Regarding the discoverability of features, use the “Tips” app by Apple. I’ve discovered a few useful features using that, very useful tool, especially when there is a iOS update and they have changed existing features or added in new one.

I’ve just found out you can search photo’s with text and it works, handy for finding all my bike pictures! Now if you could tag the different bikes..

I’m due an upgrade (almost 4 years on an iphone 7 with a now badly degraded battery).

The main features I’d like are a better camera (I am into photography) and longer battery life, in a similar sized package to the 7, so which currently available model fits the bill best?

I quite like touch ID, though with my hands and lack of fingerprints some of the time (working outdoors) it’s not the most reliable. I actually don’t mind a passcode if it would appear instantly. Not struck on the concept of FaceID, but guess I’ll have to accept it?

I actually don’t mind a passcode if it would appear instantly. Not struck on the concept of FaceID, but guess I’ll have to accept it?

You can turn off face ID so it goes straight to pin. Pin is the most secure form of phone locking/unlocking in any event but face ID, once you’ve used it… well anything else just seems clunky.

The iPhone 12 Mini is a good shout in terms of size – probably a bit smaller than the 7 but with more screen real estate.

I guess face ID is just something you get used to, expect I’d leave it once I tried it in reality.

Is the camera on the 12 mini a decent step on from the 7? I actually have pretty big hands (at least XL in most gloves), but generally carry my phone in a front jeans pocket so don’t like these great big things, and like to be able to use the whole screen one handed.

I guess face ID is just something you get used to, expect I’d leave it once I tried it in reality

I don’t know which is better for me, finger print or face, they both have their drawbacks, finger printer never works when your hands are anything but dry, obvs not at all with gloves on and face id isn’t great when you’ve got a face mask on.

The thing though is they only seem a pain because when they don’t work, you have to enter a pin, which suddenly feels old fashioned and faffy.

I wanted to remove them all and just have it open, apparently that’s not cyber secure enough for work, who knew?

You can tag the bikes…in ios14 swipe up on the picture and add a caption, then you can use these as search terms…

I don’t know which is better for me, finger print or face, they both have their drawbacks,

I read the details of an iOS update a few months back (I know, don’t judge me!), and apparently they reduced the time lag where FaceID would search for a face, before switching to PIN, as a result of more people wearing masks.

I’m sold on the FaceID thing, even away from shops, it just makes opening up the phone quicker/simpler. Fingerprint never really worked all that well, especially outside.

I read the details of an iOS update a few months back (I know, don’t judge me!), and apparently they reduced the time lag where FaceID would search for a face, before switching to PIN, as a result of more people wearing masks.

yes… after no more than a second, FaceID will fail and you can immediately swipe up & enter a pin. TBH with Covid & wearing a mask that is about the only scenario where FaceID falls down, otherwise it’s SO much better than the fingerprint thing (although that in turn was a lot better than only having the option of a passcode!)

It sounds like I need to part with £700 then.

I have a twelve mini and a seven for work. The twelve is a smaller phone. Screen is the same width but taller. The camera is absolutely brilliant, noticeably better.

Be careful though if you do have big hands. It is a deliberately small phone. A *cough* bigger friend of mine had to give his to his wife, couldn’t get used to typing on it.

Edit: XL gloves – I reckon it would annoy you…

Don’t know if this is a useful tip for people but it’s something I can’t work out how to do in Android and for me it’s dead handy…

If you double tap the small clock in the top left of the screen it will scroll any web page or document straight back to the top. Life changing on sites like this where you need to get back to the menu bars etc 🙂

It’s anywhere in the top bar not just the clock.

It’s anywhere in the top bar not just the clock

I did nay know that 🙂 – even better…

The main features I’d like are a better camera (I am into photography) and longer battery life, in a similar sized package to the 7, so which currently available model fits the bill best?

@core, The 12mini is a physically a bit smaller than the 7 but slighter bigger screen, 12 and 12 pro are a physically a bit bigger than the 7. So you could go either way.

12mini and 12 share same cameras, wide and ultra wide. The 12 has a bigger battery than the mini so will last longer. You’ll have to double check but I think even the mini will last longer than 7 due to advances in electronics and battery tech.

The 12pro has same camera as the 12 but adds lidar and telephoto lens to the camera. The lidar helps with focusing and portrait mode effects and even allows portrait mode in low light conditions.

Actually, if you’re in the habit of keeping your phone flat on your desk and waking it up every so often, Face ID sucks because you have to either pick the phone up or lean over the desk.

I mean, at least with the Max picking it up means I’m getting some form of exercise during the day, but still.

I haven’t read the whole thread but I have the 12 pro, done a bit of due diligence & thought the 11 pro was the phone for me but it was unavailable at the time of upgrade, now wish I could of got the slightly smaller 11 pro, or gone with the 12 mini as the 12 feels unstable in my fairly big sized hands when trying to type one handed, maybe the slightly lighter 12 would help but to much screen to keep a hold of it & reach to the extremity’s of the screen with one hand. Battery on the 12pro has so far been a non issue & I regularly have 50%+ on my return from work as long as I don’t cane the nav apps, so the mini would of worked for me.
HTH.

I went iPhone 8 to 11 pro.

Big upgrade, camera, speed, battery

The desk thing Bez says above can be annoying + masks.

