Intelligent Filters
The “iPhone 13” is also expected to gain much more powerful AI-driven filters that will apply changes precisely to objects and people across the photos, rather than just generically covering the entire image.
The information suggests that the filters themselves will actually be similar to what’s been available since 2013. Users will be able to choose filters for warmer and cooler colour temperatures, more dramatic looks with deeper shadows and more contrast, plus “a more balanced style for showing shadows and true-to-life colours with a brighter appearance.”
With computational photography at work here, however, the filters will produce much more natural looks. For example, the temperature filters will adjust colours while keeping whites neutral, and the emphasis will be on adjusting the subjects more than the backgrounds.
What Else? ‘Relatively Modest Upgrades’
According to Gurman, the camera improvements will be the biggest things coming to this year’s iPhone lineup, with only “relatively modest upgrades” otherwise.
As we’ve been hearing for a while, we’ll see the same four models as last year, with the same overall designs and sizes — a 5.4-inch “iPhone 13 mini” and 6.1-inch “iPhone 13” accompanied by the 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch “iPhone 13 Pro” and “iPhone 13 Pro Max” models.
By all reports, pricing will also be the same as last year, with the “iPhone 13 mini” starting at $699 and the “iPhone 13 Pro Max” going to $1,099 for the base storage configuration.
What’s less clear, however, is whether those base storage configurations will increase. The iPhone 12 models started at 64GB, while the iPhone 12 Pro began at 128GB — the first time that became the minimum storage capacity for any iPhone model.
Despite this, however, the standard iPhone 12 started at the same 64GB level that’s been the norm since Apple last doubled it from 32GB back in 2017 with the iPhone 8 and iPhone X, which had only been increased the year before when the iPhone 7 began selling with a 32GB minimum. As hard as it is to believe now, the iPhone 6s started at a paltry 16GB of storage.
The addition of ProRes support could force Apple to up its game, at least with its Pro lineup, but it’s unclear whether that just means an increase in the higher-end capacities, as it did with the iPhone 11 Pro, which came in 64GB, 256GB, and 512GB configurations, or even the addition of a fourth 1TB model. Some sources are even disputing whether we’ll see a higher capacity model, but again we think that the addition of ProRes support will pretty much demand it.
Beyond that, however, it sounds like there isn’t else exciting to come to this year’s iPhone lineup. Gurman makes no mention at all of his earlier prediction that in-display Touch ID might be coming, which means we’re not getting our hopes up on this one. He also pointedly avoids any mention of what the new iPhone may be called, which means we don’t even know for sure that it will be the “iPhone 13” — it sounds like “iPhone 12s” could still be in the running.
Either way, we won’t have much longer to wait. Apple is expected to announce its newest iPhone lineup sometime next month, and based on past history, we can probably expect it to happen closer to the beginning of the month than the end.