and a slightly better battery. Also, there's a 512GB option on the Pro model, but not the iPhone 11. The iPhone 11 Pro also includes a textured matte glass and stainless steel design. By comparison, the iPhone 11 uses glass and aluminum.

The iPhone 11 Pro has a 5.8-inch display and starts at $769.99 in the sale, down from $999. The iPhone 11 Pro Max is also on sale at Woot and has the largest display at 6.5 inches. It's going for $899.99, down from its $1,099 retail price. With up to $200 off, you coudl easily put your savings towards a case or a set of Beats headphones and still have money to spare.

Shipping at Woot generally costs $6 per order, though you can score free shipping there by logging in with an Amazon Prime account before checking out. If you've never been a member before, you can start a free 30-day trial to score free shipping at Woot and Amazon, along with access to perks such as the Prime Video streaming service, exclusive members-only discounts, and more.

What you need to know

• Shelter-in-place orders have stopped production of American Idol.
• The show must go on; Contestants and judges are filming at home.
• Everyone gets three iPhone 11 Pro devices to film their performance.

Over the past few months, we've watched as the entire entertainment industry has been flipped upside-down over shelter-in-place orders brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. As proof of just how creative entertainers are, many have come up with ingenious ways to keep their shows going while protecting the health and wellbeing of everyone involved. American Idol is one such project. Its current season was abruptly halted earlier this year, but things are looking up for the talented stars-to-be.

The last few episodes of American Idol are being filmed right now, from home, with the best mobile camera around: iPhone 11 Pro.

The contestants and judges were each sent their own at-home studio, which includes a ring light, a tripod, and three iPhone 11 Pros (for different angles, of course). American Idol's production team will help everyone set up their cameras and lighting. Performances will be shared with the judges, who will also be filming themselves reacting to each performance. All of this will then be sent off to the editing team and we'll finally be able to see who the winner of American Idol Season 18 is.

In a statement, Apple said,

American Idol isn't the first show to use iPhones to keep the cameras rolling. Shows like The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Conan O'Brien, and Keeping up with the Kardashians all shoot on iPhone. The recent special reunion episode of Parks and Recreation was also accomplished by each actor getting an iPhone, a ring light, and a tripod to film their scenes (which explains why their video feed looked so good — they weren't using the built-in webcam). And, of course, no one can forget the amazing at-home performances by so many talented artists for Global Citizen's One World: Together At Home concert.

A significant factor in the decision to upgrade is your current phone model. If you have an iPhone 8, for example, you have a lot more to gain from an upgrade than someone who has an iPhone X. When compared to an iPhone X, the iPhone 11 Pro has a few advantages, but the two models share similar characteristics when it comes to processor speed and battery life. The iPhone 11 is a massive upgrade when compared to the iPhone 8, however.

So first and foremost, take a look at your current phone model and compare its specifications to those of the newer iPhone 11 Pro. This will help you to decide if the upgrade is worth it.

The iPhone 11 Pro is pricey; there's no denying that. If you don't have an iPhone in good enough condition to trade in, you're looking at a minimum of $1000 for the most basic version. For someone who recently dropped almost a grand on the iPhone X, the expense of the iPhone 11 Pro may seem too high for a similar phone. For those of you upgrading from an older iPhone 8 or 7, then this price is well worth the vast upgrade you get with the iPhone 11 Pro.

If money is not an issue, then why not upgrade? The iPhone 11 Pro has some incredible upgrade options, such as the larger Max version with a 6.5" display and a storage capacity as high as 512GB! Now that's a beast of a phone.

Without a doubt, the absolute best advantage of upgrading to an iPhone 11 Pro is the incredible triple rear camera. This baby offers 12MP resolution with wide and ultra-wide lens capabilities, which is already an upgrade over the previous iPhone X.

Another great benefit of this camera is that it offers night mode - a significant improvement over previous models, which were famous for producing low-quality photos in low light. This is not the case with the iPhone 11 Pro, which gives you beautiful, clear photos, even in low lighting and nighttime shots. If you like to use your iPhone to produce high-quality photos and videos, then the iPhone 11 Pro is well worth the upgrade.

When it comes to performance, the iPhone 11 Pro has all the bells and whistles, but it's not a huge departure from the iPhone X. The iPhone 11 Pro has an A13 Bionic processor and 4GB of RAM, as opposed to an A11 and 3GB RAM in the iPhone X. While this makes for slightly faster processing times and graphics that are better by a smidge, the difference is not all that noticeable. Comparing to an older iPhone 8 or 7, on the other hand, the iPhone 11 Pro is worlds ahead when it comes to graphics and speed.

The battery life, once again, is slightly better than the iPhone X - about a half-hour more when it's brand new. That's almost 10.5 hours of battery life for the iPhone 11 Pro and 10 for the iPhone X. Not such a crazy difference between these two models, but the iPhone 11 Pro is going to easily double the battery life of any older iPhone model. If you're working with an iPhone that's three years old or more, chances are the battery life alone is worth the upgrade.

Storage capacity may or may not be a big factor for you, depending on how you use your phone. For those who live on the cloud, stream all music and movies, and offload photos as soon as they take them, extra storage space may not be necessary. If you like to download huge libraries of music and movies to your phone or take loads of videos, storage space will be an issue.

The iPhone 11 Pro is the first to offer an option with a full 512GB of storage. If you've struggled continuously with storage on your devices that only had 256GB or less, then this hefty storage option is likely worth the upgrade.

As you can see, the iPhone 11 Pro does offer some pretty attractive features that you won't find on any other device. Honestly, if you're still rocking an iPhone 7 or 8, then you're more than ready for the upgrade. This is a huge jump ahead in technology, and if you have the budget, it's worth the price.

For those who have an iPhone X, the decision is not as clear cut. It might be hard to justify buying a new phone when you've just paid off the one you purchased a year or two ago. This will depend largely on how you use your phone. If you're a photographer or videographer that really needs that upgraded camera, or if you struggle with storage issues, then the upgrade is probably worth it. Otherwise, you may want to sit tight and think about it a little longer.

What you need to know

• There's a stunning new Shot on iPhone 11 Pro video making the rounds.
• But it's not from Apple, rather, it was made by family man Daniel Jeremiah.
• He's uploaded a fantastic 4K video of Disney World shot on iPhone 11 Pro.

Daniel Jeremiah has uploaded a stunning iPhone 11 Pro video of a family trip to Disney World for us all to enjoy whilst it's closed.

Daniel uploaded the video to Youtube on March 20 saying:

Last week, Walt Disney Company announced that all six of its Disney theme park resorts would close due to the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe. In a tweet on March 12 they stated:

It later announced that it would close its Walt Disney World Resort in Florida and Disneyland Paris. Finally, it stated on March 16 that all of its Disney stores and hotels would be closing.

So, whilst you won't be visiting Disney World anytime soon, you can take 3 minutes and 44 seconds to enjoy Daniel's creation, it really is worth the time. And if Daniel's got you inspired, you can check out our own guide on taking the perfect photos at Disneyland right here. You can also check out some of the very best photo's taken by Christine Romero-Chan on a trip she took last year.

What you need to know

• Apple has released a new Shot on iPhone video.
• The new video is a 5hrs, 19min and 28sec continuous take of the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.
• It takes in 45 galleries, 588 works of art and live performance, all in one take and on a single battery charge.

Apple has just released its brand new Shot on iPhone video, a mammoth continuous take that lasts over five hours.

The video is shot inside one of the world's biggest museums, the Hermitage in St Petersburg. The full film is 5hrs, 19min and 28sec long, and is one continuous take of the museum featuring 45 different galleries, 588 masterpieces, and live performances.

The State Hermitage Museum is the second-largest art museum in the world and was founded by Catherine the Great in 1764. These days it occupies six buildings along Palace Embankment, including the famous Winter Palace. It boasts the largest collection of paintings in the world and has over three million items. However, most of these are not kept on permanent display.

The video was directed by Axinya Gog and its description states:

Highlights of the marathon video include the Jordan Staircase, the 1812 Gallery, a look at some of Rembrandt's best paintings, a contemporary ballet duet and a performance by Russian pianist Kirill Richter.

As you can imagine, one continuous take also means that this was shot on one single battery charge, which is pretty impressive considering this is over five hours of 4K video. In fact, the iPhone finished with 19% of its battery remaining!

You can see the full video here and watch the trailer below!

What you need to know

• Apple has increased the prices of certain iPhone models in India.
• The increases are due to a rise in import duties.
• The iPhone 8, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max are all affected.

Apple has announced price increases to a number of models of the iPhone in India. Reported by LiveMint, the company announced the hikes after it has begun to pay an increase in the customs duties to sell the phone in the country.

The iPhone 11 Pro Max will now have a starting price of ₹1,11,200 for the 64 GB model, ₹1,25,200 for the 256 GB model, and ₹1,43,200 for 512 GB. Before the increase went into effect, the 64 GB model of iPhone 11 Pro Max went for ₹1,09,000.

The iPhone 11 Pro will also cost more, increasing from ₹99,900 to ₹1,01,200 for the 64 GB model. The 256 GB model has increased to ₹1,15,200 with the 512 GB model topping out at ₹1,33,200.

The iPhone 8 has also seen its price increased, with the 64 GB model of iPhone 8 Plus increasing from ₹49,900 to ₹50,600 and the 128 GB model from ₹45,500 to ₹55,600.

Thankfully, prices for the iPhone 7, iPhone XR, iPhone 11, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac will not see increases due to the fact that those products are manufactured in India. The iPhones that have seen price increases are all imported from China - hence the impact on those models.

Apple is set to open its first retail store in India in 2021 which will allow the company to offer additional services like Today at Apple and AppleCare to the country's customers.

What you need to know

• Apple's latest "Shot on iPhone" video showcases iPhone 11 Pro.
• The video uses the phone's ultra wide camera.
• It shows us how beautiful the area around Las Vegas can be.

Apple often shares new videos that highlight what its iPhones are capable of, using the "Shot on iPhone" moniker and posting them to YouTube. The latest of those is "A journey into the Valley of Fire" and it uses the latest and hottest iPhone 11 Pro.

With its ultra wide camera, iPhone 11 Pro is capable of capturing shots that other iPhones simply aren't. And this video shows what you can do with that camera, a ton of desert, and probably more than a little training.

There's no denying the abilities of iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro when it comes to shooting video. But with Samsung upping the ante with its Galaxy S20 Ultra, all eyes will be on this year's iPhones to see how Apple answers.

Once upon a time, the iPhone was the best camera you had with you. Now, Apple flat out wants to make it the best camera, period. What they can't do physically with enormous lenses and sensors, they're doing computationally with ridiculously optimized silicon and machine learning. And not just by taking the iPhone to 11, but by making it pro: The iPhone 11 Pro.

Everything that's already packed into the 6.1-inch iPhone 11 is here as well, but escalated significantly: 5.8- and 6.5-inch higher-density, higher contrast, higher brightness, and extreme dynamic range OLED displays; a triple imaging system with ultra wide-angle, wide-angle, and telephoto cameras; 4x4 MIMO LTE; a full 4 meters of water resistance; up to 512 GB of storage; textured finishes that look more like metal than glass; and battery life that's boosted by a jaw-dropping 4 and 5 hours respectively.

Those differences may not mean much to most people and that's fine. I'd argue that's even the point. Today, you can get a top-shelf iPhone 11 for $699, and in a wider variety of colors too.

But, if you're the type of person who wants the best of the best, the ultimate expression of the iPhone technology and experience today, you can reach for the absolute rafters with the $999 iPhone 11 Pro or $1099 iPhone 11 Pro Max.

I've already posted my complete iPhone 11 review, so I'm going to respect your time and not recapitulate everything that's the same here — and to be clear, again, that's most things. Instead, I'm going to dive into the differences and go deep on some of the details.

That way, whether you've been waiting a while to upgrade from your last top-of-the-line iPhone and are wondering if this one will last you just as long, or you always get the latest and the greatest but want to make sure you should keep on going, or even if you're switching from Android and want to immerse yourself in just exactly how Apple implements all these high-end features, I got you.

UPDATE: A week later, fully two weeks after I first started using the iPhone 11, I've gone through and added additional information and experiences.

I'm Rene Ritchie and this… is the iPhone 11 Pro. But also Vector.

iPhone 11 Pro Review: In Brief

• Extreme Dynamic Range OLED display.
• 6.5-inch display option.
• Triple-camera system with telephoto.
• Depth-aware front-facing camera.
• Face ID biometrics.
• Midnight Green!

• Home button.
• 90 or 120Hz display.
• Fingerprint identity biometrics.
• Low, low pricing.
• USB-C
• Android

In addition to everything I included in my preamble to the iPhone 11 review, here's what you need to know about the Pros. Right off the bat, the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max look just about identical to last year's iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. Same sizes, same shapes. They've just got three cameras on the back now instead of two, and a giant, glossy back camera bump to go with them.

The port is still Lightning, but the cable in the box now ends with USB-C and comes with a new, 18-watt adapter that fast-charges to 50% in just 30 min.

The glass backs are textured now, and matte, which looks almost like the aluminum finishes of old. And, while there are still silver, space gray, and gold options, there's also a brand new midnight green.

Ingress protection is still IP68 and certified for up to 30 minutes, but for up to 4 meters of water now, not just two. Fear no deep end of the pool.

