iPhone 14 Pro review: ‘Dynamic Island’ and always-on display offer a taste of something new

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With its frosted glass back, shiny aluminium band, Magsafe charging and triple-lens rear camera, Apple’s £1,099 iPhone 14 Pro appears almost identical to its predecessor, the iPhone 13 Pro, when you first take it out of the box.

It’s only when you switch it on that you realise Apple has made some significant changes to its latest model – most notably a new notification bar at the top of the display, called Dynamic Island, which replaces the hated ‘notch’ on previous models.

The pill-shaped bar houses several key sensors, including the selfie camera, proximity sensor and depth detector, which all support the Face ID unlocking feature.

Unlike the notch, however, Dynamic Island is not a static black obstruction on the screen, but an interactive part of the display, providing quick access to alerts, notifications and background activities without interrupting the app you are using.

While it may seem like a gimmick, I’ve found this new feature quickly becomes a natural part of how you use the phone, making it much easier to multitask on the device.

For example, you can set a timer and then go back to browsing social media, while keeping an eye on the countdown clock in Dynamic Island.

Or if you’re replying to emails while listening to Spotify, you can tap and hold on Dynamic Island to bring up the controls, allowing you to pause or skip a track without leaving the Gmail app.

While the list of apps that use Dynamic Island is still fairly short, it is likely to grow with the launch of iOS 16.1 later this year, which will introduce ‘Live Activities’.

That means you’ll be able to check the status of your Deliveroo order, the expected arrival time of your Uber, or the latest football scores with a quick glance.

Another major new feature of the iPhone 14 Pro is the always-on display, which keeps information on the Lock Screen visible even when the phone is in standby mode.

This is a common feature on many Android phones, as well as the Apple Watch, but it’s the first time it’s been available on an iPhone.

iOS 16 brings the ability to customise the Lock Screen, so as well as time and date, you can now add widgets showing the weather, battery level and calendar events. Notifications also pop up at the bottom of the Lock Screen.

In a social setting, the always-on display can be distracting, as information is visible even when the phone is lying untouched on a table.

But it is useful to be able to glance down and quickly check the time without having to touch the screen – and you can always turn it face-down if you don’t want it catching your eye.

The always-on display is dim enough that it doesn’t light up the room while charging on a bedside table at night, and the new power-efficient display engine in Apple’s A16 Bionic chip means it has minimal effect on battery life.

The iPhone 14 Pro also brings a big camera upgrade, with the main camera now sporting a 48-megapixel sensor, up from 12 megapixels on the iPhone 13 Pro.

Most users won’t notice the difference, however, as the iPhone 14 Pro still defaults to shooting photos in 12-megapixel resolution to avoid clogging up the storage.

There is an option to shoot 48-megapixel images in ProRAW format, which can be enabled in settings, but be warned that each of these images are approximately 75MB in size – three times the size of an average 12-megapixel image.

What you might notice are improvements in low-light photographs, thanks to the new quad-pixel sensor.

There’s also an additional 2x Telephoto for photos and videos, meaning there are now four zoom options with optical quality – 0.5x, 1x, 2x, and 3x – and you can capture foreground blur as well as background blur to your Portrait Mode shots.

When it comes to video, the iPhone 14 Pro supports Cinematic Mode in 4K. Cinematic Mode was first introduced with the iPhone 13 Pro, and is essentially the video version of Portrait Mode – automatically creating a depth of field effect in footage.

It previously only supported HD resolution, but now supports 4K resolution up to 30 frames per second – meaning you can make your home videos appear even more movie-like.

Meanwhile a clever feature called Action Mode helps you capture a steady, smooth video even if you’re running or moving around a lot, by keeping the horizon level in the footage – almost as if you’re using a gimbal.

The front camera also sports a few upgrades – including improved autofocus, which means that everyone in your selfies should be in focus, even if they are at varying distances from the camera, and faster focus in low light.

While the camera improvements are significant, I can’t help feeling that most of the new features will only be used by serious and professional photographers.

However, it’s safe to say that casual users will not be disappointed with the quality of the photos and videos they capture using the iPhone 14 Pro, and they should stand up to comparison with those captured by the top Android smartphone rivals.

And while some early adopters have reported a bizarre glitch – whereby the rear camera’s main lens physically shakes and rattles when they are taking photos or videos in some third-party apps including Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram – I have not experienced this.

One new feature of the iPhone 14 Pro that you will hopefully never need – but is worth knowing about – is crash detection, which can detect if you are in a severe car crash and automatically call the emergency services.

I can’t confirm that it works, not having been in a crash myself, but assuming it does, it could hopefully save a few lives in the coming years.

Meanwhile, the much-vaunted Emergency SOS feature, which allows you to connect directly to a satellite to text emergency services even if you don’t have a data or Wi-Fi connection, is not yet available in the UK, but will be launched via an iOS 16 software update in November

Overall, the iPhone 14 Pro is an impressive device, offering enough new features to warrant an upgrade for most loyal Apple fans, and justify the £1,099 price tag – which is on a par with flagship devices from Android rivals such as Samsung and Huawei.

It feels like it will come into its own when Live Activities arrive on iOS 16 later this year, as these will make greater use of Dynamic Island and the always-on display.

But, in the meantime, it offers an attractive design – albeit with a chunky camera bump – excellent display, pro-grade camera and-all-day battery life. 

In other words, everything you’d expect in the latest top-of-the-range Apple device, with a dash of innovation and not too many surprises.