Apple announces new iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max with all-new camera system

Apple unveiled new iPhones at its September 10th event in Cupertino, California.

During the keynote at the Steve Jobs Theatre on Apple’s campus, CEO Tim Cook announced two new iPhone models headed to stores later this fall. The iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max will replace last year’s XS and XS Max.

The most significant change with the new iPhone Pros is the camera. Both models sport three cameras on the rear of the device, compared to two on the previous models.

First up, the iPhone Pros feature wide camera, ultra-wide camera and a telephoto camera all at 12-megapixels. The new ultra-wide camera, similar to the one found in the iPhone 11, has a 120-degree field of view. Combined, the three cameras give users a 4x optical zoom range.

Also of note, Apple talked up its ‘Deep Fusion’ computational photography tech, which takes up to nine photos and stitches them together to improve detail, colour and more. The iPhone Pro will take a mix of short-exposure and long-exposure images to make this happen and sorts through 2.4 million pixels with its neural engine to highlight details.

As well, Apple has refreshed its Face ID system on the new iPhones, making it faster than before. It also added improved performance at varying differences and angles.

Faster across the board

Along with significant changes to the camera system, the new iPhone Pro and Pro Max sport major speed improvements thanks to a new chipset and an included fast charger.

The iPhone Pro and Pro Max sport Apple’s latest A13 processor, which the Cupertino-based company claims is its most efficient chip to date. It uses 7nm transistors and squeezes 8.5 billion of them on the chip.

Machine learning was also a focus for Apple. The company packed machine learning controllers onto the chip. These controllers improve the use of machine learning across the A13’s CPU, GPU and Neural Engine.

The A13 also has better thermals for longer sustained performance. In other words, the iPhone Pro and Pro Max should be able to operate at a high level and do so for longer.

Apple also claims that it tuned the A13 Bionic for efficiency to improve battery life. It has four high-efficiency cores and the iPhone will only “light up” the sections of the chip that are needed to help save power. Apple claims that the iPhone 11 Pro will last up to 4 hours longer than the iPhone XS and the 11 Pro Max will last up to 5 hours longer than the XS Max.

When you do need to charge up, the iPhone Pros include a fast charger in the box (finally) so users can power up quickly.

Apple also added a new ‘U1’ chip with ultra wideband technology for spatial awareness. According to an Apple press release, iOS 13.1 — due out on September 30th — will utilize the U1 chip to add directionally aware suggestions to AirDrop.

A ‘Pro’ design

Apple talked up the refined design of the iPhone Pros at its event. It isn’t a significant departure from last year’s iPhone, but there are subtle changes where it counts. It uses “surgical grade” stainless steel and the rear glass panel is machined from a single piece. It features a ‘PVD’ coating for a matte texture finish and comes in ‘Midnight Green,’ ‘Space Grey,’ ‘Silver’ and ‘Gold.’

Around the front, the iPhone Pro sports a new ‘Super Retina XDR’ OLED display. It has 485 pixels per inch, 1200 nits peak brightness, HDR, True Tone and more.

The iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max will be available on September 20th at $1,379 for the Pro and $1,519 for the Pro Max. Preorders will start on Friday, September 13th, and the phone will be available starting Friday, September 20th.

If you trade-in an old phone, Apple says you can buy the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max for $889 and $1,029 respectively. More details for that should be on Apple’s website.

Further, the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max will come in 64GB, 256GB and 512GB storage options.