Apple says the batteries on the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max will last — wait for it — 4 and 5 hours longer than last year's iPhone XS and XS Max. And no, that's not a typo. I checked. Thrice: Up to 18 hours of local video playback for the Pro and 20 for the Max, 11 hours and 12 hours of video streaming, and 65 and 80 hours of wireless audio. All hail the new battery champions.

The already 4x4 MIMO — multi in, multi-out — LTE now runs up to 1.6 Gbps, so you can really get your carrier aggregation on.

Storage options are the same at 64, 256, and 512 GB, as are the price points, starting at $999 and $1099.

I've been using an iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro in midnight green, running iOS 13.0, since the Apple Event last week — and yes, with my own personal SIM cards in all of the phones, all the time, traveling from California and home here in Montreal.

And while there's a ton I absolutely love about them, there's also a ton I'd really like to love more. Or, maybe, just want more to love?

Let me explain.

iPhone 11 Pro Review: Design

The iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Max are basically souped-up, tricked out versions of last year's iPhone XS and XS Max.

Still 5.8- and 6.5-inches, the 11 Pros are roughly 0.02 inches taller, wider, and thicker, and 0.63 ounces heavier than their XS counterparts. It's enough that some screen protector companies have warned about incompatibility, but for all practical purposes, they're pretty much the same shape and size.

Now, some people are going to complain bitterly about that — how oh so boring it is. Not that they want them shaped like a paper airplanes or starfish… I don't think. But what about squared off sides again, or a waterfall display? Personally, I'd love to see the former, even if the latter is still so very silly.

But, I've felt for a while now that this year would be very much like the iPhone 7 Plus year. Same platform, an extra camera, beefed up internals, some silicon and machine learned marvels, and some cool new finishes. And, honestly, I'm fine with that approach.

If Apple wants to focus on new I.D. one year, improved internals the year after, and better optics the year after that, like they did with the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPhone 3GS, and again with the iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, and iPhone 7, I'm totally fine with that.

So many people wasted so many column inches complaining about how bored they were with the iPhone 5s back in the day, only to get volcanic-level salty when they couldn't get the gold one on launch day, then applaud when it came back with the iPhone SE, and now again with the iPad Pro, that you just have to chalk it up to people being, you know, people.

Same with the notch. Subjectively, everyone can and will think whatever they want about it. Objectively it's no better or worse than full on foreheads or hole punches, or mechanical choochers what raise and lower camera modules up and down. They're all just different attempts to solve the same problem. At least until all of the Face ID sensors can be moved under the display all right and proper like. (Or we get to my beautiful dream where all the biometrics take snippets all the time and trust becomes a constant, passive, threshold rather than an active authentication gating.)

Honestly, I stopped noticing the notch roughly two days after I got the iPhone X in 2017 and haven't really thought about it since. Hole punchers or choochers either. It's just the big foreheads and chins that still bother me. They're a waste of whatever extra display and data you could be cramming up in there.

Like with the iPhone 11, though, I'd love to see what little is left of the bezels just totally blown away and have the display run full on into the steel antenna band around the edges. Screen to bezel ratio be damned, that little shave and haircut would freshen the whole thing right up and leap Apple back to the front of the modern-looking phone pack.

A week in, and I'm still preferring the 5.8-inch version. That's even after spending a good part of the last decade on the previous plus-sized iPhones. I do constantly go back and forth to the 6.5-inch Max as well, and I love it for video and especially Display Zoom. I don't need it yet but I'm reassured by it being there.

But, when I'm walking around, The West Wing-style, the 5.8-inch is just the perfect balance of display to body size. At least for me.

There's still a Lightning port on the bottom. I've been a fan of Lightning for a long time. It solved many of the problems and provided much of the functionality of USB-C, but came out years earlier. So, everyone using an iPhone could enjoy those advantages while everyone else was still stuck on microUSB … or worse.

Now, though, USB-C has been on the market for a while and is becoming increasingly ubiquitous. Apple's even switched to it on the iPad Pro.

Sure, it's still a hot mess in many ways. One unified plug design that may or may not carry PD power, USB 3, 3.1, Thunderbolt, or soon-to-be USB-4 speed.

But, I can plug an SSD drive into my iPad Pro and it just works while my iPhone Pro needs an adapter and a powered one at that.

In addition to the iPad Pro, Apple went all-in on USB-C super early for the MacBook Pro. It feels like they could have done the same with the iPhone when they took it to X, and certainly now that they're making it Pro.

That haven't though, at least not yet. And, especially at the high end, it's iPhone users who are now starting to miss out on the advantages.

Like the iPhone 11, the back is milled out of a single piece of glass. With the Pro, though, that glass is then textured to give it a matte finish that, to my eye, looks a lot less like glass, and a lot more like the textured aluminum of years past. But, Apple is maintaining contrast by leaving that camera bump part shiny. The exact opposite of the iPhone 11.

I'm guessing they feel that, since that bump just won't be ignored, they might as well go all in and highlight it. I'd have been happier, though, if they'd just made it matte as well. The finish is just that good.

The glass iPhones have been the slipperiest phones I've owned since the Nexus 4, which could go from dead center of a level dining room table to plummeting off the edge in a half-hour flat. The glass iPhones aren't that bad, but close. Especially and polished surfaces.

Apple and Corning have whipped up yet another stronger, more scratch and shatter-resistant formulation for the iPhone 11. But, it's these new, textured finishes that I'm really counting on to make just that extra little bit of difference. And, so far, so far less slick.

UPDATE: As is usual, I've managed to scuff up the front of the iPhone Pro pretty quickly, and also as usual, the back camera housing of another iPhone appears to be to blame. Sapphire beats glass. You can't see it unless the screen is off and you hold it at an angle, so it doesn't effect usage. But, if you're a perfectionist or want to mainatin resale value, get a screen protector.

The colors are still conservative. More so than the pastels of the standard iPhone 11 and much more so than the multicolor Ombre and Aurora gradients and iridescence Huawei and Samsung have been shipping for a while now.

Pro has always meant bead-blasted silver and maybe, just maybe space gray to Apple. The iPhone 11 Pro amps that up with a new shade of gold, which has been an official phone-approved option for a while now, and an entirely new midnight green.

It's super subtle, though. And while I'm fine with it, I really would have loved a splash of something stronger. Product Red. Metallic purple. Maybe even a little ombre?

UPDATE: Tyler Stalman noted that the new Midnight Green looks like Leica's famed Jungle Green. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was the inspiration.

And, if we're going pro and introducing some segmentation into the iPhone line, maybe really go for it and offer an iPhone Edition in ceramic. Apple's materials team is just killing it on the watch and it'd be amazing to see what they could do with a small part of the phone line as well.

As to the camera bump, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm actually starting to not mind it. Maybe even like it in a strange way? Much more than the regular iPhone 11 bump, at least.

There's just something about the slightly wider super ellipse and the three lenses that make it look less like the surprise face emoji of my nightmares and more like an actual old fashioned multi-camera system. Maybe a little military. Maybe a little alien even. But, still, something that does real work in the real world. And, yeah, makes it look just a little more Pro.

Water resistance has improved on the Pro models as well. The XS was already IP68 and rated for up to 30 minutes at up to 2 meters. The Pros will go all the way down to 4 meters, though.

Pro storms, pro spills, all of that is fine. But, again, I'd still strongly caution against repeated intentional submersions, especially in salt or chlorine.

Relax, have fun, don't make phone soup.

Same with the design in general. Like I said in my iPhone 11 review, it's a super car, a high end watch, a classic camera. Iconic. So much so that, when next the iPhone design changes, I bet it'll still stays very much the same.

iPhone 11 Pro Review: Display

Apple went OLED with the iPhone X Super Retina Display. Now, with the iPhone 11 Pro, Apple's taking it to the extreme.

Apple's display team has always done a terrific job with OLED. They spec exactly what they want, down to the materials, get it manufactured on Samsung's industry leading process, and then tweak and mitigate the hell out of it, to both match Apple's other display technologies on other devices, and to mitigate everything from off-axis color shift to burn-in. Which, two years later, you still don't see any significant reports on. In an ocean of other phones with permanent spectral Poke-Balls burned into the bottom of their displays, that's more than impressive.

Still, Apple has found a way to make it even better. Now, the process itself gets better year after year, of course, but Apple's also been doing a ton of research on pro displays for the last couple of years, including and especially the Pro Display XDR — Extreme Dynamic Range — they announced alongside the new Mac Pro back in June.

So, now, Apple is making the Super Retina Display XDR as well.

To earn the name, Apple is focusing on a few different things. First is contrast. That's now 2 million to 1. Second is brightness. That can peak now at 1200 nits and sustain in sunlight at 800 nits.

As a result, HDR10 and Dolby Vision HDR movies, and DCI-P3 wide gamut photos look better than ever. Blacks are still absolute black, but colors and whites are brighter than ever, really stretching out the range in between.

And they're doing all that with much better power efficiency as well. 15% better, to drop Apple's number on it.

One of the things Apple isn't doing, though, is 120Hz adaptive ProMotion. That's the technology that lets the iPad Pro ramp up to 120Hz for fast, dynamic content, but ramp back down to preserve power when the content is mostly static.

Other phones are starting to come out with 90Hz and 120Hz displays so while sticking to 60Hz isn't terrible this year, it's something Apple should think about addressing next.

Now, I love, love, love HDR. I have an LG OLED TV at home. I seek out Dolby Vision theaters. If you offer me a choice between higher resolution and higher dynamic range, I will pick HDR every day and twice on Marvel movie launch days.

I just love it. It makes everything look richer and realer than real. And that's a big part of why I love OLED on the iPhone Pro as well.

iPhone 11 Pro Review: Haptic Touch

The other thing I loved was 3D Touch. But that's gone now. Apple created it… and now they've killed it. Dead.

To make up for it, though, Apple has gone all in with the Haptic Touch they debuted on last year's iPhone XR.

On one hand, it provides a lot cleaner, a lot more consistent user experience. Touch controls can easily become overloaded and 3D Touch would cause a lot of collisions for a lot people. Just ask anyone frustrated with trying to get an icon or especially a folder into jiggly mode.

Apple also never managed to scale 3D Touch to iPads, so you'd have a different experience on the small screen compared to the big one, which made it harder to build optimal interface habits.

Now, with iOS 13, the long press has won. Everything just works the same across all devices, but with Haptic Touch you still get that familiar force feedback on the iPhone. Just without all the speed and tactility of the deep press.

And that's the drawback. A long press feels like it takes longer than a deep press, which makes the system feel ever-so-slightly slower. Also, while Haptic Touch is in more places now, it's still not quite everywhere 3D Touch was.

It supports Home screen shortcuts, which is huge for me. Just press on an app and you get all the options — plus a new one right at the top to go into jiggly mode and rearrange apps. Which, on its own, will fix so many collisions and is so great to see.

You've also got peak-style previews now in Mail, Safari, Notes, Photos, Maps, News, Phone, Music, and pretty much everywhere else you'd expect.

About the only things I'm still missing are the ones haptic touch would probably have an impossible time reproducing — the ones that require actual pressure manipulation to work.

That includes the previous keyboard functionality where you could deep press to toggle between cursor movement and selection. The two finger alternative just isn't as elegant or as exacting.

And, of course, drawing apps, where 3D Touch provided pressure data that could be used for line thickness or opacity. There's no alternative for that, sadly.

At least not until Apple brings the Pencil to the iPhone Pro the way they did to the iPad Pro.

I know that sounds ridiculous to some people but it's why the Galaxy Note has always been the only Samsung phone to really tempt me.

I would hard settle on the 6.5-inch Max in a heartbeat to use it with the Apple Pencil. More than even the iPad mini, it would be the digital field notes and sketch pad of my dreams.

Hey, as long as Apple is making the iPhone a Pro, they might as well make it every bit as pro as the iPad.

For everything else, though, haptic touch is winning me over.

iPhone 11 Pro Review: Cameras

There's a new ultra wide camera in town and the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max have it. But, really, all the cameras here are new in one way or another.

The main, wide-angle camera is still an effective 26mm, 6-element wide angle f/1.8 but it's got way better light sensitivity now and also 100% Focus Pixels, which is Apple's name for phase detection auto focus. It just means that instead of some fraction of the pixels in the camera sensor being used to determine focus, every one of them is being used in order to make it three times faster in low-light, which is something we'll talk more about in a minute.

The updated telephoto camera is still an effective 52mm, and 6-element, but has gone from f/2.4 to a larger f/2.0, letting it capture 40% more light.

The new ultra wide angle camera is an effective 13mm, 5-element, f/2.4, and 120º field of view.

And, as you'd expect, because iPhone, they all work together as part of a unified, fused camera system.

The interface is the same as the standard iPhone 11 but in addition to the wide angle camera hinting at what lurks off to the sides in ultra wide angle mode, wide angle does the same in telephoto mode.

Instead of being able to tap between 1x wide angle and 2x telephoto optical zoom like on every Plus sized iPhone ever and the X and XS, or between 1x wide angle and 0.5x ultra wide angle like on the iPhone 11, you can tap between all three on the iPhone 11 Pro. Effectively giving you up to 4x optical zoom.

And again, Apple is fusing the camera output in the preview, not faking it, so what it hints at is accurate as to what you'll get. I love that.

