iPhone 14 & 14 Plus - Is Bigger Always Better?

The brand new iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus are out. Yay!!! Let’s all take a moment to do a little dance of happiness, shall we?

(One minute of dancing commences!)

One minute later: You back? You good? Caught your breath? All settled? Great. Now let me give you a few good reasons why you all danced in vain!

The iPhone 14 and 14 Plus are, by far, the most useless upgrades that have come to iPhones in a while. With nothing exceptional about them, these iPhones seem to tick all the boxes at being the token offering at this event. They are specifically designed to be pale cousins to the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, which were undoubtedly the showstoppers of the event.

The iPhone 14 & 14 Plus is all about going Big & Bigger. And now that Apple has buried the Mini in a deep grave, poured concrete over it, and parked a tank on it to make sure that handy, convenient, and cute handset never sees the light of day, they’ve left us with the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus to play with.

Both handsets are in the 6-plus inches range (the guys are finally having a Yass! moment here), but iPhones have any design upgrades, or personality, for that matter, to call their own. In fact, in terms of shape and size, the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus look like the doppelgängers of the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro that were launched last year. We can safely declare – there’s nothing new to see here. Idhar udhar dekho. Idhar udhar!

In terms of features, too, very little is new in the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus. It comes with the Emergency SOS and Crash Detection Feature and some upgrades to the video function, which we’ll be getting to in a bit. But other than that, there aren’t any major upgrades that these new iPhones have received. Nothing really makes you go “Oh wow!” and sends you galloping to the bank to break your FD and buy the phone.

Here’s a quick lowdown of the specs and features of the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus:

The iPhone 14 features a 6.1-inch OLED display and the iPhone 14 Plus features a 6.7-inch OLED display. They are both splash, water, and dust resistant.
Both models have an aerospace aluminium-grade body and a tough ceramic shield front glass. But that’s not going to stop us from activating an Indian parent’s level of protection and swaddling the iPhone with tempered glass screen protector, back protector, cover, and camera lens covers until it suffocates to death!
The iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus have the A15 bionic chip and a lightning port for charging. iPhone 14 offers 20 hours of video playback while iPhone 14 Plus boasts of 26 hours of video playback, which they claim is their ‘longest battery life ever!’
Both models have two 12MP back cameras & a 12MP selfie camera. The advanced stabilisation mode brings huge advancement to the video. You can now toggle on the action mode and create smooth videos without needing a gimbal. The photonic engine also delivers better quality low-light photography.
In terms of new features, the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus get the Crash Detection feature that will trigger an SOS call as soon as it senses that you’ve been in a car accident. I sincerely hope you never have cause to use this feature in your life. #drivesafe
The satellite power emergency feature that inspired the event name ‘Far Out’ will not come to phones in India because of government restrictions.
Both the iPhones come with three storage options – 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB and will be available in five colours – Purple, Blue, Midnight, Starlight, and Product RED.

There you have it – the highs and lows of the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus, except that there are far too many lows and not enough highs for my liking.

But despite my distaste for these two models, it would be unwise to write off the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus entirely. They are likely to see demand among people who want to upgrade to a bigger screen without having to sign a deal with the devil. If you’ve been using the iPhone 12 or older models, the iPhone 14 line up looks promising. However, those who have the iPhone 13 & 13 Pro might give the new phones a miss. I mean, what’s even the point? They’re practically the same handset. You could probably get away by slapping on a new cover and lying to your friends. And they’d never know.

On my part, I continue to dream of a world where Minis are embraced and not made to feel like an outcaste; a world where product announcements are more meaningful, and new iPhones carry more substance. I’ll go in search of such a world. Meanwhile, you all can check out the new phone in-store on Sep 16 and take a final call if the iPhone 14 & 14 Plus is as disappointing as I’m making it out to be, or more!