Effectively, it means you have a much broader range from a single vantage point, from close up to wide to long, all without having to sneaker zoom in or out, taking time and potentially altering the angle or losing the light or composition.

You can still digitally zoom up to 10x and it looks… somewhere between terrible and non-terrible, but other cameras are going higher optically now, and even using ludicrously cool periscope lenses and machine learning to make functional if hella creepy 50x zoom.

Apple's absolutely nailing the cameras and zooms it has, but they're not pushing it yet when it comes to the extreme telephoto. Or, for that matter, macro. Now that I finally have ultra wide angle, I have to start pining for something else, don't I?

Last year, I lamented that I wanted both the iPhone XS's telephoto and the iPhone XR's wide angle portrait modes both on the same camera. Even if the latter had to remain limited to Focus Pixels and segmentation masks.

Well, this year we're getting almost exactly that. Almost because, thanks to the third camera, wide angle portrait mode isn't limited at all. Just like the wide angle provides real depth data to the telephoto portrait mode, now the ultra wide angle provides real depth data to the wide angle portrait mode.

Auto-adjustments works similarly. Once you turn on Photos Capture Outside the Frame in Settings, you can shoot with telephoto and extra field of view data will be captured from the wide angle, or with the wide angle and it'll be captured from the ultra wide angle.

Then, machine learning will stitch that extra data into the photo for subject reframing, basically to recover people or pets that may have accidentally been cropped out, and horizon correction, if you accidentally shot off-angle.

It requires a good amount of light, but it can work wonders if and when you need it. Especially because the data is also accessible via the cropping tool. You can tell when it's available by the little auto adjust icon at the top right of the Photos page, opposite the Live Photo icon on the left. When you see it, just hit edit, hit crop, and then move around your photo until it's exactly where you want it.

The same technology is used in QuickTake, which I talked about in the iPhone 11 review. After you tap to take a photo, and hold down to switch to video, machine learning follows your subject and the wider data is used for tracking and stabilization.

It's awesome, and one of the things I love most about Apple: They tend to ship feature sets, not chipsets. They didn't ship a second camera. They shipped 2x optical zoom and portrait mode. Likewise, here they're not shipping a third camera, they're shipping 4x optical zoom, other clever features like Auto Adjustments, and later this year, the super detailed deep fusion.

I also love that they don't tend to do features as one-offs. Everything builds on everything else. They invest in it, like it's a platform, and so when new elements are added in, they almost instantly become more than the some of their parts.

For example, Apple spent a few years building up their DCI P3, completely color calibrated and managed imaging pipeline. Which, internally this year, is now 10-bit.

It can do over a trillion operations per photo, and because it fuses the image signal processor with the neural engine — which previously included facial landmarking and segmentation masking, so it could tell not just where a face was, but the individual parts, and separate it all from the background — it can now do semantic rendering as well.

That means it can expose, multi-scale tonal map, and sharpen that face, for example, differently than it would bricks or beams in the background.

Apple is also using it as part of its new and improved Smart HDR process to better distinguish and preserve skin tones and textures, to prevent blowouts, and reduce noise while preserving proper details. And, again, to expose and present people not just as part of the shot but as the focus of the shot.

Stepping back, it's also what's allowing Apple to keep color and cast consistent even as you're switching between all three of the new cameras. Which, if you've ever watched an MKBHD or TheMrMobile review, you know isn't the case with other triple camera systems.

What Apple is doing here specifically is pairing and calibrating all three cameras for color and exposure together at the factory. Then, while you're using one, Apple sends all the data, in real time, to the other cameras. So, if and when you switch between them, they're all primed and ready with everything from focus to exposure to white balance too tonal mapping.

Now, that lets them minimize shifts in tone and color, but not eliminate is complete. Because, for example, all three cameras have three different apertures. So, when in low light conditions you can see some differences, not so much in color but in exposure. When in bright light, though, the consistency is impressive. Most impressive.

The third thing I love about Apple is that more often than not, the capabilities behind the features are also given over to developers in the form of frameworks they can use in their own apps.

Halide and Obscura, famously, expose a ton of manual controls and a RAW mode beyond what apple offers in the built-in camera app. Focos exposes the depth data, almost like a 3D model, for you to work with.

But that also prompts the question: If Apple's offering a Pro iPhone with a Pro camera, should the Camera App also become more… Pro?

Should it build-on more manual controls, allow you to shoot in RAW, have pretty much every toggle currently buried in Settings exposed and available right up in the app, and otherwise do more of what a pro photographer might want to do?

I'm of two minds on this. On one hand, I can see having all that stuff just front loaded, ready, and waiting to be interesting to people who really do want to do a lot of their own heavy photography lifting.

On the other, even the iPhone Pro camera isn't a traditional camera with a huge hunk of glass hanging off it up front and a ginormous sensor lurking inside. Pretty much everything that's making iPhone photography so great is happening beyond manual, beyond RAW.

Maybe it would be interesting if Apple let us bias more settings the way we can focus and exposure, or save a RAW version of the image alongside the processed, like we can with the extra field of view data for Auto Adjustments.

That way we get all the benefits of the silicon and the machine learning, but also the ability to go back and tweak the data more to our liking, when and if we need to.

The biggest new camera news, of course, is the new SF Camera font Apple's rolled out for the interface. While it definitely pays a lot of respect to Leica's aesthetic, it's also most definitely through the lens of Apple.

iPhone 11 Pro Review: Night Mode

I went over how the Night Mode interface works in the iPhone 11 Review. The way the technology works, though, is just as fascinating. It comes on automatically and uses the better low light capabilities and 100% Focus Pixels of the main, effective 26mm, f/18 wide angle camera, to capture an image that's both significantly brighter but also without the traditional noise.

UPDATE: I had the opportunity to take the iPhone 11 out at night in New York City and compare its Night Mode to the Google Pixel 3, Huawei P30 Pro, and Samsung Galaxy Note 20. Hit play on the video to see the results.

It does that by fusing together multiple images, using adaptive bracketing, based on what it determines from the preview. Those brackets can go from very short, if there's more motion, to longer, if there's more shadow. Then it fuses them all together to both minimize blur and maximize the amount of detail recovered.

Thanks to the imaging pipeline I mentioned earlier, it can also figure out the subject of the scene, people, faces, parts of faces, and make sure skin tones keep the best color and detail possible.

Again, it shouldn't let night look like day, it should just let you see in the dark.

UPDATE: There appears to be some ghosting or light artifacts in some Night Mode images. I've heard through the grapevine that Apple is aware of them and will be fixing them in a future update.

iPhone 11 Pro Review: Video

With the iPhone 11 Pro, you get all the same video capabilities you get with the iPhone 11, plus that telephoto camera.

All three cameras can shoot up to 4K, 60fps, extended dynamic range. What that means is they really shoot 120fps but interleave half the frames in order to produce that extended dynamic range data.

When you put it together, you get all the same benefits of multiple angles all from the same vantage point, with consistent color and exposure across the cameras.

And you also get the demo that stole the show back during the Apple Event — Filmic Pro capturing all four feeds of 4K, telephoto, wide angle, ultra wide angle, and selfie, all at the same time.

Yeah, there's a new 4K selfie camera on the front as well. It can go wider, from 70º to 85º. I covered it in the iPhone 11 Review, so check it out.

I can just imagine using it for tech videos, getting close ups, hero shots, wide angles, and my reactions, all at the same time, and then seamlessly switching between them during the edit.

It's in beta now but I got to try it when I was in the hands-on area and yeah, it really shows that even after all these years we're still just scratching the surface of what these cameras are going to be able to do.

Especially when they're already this damn good.

iPhone 11 Pro Review: Performance

Like I mentioned in the iPhone 11 review, Apple's latest, greatest system-on-a-chip, the A13 Bionic, manages to be both faster and less power hungry at the same time. 20% faster across the efficiency, performance, graphics, and neural engine cores, and 40, 25, 30, and 15% less power hungry respectively.

Part of that is thanks to TSMC's second generation 7 nanometer process, which is what the A13 is fabricated on. The other part is Apple designing each and every one of its 8.5 billion transistors to be as performant and as efficient as possible. And then, Apple uses hundreds of voltage domains and hundreds of thousands of gate clocking domains so that they can only light up exactly the logic in the chipset they need to light up, keeping power draw at an absolute minimum.

There are also new machine learning accelerators providing for 6x faster matrix multiplication. Something I think even high-end Intel boxes might be envious of.

Apple calls it the fastest chipset ever in a smartphone and, based on prior performance, that's likely only part of the story — it's probably faster than a lot of current desktop chips as well.

Better sustained performance and better efficiency – What Johny Srouji's silicon team has been able to do, year after year, is nothing short of astounding. Yes, they only have one client and don't have to sell chips to wide range of vendors, or worry about profit or loss on a per-chip basis, or bifurcate between a couple of different chips depending on geography.

But, still, they support an ever-increasing amount of differentiating features on iOS devices, and they keep racing forward — and dragging the industry behind them — as fast as they can.

And now that the A13 is embedding machine learning not just in the neural engine but in the CPU and GPU as well, to better provide for models that run better on those processors than the neural engine, and with a new machine learning controller to optimize dispatch, it just seems like they're going even faster.

All of that translates into better and faster photo parsing, natural language processing, and augmented reality experiences in apps, and more.

To get a sense of just how much the silicon team is touching on the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, Apple showed off this list during the introduction:

Yeah, phew.

It's my hope that the AI team John Gianandrea is putting together now will have just as much impact on the next decade as the silicon team has had on the last one.

When you put all the power savings together, everything from the OLED display to the A13, you end up with something pretty damn astonishing:

Four extra hours of battery life for the iPhone 11 Pro and 5 extra hours for the iPhone 11 Pro Max. That's over and above last year's iPhone XS and XS Max, and Apple uses the figure to mean however many hours of average workload you got out of those devices, you'd get that plus 4 or 5 extra hours of the same type of workload with these devices.

Apple's rough estimates include 18 or 20 hours of local video playback, 11 or 12 hours of streaming video playback, and 65 or 80 hours of wireless audio playback for iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max respectively.

Which is better than the incredibly impressive iPhone XR got last year, and even better iPhone 11 gets this year. All hail the new champions.

And Apple's even thrown an 18 watts USB-C cable and adapter into the box this time so you can charge back up to 50% capacity in just 30 minutes.

No bilateral wireless charging from the back of the iPhone to your AirPods though. Turns out sometimes a rumor is just a rumor. At least for now.

I'd love to see it at some point, though, but really only if it could handle beyond Qi standard Apple Watch charging as well. Which makes it much trickier.

Now, of course, those battery life claims are just numbers and these are brand new phones with brand new batteries, so they're going to hit pretty close to that right now.

To make sure though, I took them on the absolute most savage test run I could — Pokémon GO Community Day. Hours and hours of screen-on, GPS firing, data churning, processor burning… and all of them had over half their power left by the time we evolved the last special move at the last minute of the event.

The rest of the day I've spent filming b-roll for both reviews with both phones, and as we approached midnight, they're only just beginning to hit the red.

Obviously, I'll be paying close attention to how that holds up over the next few weeks and months, so stay tuned for updates.

But, as things stand right now, this is looking to be the best battery boost Apple has ever given an iPhone.

iPhone 11 Pro Review: 5G

The 4x4 MIMO LTE radio in the iPhone 11 Pro has been updated to support up to 1.6 Gbps per second. It's better but it's no 5G.

Then again, 5G isn't exactly 5G yet.

I just did a whole separate video to address this, so I'll just link you there rather than repeat it all here. But, suffice it to say, the 5G is a hot mess right now and the only thing hotter is the first generation chips being used to support it.

That's why no one is putting 5G into mainstream world phones yet. And Apple only makes mainstream world phones.

Moto is doing mods. Samsung small batch variants. And Apple could theoretically do the same, using the current generation of, essentially, test chips for the limited test markets. But even the thought of an iPhone-scale device hitting their fledging, fragile networks probably keeps the carriers up in a cold sweat most of the night.

Unless you want to be part of the early tests, and pay handsomely for the privilege, if 5G is legitimately your next big purchasing driver, you should save your money and buy a far more mature 5G phone in a year or so, if and when the current issues are all ironed out, and future radio chips can do everything, all-bands, all on one thin modem, or integrated right into the system-on-a-chip.

That's for low band or sub-6. It remains to be seen if millimeter wave, which is currently only being tested in the U.S., ever actually becomes a consumer carrier product and doesn't just go the way of WiMAX.

Until then, no one, no one who doesn't want to short Apple stock, work in network testing, or who just feeds off negative attention wants any part of ragging on the iPhone not having 5G right now.

iPhone 11 Pro Review: U1

Apple has a whole new chipset in the iPhone 11. Called U1, it's all about ultra Wideband, which is all about ultra precise positioning.

Apple's only saying it'll let you do things like point your iPhone at someone else's in a group for AirDrop to prioritize that person, for example, but it's not hard to imagine it'll be key to a bunch of location… and item finding technology and products eventually.

I'm super excited about it, and not just because even when you add it to this year's H-series headphone chip, and the previous year's A-series SoC, M-series sensor fusion hub, S-series SiP, T-series co-processors for the Mac, and W-series wireless chips for the Watch, that still leaves a score of letters for Apple's silicon team to whip up over the next few years.

iPhone 11 Pro Review: Pricing and availability

The iPhone 11 Pro starts at $999 and the iPhone 11 Pro Max starts at $1099 for 64GB. Which, you know, I said felt kinda tight already on the standard iPhone 11 Models. Here, especially considering what these new cameras can do, it just feels constrictive.

I get that some people just want thin clients or to stream or cloud store everything, but that's not how a Pro tool works. And, unlike the iPhone 11 where it costs just $50 more to go to 128 GB, with the Pros it costs $150 more to go to 256 GB. Good thing Apple is doubling down on trade-ins and installments.

I know Apple wants to hit certain price points and maintain certain margins, which look way down since the Jobs years, especially if you factor out much higher margin services. But for me, the perfect Pro storage SKUs would be 128 GB base, then 512 GB and 1 TB right on top, just like iPad Pro.

That way I could shoot 4K 60fps EDR all day, every day, and not have to worry about topping out. Not for a long while at least.

Like the 11, you can get AppleCare+ to extend your warranty for $149 or with theft and loss protection for $249, if you want to. I always do, because I'm incredibly clumsy and disaster prone.

You can also go to an Apple Retail Store, if you have one nearby, in addition to all the usual set up sessions and support services, Today at Apple provides a wide range of classes to get you up to the pro level of your new phone.

It's part of the value of the iPhone and I still don't think Apple does enough to really highlight everything you get for your money.

iPhone 11 Pro launches this Friday, September 20th.

iPhone 11 Pro Review: Bottom Line

It's funny. Leading up to the iPhone 11 launch, I saw some people worrying it would be too iterative or too expensive. So, I ran a poll, asking you if were going all in or leaning towards the less expensive model.

But, nope. Hard nope. As you almost always do, you went right for the iPhone 11 Pro Max.

Same with the event. It was going to be too iterative. Too boring. But then Apple showed off the new camera system and all of us salty old nerds were bolting upright, salivating again.

Then, pre-orders happened, and so many people who were so certain they wouldn't order, that this year would be must skip, were suddenly setting alarms, because it was must-have, immediately, before shipping slipped so much as a day.

I know, it's a thousand dollar phone that looks a lot like last year's thousand dollar phone. I get it. Even with trade ins and installments, it's still up in the hundreds. But, for some people, it's more than that — it's their primary computer and camera.

So, in fulfilling that function, is the iPhone 11 Pro worth it. Is it even really Pro?

Again, the standard iPhone 11 is terrific. Like I said, what differences there are may not mean much to most people and that's fine. That's even the point. It's the $699 iPhone for everyone.

But, if you're exactly the type of nerd who really appreciates OLED displays, a professional photographer or videographer that really wants that new triple camera system, a power users who's lusting for that longer battery life, sure, it may be missing out on USB C, the Pencil or ProMotion, but it's packed with everything else. And that's as pro as an iPhone's ever been.

So, if you want the best of the best, the ultimate expression of the iPhone technology and experience today, you can reach for the absolute rafters with the iPhone 11 Pro or iPhone 11 Pro Max.

Originally published September 2019.

What you need to know

• The good folks at Caviar have outdone themselves this time.
• They've created an iPhone 11 Pro inspired by the design of Tesla's Cybertruck.
• It features a titanium body, Cybertruck inspired geometry and all the functionality of a normal iPhone 11 Pro.

Russian engineers at luxury designer caviar have created a titanium iPhone 11 Pro inspired by the design of Tesla's Cybertruck.

The stunning luxurious gadget is vintage Caviar, who have previously created a $100,000 iPhone with a clock on the back and a Christmas iPhone 11 Pro Max that cost $140,000.

This new model is actually nowhere near as expensive, with prices starting at $5256 for the 11 Pro 64Gb.

Caviar's website says:

The phone is so exclusive that your transaction is handled by a personal consultant, and they'll deliver the phone free anywhere in the world. Oh, also, it comes in this box:

If you want one though, you better move quickly, as the phone is limited edition, and only 99 have been made. Check out the video of the design below!

What you need to know

• Apple has released a new short film to its YouTube channel.
• The film, titled 'Daughter', highlights the importance of family on Chinese New Year.
• Apple historically releases a film every year as part of its 'Shot on iPhone' series.

Apple has released a new short film on its Youtube channel to celebrate Chinese New Year and highlight the filmmaking capabilities of the iPhone 11 Pro. The film, titled 'Daughter', is directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Theodore Melfi and stars Zhou Xun, China's leading actress.

The film focuses on the generational differences between a mother and daughter about the life that she and her child lead. It's a truly touching film about pride, acceptance, and family.

Theodore Melfi, the director of the film, is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker who received his nominations after co-writing, directing and producing Hidden Figures, a film about the role that black female mathematicians played during the space race. Hidden Figures received nominations for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Lawrence Sher, the film's cinematographer, is best known for this work on Garden State and The Hangover series. Most recently, he served as Director of Cinematography for Todd Phillip's 'Joker' film which just won Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture for Joaquin Phoenix's depiction of the villain at the Gloden Globe awards.

The film stars Zhou Xun, China's leading actress, known for her performances in 'The Equation of Love and Death', 'The Banquet', and 'Perhaps Love'. The last film earned her a Best Actress award in the Hong Kong Film Awards.

Apple also released a behind-the-scenes video in tandem with the film itself. The video features interviews with Theodore Melfi and Zhou Xun and shows how the filmmakers used the iPhone 11 Pro to bring the story to life.

Apple has historically released a film to its YouTube channel to celebrate Chinese New Year and demonstrate the filmmaking capabilities of its latest iPhone as part of its 'Shot on iPhone' video series. Last year, Apple released 'The Bucket', a film about "the taste of home".

What you need to know

• Apple has released a new Shot on iPhone 11 Pro video on its YouTube channel.
• "Experiments IV: Fire & Ice" puts the iPhone 11 Pro in some extreme heat and cold scenarios.
• The company also released a behind the scenes video along with the film.

Apple has debuted a new Shot on iPhone 11 Pro film to its YouTube channel. The video, titled "Experiments IV: Fire & Ice", is the latest in a series of videos focused on shooting macro videography with different elements and materials.

The latest video shows off the iPhone 11 Pro's impressive low light videography capability as well as the sharpness and focusing of its new wide and telephoto lenses. The phone is used to capture, as the video's title alludes to, fire and ice in a number of interesting ways.

The company also posted a behind the scenes video to go along with the actual film. The video shows how the creators of the video fabricated together really unique scenarios to create interesting reactions for the iPhone 11 Pro to capture.

Apple also recommended their video series "How to Shoot on iPhone" for those looking to take their smartphone photography and videography to the next level. The YouTube playlist is actually really great and offers those interested in learning bite-sized pieces of education about how to shoot with Depth Control, how to take a timelapse, and how to navigate light and shadow.

The new videos were commissioned by Apple and shot on the iPhone 11 Pro by Donghoon Jun and James Thornton of Incite.

What you need to know

• Caviar heavily customizes iPhones with gold and diamonds.
• It makes a $100,000 iPhone 11 Pro.
• YouTuber MKBHD got his hands on one.

Russian outfit Caviar already has a reputation for making some outlandish iPhones and now we've been given a rare chance to see one in a video. Caviar provided YouTuber Marques "MKBHD" Brownlee with one of its Solarius Zenith Full Gold models, and oh my.

The phone is a standard iPhone 11 Pro that has had its rear glass panel removed and replaced with a ton of gold and 127 diamonds. Oh, and a working tourbillon. That's a fancy clock for the uninitiated.

You can check the full ten-minute video for the rundown of what you're getting for your $100,000. And if you want to go iPhone 11 Pro Max or get more than the standard 64GB of storage, that's an option as well. You'll just need to find the extra $20,000 or so to do it.

Very few people will buy one of these, but the fact that they exist is still amazing. If you're into watches there's no denying how beautiful the back of this iPhone is. Even if it's excess turned up to 11.

Ever since I bought an unlocked Sony Ericsson K800 phone back in 2006, I became obsessed with mobile photography. I loved the idea of having a Cyber-shot camera inside my cell phone, and not necessarily having to carry around a standalone digital camera.

Then 2007 came around, and Apple introduced the iPhone. At the time, I was just barely 20 years old and scraping by with a retail job and going to city college, so I didn't have much money. But I remember my mom getting me my first iPhone in 2008 as a birthday present, which was, unfortunately, short-lived, as I dropped the iPhone four months later and the screen shattered.

But since that unfortunate incident happened in May, and the iPhone 3G was coming out in a few weeks, I decided to save up some cash and get a new phone to replace my OG iPhone. This started a yearly upgrade tradition for me, as well as changing my entire life, as I wouldn't be here at iMore now if I didn't start with the iPhone that essentially launched my career for the past decade.

For the time, the iPhone was gaining in popularity as a digital camera, even though the major overhaul of the iPhone's camera didn't arrive until the iPhone 4.

I have always had a thing for photography as a fun little hobby, and the iPhone only continued to ignite my interest in going mobile, year after year. After all, who wants to keep carrying around a separate digital camera when you have one in your pocket already? But the real tipping point has been in 2019 with the iPhone 11 Pro, but more-so the entire iPhone 11 line.

As they always say, "the best camera is the one that's with you."

Who needs a standalone digital camera anymore?

The evolution of the camera certainly has been an interesting one. We started out with the camera obscura, went to daguerreotypes and calotypes, moved on to dry plates, and then finally Kodak and film. This new era started 35mm, twin-lens and single-lens reflex cameras (TLRs and SLRs, respectively), instant cameras, and then finally digital. But all of this was before we started to carry small supercomputers in our pockets that are capable of replacing so many things, including cameras.

The iPhone started out with a 2 megapixel, single rear camera with no flash. Now, with the iPhone 11 Pro, we have a 12MP camera (ƒ/1.8 aperture) with three lenses: Wide, Ultra Wide, and Telephoto. The rear camera also has optical image stabilization (except on the Ultra Wide), LED flash, 4K video recording, Panoramas and Portrait modes, stereo sound recording, and so much more. The front-facing camera is also 12MP with a ƒ/2.2 aperture, auto image stabilization, 4K video recording, and tons more.

In short, the iPhone camera has evolved into a true point-and-shoot digital camera replacement. The Ultra-Wide lens on the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max is nothing short of spectacular. With the Ultra-Wide lens' 120-degree field of view, you're able to capture even more of a scene, which results in some stunningly beautiful shots of landscapes that we never thought we could take with an iPhone. The Ultra-Wide camera is also great for just fitting more of a scene or group into a single photo when you can't back up any farther.

Let's also talk about the Night mode feature on the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro — you can finally take great low-light photos with nothing but your smartphone. Before, low-light photos taken with an iPhone could be pretty bad, with lots of grain and noise, blur, and just not much detail. Thanks to Night mode, you can take amazing photos with your iPhone 11 Pro at any time, anywhere, without having to rely on the LED flash for a mediocre result (smartphone LED flashes aren't the best). Honestly, I think I use Night mode more than the Ultra-Wide camera, just because I can finally photograph Disneyland after dark in all of its glory, as well as other gorgeous scenes.

And if you have the iPhone 11 Pro or Pro Max, then you have the telephoto lens as well. This provides a 2x optical zoom, which provides a clearer zoomed result over digital zoom, which is just cropping and enlarging the image once captured.

With Ultra Wide, Telephoto, and Night mode on the iPhone 11 Pro, in addition to Portrait mode with Portrait Lighting, optical image stabilization, 4K video recording, I mean honestly, why would I need a separate camera? Unless you are a professional photographer who needs an expensive and bulky DSLR, the iPhone 11 Pro has pretty much everything you need for photographing everyday moments and then some.

The battery life claims are no joke

In the past, Apple has always gone the route of "thinner is better" under Jony Ive's reign. However, since he left in June 2019, Apple seems to have taken a new direction in terms of iPhone battery life. Instead of going thinner and thinner each year, the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro are ever so slightly thicker than their previous iterations, and that's due to the much-improved battery that these new iPhones are packing.

I have the iPhone 11 Pro, and the battery life on this thing is significantly better than its predecessor, the iPhone XS. With the iPhone XS, I would have to plug the device in by the time the later evening rolled around because it would be close to dying if I don't top it off throughout the day. The iPhone 11 Pro, however, is able to last me the entire day and then some, which is unheard of with previous iPhones. And when you combine it with a battery case like Apple's Smart Battery Case, then you pretty much won't need to charge your iPhone for about a day and a half, making it great for travel where you may not have access to a power outlet.

As per Apple's own claims, the iPhone 11 Pro battery can last up to four more hours than the iPhone XS, and the iPhone 11 Pro Max lasts five hours longer than the XS Max. The iPhone 11, on the other hand, only lasts one hour more than the previous iPhone XR, but that's still quite notable since the XR had the best battery life of the previous-gen iPhones.

The iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro series has proven to be very significant in terms of battery life developments, which is something that all of us iPhone owners have been clamoring for for years. With such improvement this generation, hopefully, it's a sign of what's to come in the next decade.

Other noteworthy Apple gadgets of 2019

Even though the iPhone 11 Pro was the most significant device Apple released in 2019, there are a few other strong contenders that I wanted to give an honorable mention to.

First, the 16-inch MacBook Pro gets a mention because Apple has finally returned to the older, more reliable scissor-switch keyboard mechanism that is found on the Magic Keyboard, rather than continue with the controversial butterfly keyboard keys. This has been a huge sigh of relief for many MacBook users, as the butterfly mechanism would be prone to repeating characters, getting stuck, or just otherwise unresponsive to presses. So far, it seems that the 16-inch MacBook Pro's scissor switches have fixed all of the problems of the previous butterfly mechanism, and the keyboard brings back a physical Escape key, and the arrow keys are back in a T formation. It's gotten great reviews so far.

And secondly, the AirPods Pro are basically what the AirPods should have been when they first came out. The AirPods Pro have a much more comfortable and secure fit than the original AirPods, as they feature an in-ear fit with silicone ear tips, which also come in multiple sizes. There is Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) with Transparency in the AirPods Pro, so you can block out all outside noise with ease, but also let in environmental noise when it's safer, such as hearing cars driving by. From all the rave reviews, the AirPods Pro are definitely a winner.

As great as these two are, they didn't have quite the significant impact that the iPhone 11 Pro had, which is why I'm only giving them an honorable mention. The iPhone 11 Pro is definitely the most significant Apple gadget released in 2019.

More navigation links:

Apple

• Apple across the decade
• Rene Ritchie's product of the decade
• The iPad
• iPhone 4s
• Qi charging
• iPhone 5c
• iOS 8
• Apple Watch
• Pokémon Go
• Nintendo Switch
• iPad Pro
• iPhone 11 Pro
• Nintendo

Google

• Top Google stories of the decade
• Google Home & Google Assistant
• Moto X
• Roku
• Chromecast & Google Cast
• HDR+
• Samsung Galaxy S7
• Alexa & Amazon Echo
• HTC One M7
• Robot Vacuums
• Google Cardboard
• Google Wifi

Microsoft

• Top Microsoft news stories
• Surface Pro
• Windows as a service
• The Xbox revolution
• AMD vs. Intel
• OneDrive

What you need to know

• One YouTuber wanted to show how inadequate iPhone cameras can be.
• So he compared iPhone 11 Pro with a $250k video camera.
• And the phone lost. Entirely predictably.

It's fairly common knowledge at this point that the cameras in Apple's iPhone 11 Pro are pretty impressive. But they're still small and attached to a phone, so it isn't really fair to expect them to be able to compete with really expensive video cameras. Especially when the lighting isn't perfect. And YouTuber Zebra Zone wanted to make that point. So he did.

To do that he took the humble iPhone 11 Pro and put it up against a $250,000 video camera setup. And yes, things went pretty much as you might expect them to.

As PetaPixel (via Cult of Mac) notes, none of this is a surprise to the YouTuber, either. And he isn't particularly down on what iPhone 11 Pro can do. It's just that while he says the phone might be OK most of the time, it won't be all the time.

So there we have it. If you were thinking about starting a Hollywood movie studio with your iPhone, it might be an idea to rethink that move. Just saying.

What you need to know

• MKBHD has completed this year's blind smartphone camera test.
• 16 phones were inlcluded with iPhone 11 Pro one of them.
• Apple's phone failed in the first round, beaten out by the OnePlus 7T Pro.

YouTuber Marques "MKBHD" Brownlee has once again completed an annual blind smartphone camera test to see which photos people thought were better. To do that multiple images were taken from 16 different phones with people voting for the best image via Instagram and Twitter. Each round, two phones were put up against each other with the loser eliminated.

And that's where things went wrong, immediately, for iPhone 11 Pro. The phone was duking it out with the OnePlus 7T Pro when taking photos of Brownlee outside. That's a situation where you might expect iPhone 11 Pro to win out. But it didn't, with the resulting image appearing very much on the blue side. When the blue tinge is taken away, things look much better. Unfortunately for Apple, that meant the OnePlus 7T Pro took that round easily.

With iPhone 11 Pro out for the count, the tests continued with Samsung's Galaxy Note 10 Plus ultimately coming out on top.

However, it isn't so much the result that's interesting here. But rather why the phones that won actually gained so many votes – none of the polls were close with one phone winning convincingly each time. Just as was the case last year it's clear that voters chose the brightest, most colorful images when making their decisions. As Brownlee noted, they also chose images that had less bokeh effect because they felt that the sharper images were better.

Be sure to check the full video out to see how things went down, especially if you're at all interested in learning how people made these kinds of decisions when voting. Often it isn't actually the best photo that wins. Just the one that catch the eye most.

What you need to know

• A security report claims that Apple's iPhone 11 Pro is using location data even when location services are set to "never".
• The report suggests that there are some system services using location data on the new iPhone which cannot be disabled by users.
• According to the report, Apple says that this is expected behavior.

A report suggests that Apple's iPhone 11 Pro is using location data, even if you think you've switched off your location services.

According to KrebsonSecurity:

The report first notes Apple's privacy policy, which explains what happens when your location services are turned on. It then highlights how the policy explains how a user can disable all location services by switching 'Location Services' to 'off' within iOS' privacy settings. The report then notes:

An accompanying YouTube video shows an iPhone running iOS 13.2.3, in which all of the system services are individually toggled so as not to use location data. Despite this, the location services icon seems to intermittently show up on the device, suggesting location services are still in use.

In response, an Apple engineer said:

"The icon appears for system services that do not have a switch in Settings."

As the report states, this seems to imply that even if you turn off location services for every single app and system service on your device, there are some services within iOS that you do not have the option to turn off. This means that the iPhone 11 Pro may be using location services regardless of what settings you select. The report notes that Apple has not responded to any follow-up questions regarding this issue. At this stage, it's totally unclear whether the phone is actually collecting any of the data, or if that data is being transmitted.

https://twitter.com/reneritchie/status/1202207429037035522

If the report is indeed true, it could raise some serious questions about Apple's Privacy, if its latest iPhone is found to be collecting and using location services despite the appearance that all such services can be disabled within iOS by users.

What you need to know

• Apple's "Shot on iPhone 11 Pro" series continues.
• "Snowbrall" was shot solely on an iPhone and includes slow-mo shots and more.
• The video was shot by director Devid Leitch of Hobbes & Shaw fame.

Apple's latest "Shot on iPhone 11 Pro" video is here, and it's a doozy. Titled "Snowbrawl," the video shows a snowball fight in typical Apple fashion. There's zooming, slow-mo, and more all to show off just what iPhone 11 Pro is capable of.

And as ever, it looks gorgeous.

The video itself was shot by director David Leitch. If that name sounds familiar it's probably because this is the person responsible for movies like Hobbs & Shaw, Deadpool 2, and Atomic Blonde. He was also producer of John Wick which means he can do no wrong in my eyes.

This video is no different, either.

Apple has been making a big deal of the camera capabilities of its latest iPhones. iPhone 11 Pro in particular has some of the best cameras around. And combined with Apple's software magic like Deep Fusion, it's capable of shooting some amazing stills. Most people would agree that iPhone 11 Pro is the undesputed crown-bearer when it comes to video as well.

Having watched this latest video, it's difficult to argue.

You just bought a new iPhone 11 Pro, so you don't want anything to happen to that sucker. That's why you put it in a protective case. But what if you want something that is both protective and stylish for the fashionista in you? That's where Speck's Presidio Clear + Glitter comes in.

• Relatively slim profile, not too bulky
• Microban antibacterial protection
• Glitter is embedded into the case, no fading
• Raised bezel on the front keeps the front glass safe
• Durable and protective with IMPACTIUM CLEAR cushioning

• Exterior needs to be wiped down to retain grip factor
• Only comes in two colors right now
• A bit pricey

I've been a fan of Speck's lineup of products for several years now, and I usually find them to be fairly reliable in terms of protecting my expensive iPhones every year. The Presidio Clear + Glitter is a nice balance of both form and function.

Bedazzle and protect

Speck Presidio Clear + Glitter iPhone Case: Features

The Presidio Clear + Glitter case is made from a dual-layered flexible plastic TPU material that is easy to work with. This means that the case will envelope your iPhone 11 Pro easily, and it doesn't take too much effort to remove either, unlike some other, stiffer cases (Otterbox Symmetry is a good example). This is great for someone who likes to take their phone out every so often to clean, or even switch cases often (that's me).

There are precise cutouts for the mute switch, triple lens camera system, charging port, and speakers. The opening for the charging port is also wide enough that it should accommodate pretty much any charging cable—this is important because I've had cases with a smaller opening that don't work with some third-party charging cables I have. The volume and side buttons are covered up, and while the buttons aren't hard to push, they do feel more squishy than click-y, especially when compared to other cases.

The exterior of the Presidio Clear + Glitter is smooth plastic, and a small Speck logo resides on the back in the upper right corner. Presidio Clear + Glitter has the Microban antibacterial coating to help reduce the amount of bacteria that lives on the case from daily use, though I don't have a microscope to see how effective their Microban is.

There are little markers in each corner to signify where the IMPACTIUM CLEAR cushioning is. The IMPACTIUM CLEAR cushioning is on the inside and acts like an airbag for your iPhone when it's dropped, as it was designed to absorb and disperse shock from drops up to 13-feet. The raised bezel in the front will also protect the screen if it lands face-down from a drop, or even if you just place your device face-down on a flat surface.

Aside from these markers, as well as the buttons, the rest of the case will dazzle with the embedded glitter crystals. I'm also not just talking about a few sprinkles of glitter here and there—this case is absolutely loaded with glitter crystals, and it's distributed evenly throughout. If you show off the case in some natural sunlight, it will definitely shine and sparkle. The best thing about the embedded crystals is the fact that they'll never scratch off or fade, since they're inside the plastic itself.

If you want to add some sparkle to your iPhone 11 Pro but still protect it, then Speck's Presidio Clear + Glitter is a solid choice.

Bedazzle razzle

Speck Presidio Clear + Glitter iPhone Case: What I Like

I received the Bella Pink with Gold Glitter color for the Clear + Glitter case, and I am in love with how it looks. Pink is one of my favorite colors, and this translucent pink is a perfect shade for me, especially for the raised bezel on the front.

While the pink version comes with gold glitter, it's hard to tell what color the glitter is unless you get a close-up view of it. Still, I think it looks great, and I like the bedazzle factor that this case adds to my Midnight Green iPhone 11 Pro. Though the only way you can tell I have the Midnight Green is by taking a look at the camera, because the pink and gold glitter colors hide the rest of my phone. The Apple logo barely peeks through.

One final thing I like is the fact that you don't really see fingerprints or smudges on the back, probably due to the Microban coating. It's also fairly scratch resistant.

Get a grip

Speck Presidio Clear + Glitter iPhone Case: What I Don't Like

I've been using the Speck Presidio Clear + Glitter case for a few days, and while I like it, I have noticed that it gets a bit slippery after a while. Due to the natural oils in our hands, it feels like it builds up after a bit, making it have less grip. I often feel like I need to wipe the case down with my shirt or cloth to get a grip back on it.

That's why while I like the Clear + Glitter, I would recommend the Presidio Grip + Glitter over it, just because of that added rubber grips on the back. But if smooth TPU plastic backs don't bother you much in general, then this case should be fine.

Dazzling style and protection

Speck Presidio Clear + Glitter iPhone Case: The Bottom Line

Overall, I think the Presidio Clear + Glitter is a good option for those who want a durable and protective case while also having some whimsical flair. It's easy to get the case on and off, the back is resistant to scratches and smudges, and the glitter is gorgeous. I just wish that it would retain the grip factor without having to clean it off so much.

See at Speck

The iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max are pretty much the same feature-wise, but the Max has a larger screen and bigger battery. For most people, the iPhone 11 Pro will be enough, but the Max is for those who prefer to have the biggest screens and charge their phone less.

Let's break it down

When you look at the specs for the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max, you'll see that they're pretty much identical in terms of features. The only differences between them are the size and battery life. But as far as internals and software, there's no difference. Let's take a look.

Both the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max are great devices, but we would go with the smaller iPhone 11 Pro. Even though the screen is smaller, it still takes up the entire front of the device with no bezels, so you can still get a lot of information on the screen at once.

Does size matter?

The biggest reason we like the iPhone 11 Pro over the iPhone Max is the fact that it is much easier to use the Pro with one hand. Plus, it doesn't hurt as much after using it for an extended amount of time compared with the Max size devices. Also, since the Pro costs less than the Max, it'll be less painful for your bank account too.

And while the iPhone 11 Pro Max has the longest battery life out of the entire iPhone 11 lineup, the regular iPhone 11 Pro is still pretty good, since it will already last four hours more than its predecessor. Plus, most of us will have access to chargers throughout the day (in the car, at our desk, wireless charging pads and battery packs, etc.), so it's not hard to top it off as the day goes on.

The iPhone 11 Pro will be enough for most of us, but the iPhone 11 Pro Max is great for those who have larger hands and don't have as many opportunities to charge throughout the day.

What you need to know

• YouTube car show Carfection has shot a video entirely on iPhone 11 Pro.
• It was put up to the challenge by its sister channel CNET.
• The results are spectacular.

YouTube car show Carfection has shot a video entirely on iPhone 11 Pro, after it was put up to the challenge by its sister channel CNET.

CNET's Andrew Hoyle challenged the brand to create a video shot entirely on iPhone 11 Pro, to see how close they could come to their signature, award-winning cinematic photography.

The final video is pretty spectacular, it makes for fantastic viewing and there are plenty of shots where it's impossible to tell the video was taken by iPhone.

After the fact, Carfection's Charlie Rose said that overall, the iPhone 11 Pro was impressive and that its three cameras gave them a lot of versatility. They used the iPhone 11 Pro in conjunction with lenses by Moment, as well as Moment's filters. They also used their own tripods and gimbals, usually decked out with dedicated cameras like the Sony FS7, or Panasonic GH5. The audio was also recorded separately.

Whilst the outcome was amazing, the experience wasn't perfect. The team encountered several issues, including the fact that the iPhone's camera isn't in the center of the device. Usability was down compared to a dedicated camera, especially when it came to changing things like focus, which requires you to tap on the iPhone's touch screen.

Filmic Pro's software also impressed, with settings for ISO, white balance, shutter speed, and manual focusing. Again, however, usability was a problem because of small icons and the iPhone's touchscreen.

Commenting on the footage, Rose said:

Rose said he didn't see the Carfection team using the iPhone regularly on a shoot, but he did see it as a potential fallback if equipment was to stop working, or if all the gear had been packed away and they needed one last shot.

So there you have it, the iPhone 11 Pro can't quite keep up with the industry's finest when it comes to shooting video, but in the right hands, it can be used to create brilliant video.

What you need to know

• Marques Brownlee has posted a YouTube video comparing the iPhone 11 Pro to Apple's original iPhone.
• In the video, he compares size, specs, and features.
• The throwback is a crazy snapshot of how far the iPhone has come since 2007.

Marques Brownlee has posted a video to YouTube in which he compares Apple's latest flagship device, the iPhone 11 Pro, with the original iPhone.

In this ultimate Throwback Thursday, Brownlee takes a look at both phones, comparing their size and form factor, design, specs and more. Not only does the video make for some great viewing, it is incredible to look back and see how far Apple has brought us from the original iPhone, way back in 2007. Brownlee highlights some features (or lack thereof) from the original iPhone that seem almost alien, like a 412MHz CPU, 8GB of storage and 128MB of RAM. When you consider that Apple's latest phones ship with up to 512GB of storage, it makes you wonder how anyone managed to survive using the iPhone in 2007. It doesn't even have a selfie camera!

Perhaps more remarkable than the new, later features we've come to know and love, are the features of the original iPhone that are still with us to this day. The basic concept of a glass touchscreen, accelerometers, ambient light sensor and of course, the mute switch.

Take a stroll down memory lane, and check out the video below.

What you need to know

• DXOMARK has released its review of the iPhone 11 Pro Max camera, ranking it 117 and third overall.
• DXOMARK offers consultation services as well as ratings, which is controversial.
• DXOMARK liked the contrast and exposure but didn't like the noise, zoom, or bokeh.

Oh look, DXOMARK has released its iPhone 11 Pro Max camera review, giving the device a score of 117 overall. "117 what?" I hear you cry... well nobody really knows, but here we go anyway... The 11 Pro Max's score makes it the 3rd highest scoring smartphone tested by DXOMARK, tied with the Galaxy Note 10+ and the 10+ 5G. The iPhone 11 Pro Max was tested running iOS 13.2, so Deep Fusion could be tested.

https://twitter.com/reneritchie/status/1087837704937750533

DXOMARK claims its scores are calculated using combined scores in a number of sub-categories. However, DXOMARK has also come under fire by many in the industry for also running a paid consulting service to, essentially, better pass their tests and, presumably, earn a higher rating. Apple, by policy, never pays for such services. So, factor that in — or throw the whole thing out — as you will.

According to DXOMARK, the 11 Pro Max performed well in several of their tests, achieving the highest score ever given by DXOMARK for exposure and contrast. It also scored well in the color, autofocus, artifacts, and wide categories, but was let down by bokeh, zoom, noise and texture.

You can read a full breakdown of each category and the score achieved here:

In summary of the test DXOMARK said:

While camera testing is subjective, DXOMARK has also been criticized for the apparently arbitrary and mercurial nature of their scale. So, take any numbers they offer, whether the iPhone is the higher or lowest any given Thursday, with a moneybag-sized grain of salt.

We're only covering it because so many others have somehow decided to cover it but without the context needed to make an informed decision about how much weight to give to them... if any.

Now you have the information, let us know what you think.

Updated to explain DXOMARK's role as both "consultant" and "ratings" company, and the potentially huge conflict of interest that results.

What you need to know

• Matti Haapoja has posted an epic photo comparison on YouTube.
• The test pits the iPhone 11 Pro against a $7500 Canon DSLR
• The stunning results show just how close the iPhone 11 Pro comes to the quality of a DSLR.

An incredible video comparison of the iPhone 11 Pro and a $7500 Canon DSLR shows that the gap between iPhone and professional photography rigs has never been closer.

The video, posted to YouTube by Matti Haapoja shows 5 photos, taken both with an iPhone 11 Pro and a Canon DSLR. The video challenges viewers to guess which photo was taken by which device. There are a few telltale signs that giveaway the iPhone 11 Pro's photos, and there is a slight difference between the two which shows that the DSLR still has the edge. However, at first glance the photos are almost indistinguishable, and are a stunning testament to the camera quality of the iPhone 11 Pro.

The below photo is probably the easiest of the 5 to guess. On the left is the iPhone 11 Pro, on the right is the DSLR. The most noticeable difference is the coloration of the denim jacket, and on closer inspection the background blurring of the DSLR appears to be of a higher quality. These features are pretty consistent across the other photos in the video.

With that being said, why don't you take a look at the video below and see for yourself? In the video, Haapoja also talks about how an app like Focos can be used in post-production to elevate your iPhone 11 photos to an even higher quality. So whilst these may not be vanilla iPhone 11 Pro shots, they do show that with a little bit of work you can produce truly stunning images with the latest iPhone.

What you need to know

• iPhone 12 Pro concepts are already here.
• We have to admit, this looks gorgeous.
• An iPhone 4-like design is rumored for next year.

We might only have had our iPhone 11 Pro handsets for a matter of weeks but that isn't stopping people from looking to what we might get next year. We've heard reports that iPhone 12 will see a redesign similar to that of iPhone 4. Which sounds good to us!

There's no doubt that iPhone rumors are fun, but what really kicks things up a notch is a good concept video. And sure enough, we have one already. The video comes via YouTube channel Path of Design and we must admit to being a mittle smitten by it.

It's unlikely we'll be getting most of what's shown in this video as soon as next year, but just indulge us for a minute. OK?

The concept shows us an iPhone that has no notch at the top of the screen, instantly making the handset look hyper modern. There are squared off edges as well, giving us that iPhone 4 look we've been wishing for ever since it went away. Oh, and there's a ProMotion Display and bilateral charging, too.

And USB-C and 5G. Because at this point, why not?

We'd love to see this thing ship but we might have to wait another couple of years yet. At least for that notchless display. Ignoring that for a minute, can we start a petition for a (PRODUCT) RED iPhone 12 Pro right now?

You can check out the full video above and be sure to click through to the description for all the technical rundown of what Path of Design thins – hopes! – iPhone 12 Pro will offer up.

What you need to know

• iPhone 11 Pro has the best video performance of an iPhone yet.
• YouTuber Eric Thayne compared the phone with a RED Scarlet-W 5K Cinema Camera.
• The iPhone does well, but it's no replacement for the RED.

At this point we can all agree that iPhone 11 Pro has some pretty amazing cameras. Both stills and videos shot using an it will look pretty great, especially when uploaded to the internet where compression kills pixels. But YouTuber Eric Thayne wanted to see just how well the iPhone can compete with a RED Scarlet-W 5K Cinema Camera.

That camera costs around $10,000 without all of the required attachments, by the way.

We'd strongly suggest you watch the video all the way through because it's well worth 15 minutes of your time. In it, Thayne explains not only how the two cameras are similar, but also how they are different. Ultimately there are situations where you might not be able to tell the difference between footage shot on either one. But there are others where the iPhone falls short – like depth of field, for example.

Most noticable here is how Thayne sees things differently to non-pro users. It's interesting to see someone who isn't a tech reviewer take a look at something like this, giving their perspective as they go. People who shoot video all day and every day will see where the differences are, yet we might not.

Matt says it best.

Really though, none of this matters. The videos created on an iPhone look great, especially in the places they'll be used – home videos, Instagram stories, etc. But if you're filming that new action flick, you might want to upgrade.

Watch the video and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

What you need to know

• Caviar makes custom iPhones every year.
• This year's lineup is called Victory.
• Some aren't bad. Most are gaudy.

Russian outfit Caviar has a history of taking iPhones and turning them into something altogether more gaudy. And it's done it again, this time turning an iPhone 11 Pro into iPhone 11 Pro Victory. And it's quite the look.

We've seen some pretty horrific designs from Caviar in recent years, and the new Victory line ranges from somewhat ugly to altogether insane. The prices range from $4,290 to $30,820 and we'd argue the nicest phones are the ones toward the bottom of that range.

What's perhaps most interesting about the VIctory line of iPhone 11 Pro handsets – spotted by Cult of Mac – is the fact they don't have camera bumps. Instead, Caviar has built the rear of the phone up around it, almost making the entire back of the phone flush. If the iPhone 11 Pro camera bump offends you, this is one way of deleting it.

Our pick of the Victory line would be the Victory Black Titanium, but options include Black Gold Alligator and Diamond for those who really want something different. Not that any of the other designs look boring, of course. The Victory Diamond will set you back more than $30,000 and comes with plenty of gold, too.

We're not sure we'd take the Victory Diamond even if it was a standard color in an Apple Store, but we're sure someone likes it.

I love a pretty case, but this is more than that. There are tons of fun, fashion-forward patterns from which to choose, but make no mistake: this is a sturdy, protective case to set your mind at ease. If you like having a grip on the back of your phone, you can purchase one of Velvet Caviar's ring grips to match (or contrast with) your case pattern.

• Fashion-forward patterns
• Protective case
• Coordinating ring grip (sold separately)
• Raised bezel around screen and camera
• Wireless charging compatible (without ring grip)

• Not to everyone's taste
• Smooth plastic doesn't offer grip

Pretty and protective

Velvet Caviar iPhone Case: Features

This Velvet Caviar case was love at first sight. I realize that not everyone will enjoy this style of case, but if you like pretty cases, you simply must give Velvet Caviar's gallery a gander. You'll find marble, agate, camo, floral, waterfall, and many more styles. I chose Holographic Moonstone, a. colorful marble with a metallic, holographic vein running throughout. Velvet Caviar makes cases for every model iPhone from the 6/6s to the current models.

I generally don't mind sacrificing a bit of protectiveness for a thin, attractive case, as long as I'm up on my AppleCare+. But with Velvet Caviar, no sacrifice is necessary. While it's not the heaviest of heavy-duty cases, it's certainly not a minimalist barely-there case, either. It's a solid compromise between thinness and protection. A raised bezel around the screen and the camera means that no matter which way you set it down, glass is never contacting the table. Velvet Caviar calls their case FirmFlex, meaning it's a blend of soft TPU and hard polycarbonate to maximize drop protection. The case fits comfortably in my hand and feels solid.

The Sleep/Wake buttons have clicky button covers. The volume buttons sport a "-" and a "+" while the Sleep/Wake button has the tiniest VC embossed upon it. This is the only branding you'll see on the outside of the case. The mute switch, speakers, and Lightning port all have appropriate cutouts that are sized just right. The Lightning port cutout is large enough to fit my third-party cables that have wider plugs. Wireless charging works just fine, unless of course, you add a grip on the back.

The printing on the case is just stunning. It does appear to be glued on, but I picked at it a little bit and nothing came loose. If it did start to peel, you're covered, at least for a year. Velvet Caviar products carry a one-year warranty. The inside of the case is lined with soft microfiber.

The case is smooth; there are no rubbery or grippy edges like some cases have. Velvet Caviar does sell a ring grip that you can adhere to the back. I got one that matches the pattern so perfectly that the striations in the marble actually line up. No rule says you have to buy a matching ring grip, of course. You can get something totally different for a look that is uniquely you. The ring grip not only gives you a more secure phone grip, but it also acts as a viewing stand for watching videos.

An instant favorite

Velvet Caviar iPhone Case: What I like

I'm a match-your-case-to-your-outfit kind of gal, and this case will be in heavy rotation for me. I like that it offers some serious drop protection without being terribly bulky. It's just a stunning look, and if Holographic Moonstone isn't your favorite, there are tons of other fashion-forward styles. I just love how it looks. I also like the ring grip, sold separately, that matches the case perfectly.

Not everyone's cup of tea

Velvet Caviar iPhone Case: What I don't like

I recognize that this kind of case is not everyone's style at all. It may be too "cute" for you. Or, if you like a slim, minimalist case, this one will be too thick for you. On the only hand, if you like a heavy-duty tank of a case, this isn't quite that either. It is a plastic case, and I know that some people prefer natural materials. Besides that, the only critique I can think of is that there is no grippiness to the case. It's not slippery, but it is smooth.

The hotness

Velvet Caviar iPhone Case: Bottom line

This case is pretty yet protective. With a fashion-forward laser-printed pattern in a variety of styles, your case is sure to stand out from the crowd in the best way. The FirmFlex case blends soft TPU and hard polycarbonate for solid protection without huge bulkiness. You can find more patterns on Velvet Caviar's Amazon storefront and on their own website. Choose a case for any model from the iPhone 6/6s up through the current models.

See at Amazon

What you need to know

• iPhonedo took a portrait with the iPhone 11 Pro, and it looks stunning.
• The image was edited using High-key Mono and the built-in tools in Photos.
• The image almost rivals that of a DSLR.

A lot has been said about the iPhone 11 Pro's triple-camera setup. The long and the short of it is Apple's new system is the best out there — or at least high up on the list. Don't believe us? Just check out this incredible portrait shot by the iPhone 11 Pro.

YouTuber iPhonedo released a video this week that included a portrait he made while out to eat, and it looks positively amazing. You can look at the photo in more detail on Flickr.

Using the iPhone 11 Pro's portrait mode, iPhonedo then chose the Apple's new High-key Light Mono option and then edited the photo using the built-in tools inside Photos. After tweaking shadows, highlights, and a few other settings, iPhonedo made what looks like a professional portrait.

The bokeh looks fantastic and the subject's eyes are tack sharp. Apple's High-key Light Mono mode also convincingly makes the photo looks like it was taken in a studio, which is exactly the point.

Put it this way: When Apple shares examples during major keynotes, this is what the company should share. What's most impressive is this image was made in an ordinary environment, not in a controlled test. Anyone with an iPhone 11 Pro can achieve the same results.

If that image doesn't convince you the iPhone 11 Pro has a good camera, perhaps our images from Disneyland will.

What you need to know

• iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro have the best cameras in an iPhone yet.
• They were compared with two DSLR cameras.
• iPhone 11 Pro fared surprisingly well.

There's been a ton of talk about iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro and whether their cameras are the best in the business right now. That's something that can be debated, but what about DSLRs? One YouTuber compared iPhone 11 Pro with two cameras to see how things panned out.

The video by PhotographyTalk actually also an iPhone X and that could be beneficial to anyone who skipped iPhone XS and is now due an upgrade. But the real interest is in the two DSLR cameras; a Nikon Z7 and a Sony a6400.

You can check the video out for all of the example shots including both stills and video, but iPhone 11 Pro manages to more than hold its own against so-called real cameras. The shots of a beach and pier as the sun goes down look stunning even when taken on iPhone X, but there's a clear improvement when you swich to the new iPhone or DSLRs.

This test was also carried out without the aid of Apple's Deep Fusion, a feature that takes multiple shots and combines them to improve fine detail. The feature is now available in the recent iOS 13.2 developer beta, and we haven't had time to test it fully. Whether Deep Fusion would have improved things for the iPhone 11 Pro remains to be seen. We expect Deep Fusion and iOS 13.2 to be made available to everyone before the end of the year.

If you know me at all, you may have learned that I'm kind of a Disney addict. I live a stone's throw away from Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, and I often go on spontaneous trips to the park with my husband and other Annual Passholder friends just to grab a meal, go on a few rides, or just take some photos with my iPhone.

This won't be a review of how my iPhone 11 Pro does at Disneyland as a whole. If you want that, then I recommend checking out Matthew Panzarino's iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro review at Techcrunch. Instead, I'm going to go over how great the iPhone 11 Pro camera is for a very frequent Disneyland guest, or just anyone, in general, visiting Disneyland Resort on a vacation.

The best camera is always the one that is with you

For years, I've gone by the motto of "the best camera is the one that's with you." I've always had an interest in photography, and even took classes in high school and college. I bought point-and-shoot cameras just to try and make the most of my hobby, but I always found it a bit of a hassle to bring a separate camera with me on top of everything else. I always ended up just snapping photos with a cell phone, especially once I got an iPhone.

Ever since then, with all of the advancements made in the iPhone camera, I have had no desire to buy a digital camera or even a DSLR. I always have my phone with me, and it's perfectly capable of taking good photos that I could make great with some post-processing work, so why add another thing to my daily carry?

Honestly, as a child, I didn't get to go to Disneyland very much due to cost. I only began to go frequently because my now-husband and his family have always been going to Disneyland, and I got an Annual Pass as an anniversary gift one year, and have continued renewing it since.

I've been going to Disneyland at least once a week or a few times a month since (gotta get that money's worth), and it's become my new zen for iPhone photography since I have it with me all the time and find it annoying to carry more than what is needed.

With the iPhone 11 Pro cameras, I truly feel less of a need for having a standalone camera than ever before.

It's time to go Ultra Wide

Apple improves the iPhone camera every year, but this is definitely one of the biggest improvements since the iPhone 8 series and the ability to do Portrait Lighting with Portrait Mode. With the iPhone 11, there is the new Ultra-Wide 13mm lens. The new Ultra-Wide camera allows for 120-degree fields of view, allows you to capture more of the surrounding environments in every photo, and gets some amazing panorama-like shots, depending on how you frame and compose the image.

While at Disneyland over the weekend, I managed to use the Ultra-Wide several times during the day to get some gorgeous shots that were never possible before with my iPhone XS.

I could capture the entire Millennium Falcon in a single angled Ultra Wide shot, similar to how they do it with the PhotoPass photographers. The Ultra-Wide also let me capture more of other scenes, such as the Pixie's Hollow fountain in front of Tomorrowland, Elliott the Dragon in the Main Street Electrical Parade, the "Merry Christmas" display in Haunted Mansion Holiday as I rode off in a Doom Buggy, and various decorations and displays all over Disneyland, Disney California Adventure, and Downtown Disney.

The Ultra-Wide camera would also be great for capturing larger groups of people, such as family and friends, especially against walls and backdrops. However, it's usually just my husband and me, so I didn't get a chance to test that out. Panzarino has also seen success in using the Ultra-Wide camera for up-close shots of people and intimate moments, so while it may not be for everyone, that's another use case for the Ultra Wide.

Let's talk about that Night Mode

If you aren't into the Ultra-Wide perspective, that's fine. But the other major camera upgrade with the iPhone 11 this year is Night Mode, and I swear, this alone makes it worth upgrading, even if you have an XS from last year.

Night Mode happens automatically, and it isn't something that you can turn on manually, unfortunately. But it will come in quite often when you take pictures in low light or complete darkness, because the camera sense it and knows Night Mode will help you out. And this is where the iPhone 11 really shines, especially during a Disneyland trip.

While Disneyland is quite enjoyable during daylight, it's absolutely fantastic at night. The lights and sights during their nighttime shows, they're absolutely not to be missed, especially for those who don't get to go to Disneyland as often. And with Night Mode, those nighttime pictures have never looked better.

For Night Mode to kick in, the light threshold needs to fall below a certain level. Once that happens, the triple-lens camera system and computational software will pull in as much light as possible from the current environment to create the photo. This results in a brightened up images, but you can still tell that they're taken at night, rather than day. It takes multiple photos with different angles over a set interval (between two to 10 seconds), analyzes them for things like sharpness and light, and creates a single photo. The difference between my nighttime Disneyland photos from my old iPhone XS and my new iPhone 11 Pro is like night and day.

I never thought that my iPhone XS took bad photos at night, I mean, they weren't too shabby when I had it. But the iPhone 11 Pro blows it out of the water. I replicated a few of my favorite night shots that I took with the XS with my 11 Pro, and it's as clear as it could be. The iPhone 11 Pro Night mode shots came out much brighter with more vivid colors and incredible amounts of detail than I had ever got before.

You can clearly see the Evil Queen peeking out of the window while seeing the rest of the Snow White's Scary Adventures building lit up by the nearby Sleeping Beauty's castle. Every bit of the detail of the Millennium Falcon shows up. The fireworks in the sky during the Halloween Screams show are crisp and clear against a lit-up sky, and you can still see everyone on Main Street while the projections play on the walls. If you happen to stop in the right spot on one of Disney's dark rides, then you can capture a beautiful and amazing shot, like daydreaming Sally or Hatbox Ghost in the Haunted Mansion.

While Night mode is the biggest upgrade on the iPhone 11, you need to remember that it's most effective when you and the subject can be still for a few seconds. Otherwise, it might just end up a blurry picture that won't impress anyone. I found it a little annoying that I can't just toggle on Night mode manually. It activates only when it senses that it's needed.

If you were hoping to combine the Ultra-Wide lens and Night mode, then you'll also be disappointed, because it's impossible. The Ultra-Wide lens does not have focus pixels or optical image stabilization (OIS), which are both needed for Night mode. It also turns out that, when you zoom in 2x with Night Mode, you're not actually using the telephoto lens. Instead, the Camera system crops in the photo from the standard wide lens to where the 2x zoom would be. The actual telephoto lens with optical zoom is not capturing the image with Night mode.

What about the regular Wide camera lens?

Even though the big standouts with the new iPhone 11 Pro this year are the new Ultra-Wide camera and Night mode, that doesn't mean that the normal Wide lens didn't get any improvements.

I usually just take photos with the Wide lens unless I specifically need the Ultra Wide for more scenery or telephoto for getting up close from far away. I have noticed that the iPhone 11 Pro Wide camera takes much more vibrant photos, with more realistic and true-to-life colors as compared with my old iPhone XS. I never thought that the iPhone XS camera was bad, but when you retake some photos and compare them side-by-side, the iPhone 11 Pro images just look much better.

Unfortunately, I go so often that I can't remember what pictures I've taken with my old iPhones, so I couldn't replicate every shot that I've taken in the past (there are too many to count!) But I did manage to scrounge up a few that I know I've taken again with the iPhone 11 Pro, and compared to the XS, they look much brighter with more detail.

The iPhone 11 Pro camera also has some Smart HDR and Portrait mode improvements, such as better edge detection. I personally don't take many Portrait mode images at Disneyland when I go, but I noticed an improvement in HDR quality compared to my non-Disneyland Portraits.

Unless you're pro, skip the DSLR and take iPhone 11 Pro

I do not consider myself a professional photographer by any means. I just enjoy taking photos of pretty much everything as a way to remember my memories, and sometimes to express myself through something artistic.

My iPhone has always been my camera because it's most convenient and always available to me. With the iPhone 11 Pro, I believe that it's all I need, and all that most people will need, when it comes to photographing Disneyland (aside from PhotoPass photos which are great for family pics).

The Ultra-Wide lens lets you capture more panorama-like views of the parks, and Night mode is simply amazing, especially for capturing all of those nighttime shows. Even the standard Wide lens will make sure you get photos that truly pop.

Unless you're a professional photographer with very specific use cases, the iPhone 11 Pro is all you need to capture perfect photos at Disneyland.

What you need to know

• A new case has popped up that makes terrific use of the iPhone 11 Pro's triple-camera system.
• The so-called Commando Arnold Schwarzenegger case turns the cameras into rocket launchers.
• It's a perfect recreation of the iconic scene in the 1985 film Commando.

The most polarizing aspect of the iPhone 11 Pro is its camera system. Love it or hate it, the triple-camera system elicits strong opinions from people. Whether you are on one side or the other, there's no denying the Commando Arnold Schwarzenegger iPhone 11 Pro case makes the new camera system worth it.

For those of you that are not familiar with Commando, it is a 1985 film that stars Schwarzenegger as John Matrix, a retired United States Special Forces Colonel. At one point, his daughter is kidnapped and he is forced to spring into action and save her while taking out a gang of thugs. Along the way, there is an iconic scene where he aims a rocket launcher and starts laying waste.

The boxy front rocket launcher just so happens to look a lot like the square camera of the iPhone 11 Pro. Somebody decided to make a case of the iconic scene that perfectly places Schwarzenegger in position to shoot not the rocket launcher, but the iPhone 11 Pro cameras.

Twitter user Cinepocalypse shared an image that displays how awesome the case looks on a Midnight Green iPhone 11 Pro.

It's a hilarious case that perfectly recreates the scene. It also shows the ingenuity people are inspired with when Apple does something questionable with its product design.

The Commando Arnold Schwarzenegger case was inspired from a meme making fun of the iPhone 11 Pro camera. There were plenty of memes making fun of it; we're crossing our fingers more hilarious cases are made that similarly utilize the camera.

You can find the Commando Arnold Schwarzenegger case on Amazon.

11 iPhone 11 memes to make your day

If you're the type of person that carries everything important with you in your pocket, your keys, your credit cards, your ID, your cash, and your iPhone, chances are, you'd benefit from having some kind of wallet case to tie it all together. Pad & Quill's Bella Fino Edition wallet case is about as wallet as a case can get, and it protects your iPhone at the same time. I'd been using the new Bella Fino for iPhone 11 Pro for a full week prior to the iPhone 11 launch because, aside from the camera cutout, it fits both models! After a good stretch of use, breaking in the leather like a baseball glove, I've really grown attached to the Bella Fino. It has its flaws, but it's features are worth it for many, especially if you're a wallet case kind of person.

Best cases for iPhone 11 Pro

• 4 card slots fits 8 credit cards
• Large cash slot
• Quality craftsmanship
• Now with elastic strap!

• Oversized

So many pockets

Bella Fino wallet case for iPhone 11 Pro: The features

The Bella Fino is the wallet case of all wallet cases. I say this because it has four card slots that stretch to fit up to eight (that's right, eight) cards, one of them being a window slot for your ID, plus a stack of cash. Most wallet cases support 4 cards. Some don't have a space to carry cash at all and you end up shoving a couple of bills into one of the spare card slots.

The entire case measures in at 6" x 3 3/8" x 0.55", which is not a slim case by any means. It sort of reminds me of a woman's style clutch wallet (only not that big). It adds a bit of extra size around the length and width of the iPhone, plus fairly significant depth, depending on how many cards you put in it.

The hardshell case that snaps the iPhone 11 Pro into place protects from scratches and can be a glass-saving feature if you drop your iPhone (it's not drop-protected graded or anything, but it's better than nothing). It's a simple black hardshell case that is actually removable. It is stuck to the leather folio with a standard 3M adhesive.

The hardshell case by itself is velvety smooth to the touch, even though it's just made out of polycarbonate. The top, bottom, and side buttons are exposed for easy access to everyting you need.

This year's Bella Fino is upgraded from last year with one feature that a lot of people are really going to love:

The one complaint iMore case reviewer Karen Freeman had with last year's Bella Fino is that the case didn't lay flat when filled with cards. Though a long enough "breaking in" period usually fixes that, it can be a bother for some. This year, Pad & Quill added a handy removable elastic strap (in stylish colors) so you can keep that wallet completely closed up until it breaks in. Then, if you so choose, remove the elastic and go free, or keep the elastic on if you prefer the look.

The case is available in three different exterior colors, each with one or two interior color options.

• Chocolate and Deep Sea Blue
• Galloper Black and Plum
• Galloper Black and Slate Gray
• Whiskey and Deep Sea Blue
• Whiskey and Forest Green

They all come with either a black or brown elastic strap, but for $10 more, you can add a three-pack color option with light blue, yellow, and orange. If you want to add even more elastic straps to your style, you can pick from eight different colors at $10 each.

When you want to remove the elastic strap, pull the hardshell interior case from the leather folio to expose the elastic strap clips. You can take these off and put them on any time at your preference.

All-in-one

Bella Fino wallet case for iPhone 11 Pro: What I like

As far as wallet cases go, the Bella Fino is the premier case by which all other cases should be compared. It is beautifully stitched American full-grain leather with an attractive etched Pad & Quill logo on the binding. The complimentary interior leather tint brings an extra beauty to the overall look.

I'd used the Bella Fino with my iPhone XS when I traveled for the past year and always found it to be so much more convenient than having a case and wallet separate. Because it is big enough to hold as many as eight cards, I don't feel like I have to bring anything else with me than this case. Right now, I have six cards in my Bella Fino and don't even have more cards that I feel I need to add to it.

Cash fits nicely, folded in half, into the large-for-a-wallet-case cash slot. You can't keep your dollar bills unfolded, but it's darn close.

I love that Pad & Quill added an elastic strap to the Bella Fino. Though my case didn't take long to break in and lay flat, it was somewhat annoying for the first month or so, trying to get that binding to soften up. With the elastic strap, the case stays closed.

Though I never find my self needing to do this, I do like that I have the option to pull the hardshell case off the leather folio and just go with a minimal protective case. It's by no means pretty — it's just a simple black case — but it feels nice to the touch.

Too much wallet?

Bella Fino wallet case for iPhone 11 Pro: What I don't like

The Bella Fino is a big case. Make no mistake, this isn't a minimal, slip-it-in-your-back-pocket design. In fact, it probably won't fit into some back pockets. It adds a lot of depth to your iPhone 11 Pro (nearly twice as thick as without a case), though it only extends around the height and length a few centimeters.

This luxury wallet case is designed for men and women that prefer to keep their iPhone inside a purse or bag (probably a luxury leather one). If you are looking for a slim simple wallet case, you may want to look elsewhere.

Though I'm in love with the new elastic strap, especially the colorful options, it tends to get in the way of such things as wireless charging and taking pictures.

Some charging pads are robust enough to make it through the additional thickness of the elastic strap, but it can be finicky. I found myself taking my iPhone out of the case before settling in for the night because I'd struggled to find the sweet spot for wireless charging.

If you aren't careful, the dangling wireless strap will fall in front of the back-facing camera, getting in the way of that impromptu shot. With just a bit of memory training, however, I remembered to always hold the strap away from the lens, thus avoiding obstruction.

Bottomline

Bella Fino wallet case for iPhone 11 Pro: Conclusion

If you're a wallet case kind of person, and you know who you are, the Bella Fino ticks all the boxes. With four card slots to hold up to eight cards, plus a cash slot, you can leave your wallet at home and replace it with this all-in-one wallet case.

It's big, though. Do you usually protect your iPhone 11 Pro with a thin case? Do you wear tight jeans and keep your iPhone in your back pocket? The Bella Fino may not fit your style.

Personally, I don't use my Bella Fino every day. I use an ultra-thin clear case (because I like to be as pure as possible while protecting my iPhone). I switch to it whenever I travel. The wallet/case combo helps me pack less while making things much more convenient for me.

What you need to know

• With Apple set to release Deep Fusion via an iOS 13 developer beta update, lets take a look at what it said about the feature during the iPhone event.
• Phil Schiller revealed it uses the nueral engine to create a new image processing system.
• He called it "computational photography mad science."

When Apple unveiled the iPhone 11 and its fancy new cameras, it also gave a sneak peek for a brand new camera feature it would soon offer: Deep Fusion. Now that the feature is rolling out with the latest iOS 13 developer beta, we decided to look back and see exactly what Apple said about the feature during the September 10 event.

Apple vice president of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller started by stating it uses "the neural engine of the A13 Bionic to create a whole brand new kind of image processing system."

Then he presented an image of a man seating on a couch with a vividly intertwined sweater that has a lot of intricate detail in the weaving pattern. He said this type of image would not have been possible before.

Using machine learning, the image was captured in low to medium light. Here's how it does that according to Schiller.

That was it. Apple didn't get into too much detail as the feature would not be available until a later time. It doesn't even mention it on its site right now, but we imagine that will change shortly after the feature becomes available.

The Deep Fusion feature sounds impressive. The images Apple has released so far give us a good look at the raw potential of the feature that takes full advantage of the new cameras in the iPhone 11. It could help further separate the iPhone 11 camera from the competition.

What you need to know

• iPhone 11 Pro owners continue to share images taken with the ultra wide angle camera.
• The ultra wide angle camera appears to be a huge hit.
• We'll continue to keep an eye on photos people share.

Apple's iPhone 11 Pro has been released, and fans around the world are excitedly sharing their impressions. Unsurprisingly, the device's triple-camera system has become an early favorite. In particular, it's the ultra wide camera that's earning the most praise.

With a focal length equivalent to 13mm, users are able to capture much more of a scene, whether it be a landscape or interior. The pictures some iPhone 11 Pro owners have shared on social media are nothing less than stunning.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B227eYuAQep

The iPhone 11 Pro hasn't been out a week and already people are in love. Between the ultra wide angle camera and the new Night mode, Apple has really outdone itself in the camera department.

Surely, Apple's Shot On iPhone campaign will be better than it's ever been now that the iPhone 11 Pro is available. I can't wait to see photos taken by the new device show up on billboards across the globe.

I'm a sucker for a spooky house. Something about the fog machines, the screaming, and the fake blood makes me happy. While that's something I should probably tell a therapist I instead used it as an opportunity to test out the new iPhone 11 Pro camera. If you've seen Rene Ritchie's amazing comparison with the Pixel, Note 10, and P30 Pro, you already know this camera can more than hold its own when the sun goes down. If you've seen Lory Gil's trip to a rock show with the iPhone 11 Pro, you know this camera has its limits but is still damned impressive.

Today, however, I'm taking you to Six Flags America at 9 p.m. during Fright Fest — darkened rooms, creepy lights, and loads of people running around screaming. There aren't a lot of opportunities for great photos in this environment unless you have a really great camera and some patience, but I managed to take some amazing shots and learned a ton about how to get the most out of the iPhone 11's night mode.

Tap to focus still makes a huge difference

While the iPhone 11 camera features 100% focus pixels and the autofocus on this camera is second to none during the day, at night you'll find you get a lot more out of this camera if you pick the right spot to pull light from. Here's a shot of the Wonder Woman ride, with — from left — the iPhone 11, Samsung Galaxy S10, and Pixel 3 in all of these photos. To see the whole photo, just click or tap.

Looks like the Pixel crushed the other two, right? That's because the iPhone 11 Pro focused on the brightest spot in the scene (which was really bright) and made sure it was sharp and in focus. This is great, but not what I really wanted from the shot. So I tapped on the red bars below the bright spikes and this happened:

This shot is WAY better. It's still not exactly as bright as the Pixel 3, especially in the background, but the differences between the two shots are barely noticeable now.

Color balance is better than light sometimes

There's this amazingly spooky zombie cowboy sitting in between some lights with a fog machine rolling over it, which you could easily miss unless you're standing right in front of it. I sat in front of this thing for nearly 20 minutes trying to get the right photos because the fog was a variable and when people scream they tended to run right in my camera path. But finally, after all that time, I got the photos I wanted.

More light is not really better in these shots. The iPhone 11 did a much better job capturing the scene, and that has everything to do with its auto-mode being capable of making the right decision in this situation. The Pixel 3 fills the scene with light, which is technically correct but ends up eliminating a lot of drama from the shot in the process, and because Google's image processing happens after you take the shot instead of in real-time, there was no way to really tell how this was going to look until after. This isn't really a problem with the iPhone.

Background light is important too

My good friend Corpsey Shuffle here was hanging out with some of his bros and I couldn't help but grab a shot. Behind this mangled body is a terribly bright sign for the Firebird roller coaster, which makes getting the shot right more than a little difficult.

Samsung missed this shot entirely; I'm actually embarrassed for the phone compared to the other two. Google's Pixel 3 brought so much light and sharpness to the photo, but in the process made the lights in the background also pop and not look quite as good. Apple's camera made a different choice, choosing to properly expose the light in the background at the cost of the foreground being not quite as well lit. In my opinion, it's the better shot because of that.

We need to talk about selfies

Night mode on the iPhone 11 is really good. I was originally skeptical this software just "caught up" to the Pixel 3 from last year, but that's not true at all. Apple has built a solid foundation for a great low light platform, and we're going to see it quickly improve with the addition of Deep Fusion later this year.

Having said all of that, not being able to access this amazing feature with the front camera is so unfortunate.

I get the technical hurdles here. Google is able to use the same computational photography techniques it uses on the rear camera because the camera isn't really the most important part of that. Apple's night mode doesn't work that way, and this front-facing camera is essentially the same as every other FaceID array.

Still, I want some epic night mode selfies on the iPhone. Maybe it'll get better with Deep Fusion?

Here, have some more photos

I'm not ready to call Apple or Google undisputed champions of darkness based on these or any of the other photos I've seen so far. They're about equal, which is both incredible and surprising when you understand how different the two approaches are. The only thing I can say definitively is they're both consistently better than Samsung at night, and that's unlikely to change anytime soon.

Until next time, enjoy some of the other compares I shot but didn't use either because of rotating colors I couldn't control or because they illustrated points I had already made.

What you need to know

• The iPhone 11 Pro attained significantly better LTE speeds than the iPhone 11 during testing.
• The performance is on par with what the iPhone XS delivered.
• The new iPhone 11 models use the Intel XMM7669 modem.

With the iPhone 11 Pro omitting 5G, the focus has turned to how its LTE speeds will be with the Intel XMM7669 modem. Testing by PCMag confirms that the iPhone 11 Pro is significantly faster than the iPhone 11, but not so much over the outgoing iPhone XS.

The iPhone 11 Pro continues to use the same 4x4 MIMO frequency antenna system found in the iPhone XS while the iPhone 11 retains the iPhone XR's slower 2x2 MIMO system.

As expected the iPhone 11 Pro easily outperformed the iPhone 11, but only tied the iPhone XS. PCMag's testing included testing each new iPhone 11 model on each carrier in New York City and the iPhone 11 Pro performed at a similar level as the iPhone XS.

Speed varied from carrier to carrier with AT&T attaining the highest LTE data speeds in New York City.

Data speeds aren't necessarily a reason users will upgrade, but it should be taken into account, especially if they are coming from an older device.

What you need to know

• The iPhone 11 Pro's Super Retina XDR display is a true winner.
• DisplayMate gave it its highest ever A+ rating and crowned it with the "Best Smartphone Display Award."
• It praises its benefits such as absolute color accuracy, smallest shift in color accuracy and full screen brightness.

One of the big new improvements in the iPhone 11 Pro is the new Super Retina XDR display. Among its major features are the continuous 800 nits of brightness, peak brightness of 1200 nits and 2 million to one contrast ratio.

Apple calls it a pro display and DisplayMate agrees, awarding it its "highest ever A+ rating" and crowned it with the "Best Smartphone Display Award."

Among the notable highlights of the display are its absolute color accuracy (0.9 JNCD), smallest shift in color accuracy (0.3 JNCD), full-screen brightness for an OLED panel, HDR peak brightness (1,290 nits), highest contrast ratio (infinite), and lowest screen reflectance (4.5%).

The iPhone XS won the same recognition last year and it seems Apple made the necessary upgrades to earn similar praise.

DisplayMate goes into greater detail about all the benefits of new Super Retina XDR display on the iPhone 11 Pro that's worth checking giving a read.