12 doesn’t look that much of an upgrade or rather I’m actually happy with my 11 Pro for now

ProRaw turns out to be “interesting”. In that if you want to get the DNG file out of Apple’s ecosystem, it seems you can’t.

If you Airdrop it, you get a JPEG (and I know it’s supposed to do that for an edited DNG file, but I’m using unedited ones).

If you save to Files, it saves a JPEG.

If I use my Sandisk app to send to the wifi USB stick, it sends a JPEG.

If you activate iCloud Photos (you’ll be wanting an iCloud storage subscription) then you get a DNG on your Mac. Aha! But as soon as you move it from Photos to Finder, guess what? Yup, JPEG.

I’m stumped. I’ve got Lightroom Classic on my Mac (and yes, sharing directly from Photos to Lightroom uses a JPEG) but apparently no way of editing ProRaw photos with anything other than Photos (which, not to mention some weirdness like the Highlights slider which for some reason just solarises stuff, doesn’t even have a histogram) or a handful of iPhone apps, which mostly cost a fair bit (eg Darkroom costs nearly as much as I paid for an old Mac Mini to run Lightroom on).

So no raw editing on a Mac, it would seem. Not sure whether I’m doing something wrong, whether some of Apple’s software needs to be updated to play ball with DNGs, or (as I’m inclined to suspect) Apple just don’t want anyone to actually have ProRaw files.

All rather frustrating.

Not tried it myself, but googled & plenty of chat about using ProRAW in Lightroom so I suspect you’re missing something!

As for the desk thing and Face ID – you’re Apple-ing wrong! 😉 No need to look at the notifications on your phone, just take a glance at your Watch 😀

Mm, I can use it in Lightroom on the iPhone, which I suspect means that if I wanted to pay for an Adobe subscription then I could get it into Lightroom on the Mac. (But I’ve got Lightroom 3 which does everything I need… apart from this, apparently 🙂 )

Apple just don’t want anyone to actually have ProRaw files.

They actually explain several ways to do it in the documentation
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT211965

Might involve some updates though as it’s a brand new format. Suspect a 10 year old version of Lightroom won’t cut it!!

Yeah, I found that page and I’ve tried all of those approaches and more, but I can’t get a DNG out, even via the routes they reckon you can.

Old Lightroom might be an issue, but I do have an up to date Adobe DNG Converter if the ProRaw DNGs are “special”. But I thought the whole point of DNG was compatibility. We shall see.

Worse, though, Photos on the Mac is corrupting the files. Now, admittedly I’ve got one running High Sierra (ancient, but necessary to run Lightroom) and one running Catalina, but still… a refusal to open it would be preferable to a corrupt file. I guess I should update to Mojave and see whether that fares any better.

Given all this, and the fact that when editing on the phone I’m not managing to extract much benefit from raws except in a handful of cases (in fact in a couple of cases the JPEG has actually fared better: eg for some reason highlights in raws sometimes seem to completely desaturate for no obvious reason), it’s all rather a disappointment so far.

Image comparison vs the SE (ok, Instagram isn’t exactly the medium for comparing image quality… but from looking at it on a MacBook, long story short: the SE is punching well above its weight.)

https://www.instagram.com/p/CKGyl3IF_TX/?igshid=1b9lliz618ldq

Sure, once it gets *properly* dark, Night Mode means the ProMax can do things the SE simply can’t—even with apps that simulate night mode. And from a brief test, video is another story: they’re not in the same league at all. But I did get a surprise when I compared the first pair of shots blind, chose a winner and then looked up which one was which…

More testing required, methinks.

The left hand image looks better pretty much every time. Which phone was used for left hand images?

Worse, though, Photos on the Mac is corrupting the files. Now, admittedly I’ve got one running High Sierra (ancient, but necessary to run Lightroom) and one running Catalina, but still… a refusal to open it would be preferable to a corrupt file. I guess I should update to Mojave and see whether that fares any better.

according to that Apple doc you need Big Sur to use the native Photos app for ProRAW.

according to that Apple doc you need Big Sur to use the native Photos app for ProRAW.

Aha! I missed that detail. I’ll test that out, then—I think I’m still just about supported on the MacBook.

The left hand image looks better pretty much every time. Which phone was used for left hand images?

That’ll be the SE…

For my money even the night shot is better, despite the Pro Max having night mode. It’s produced some odd chroma artefacts in places (eg one of the manhole covers) and it quite “smeary” overall. The SE is noisier but much more natural-looking. One you get indoors with low lighting the Pro Max starts to stretch its legs, but it daylight… the SE is on the money.

To be fair, night mode is one area where, so far, ProRaw seems to offer an advantage.

The images on the right look more processed and a bit fake whereas on the left they look more realistic. The night shot especially as the dark areas have the shadows removed too much which is probably not what it looked like.

Good news for me as just about to order an SE 🙂

The images on the right look more processed and a bit fake whereas on the left they look more realistic.

I agree some photos do look REALLY over-processed on my 12Pro. Sometimes that effect looks cool, sometimes it’s not what you want. The advantage of shooting in RAW is it gives you more options. Once OP figures out how, he can do some proper comparisons 🙂

Also, a low-res Instragram probably doesn’t make for ideal quality control, especially as everything goes through their compression algorithm… this is what happens if you download & re-upload a photo 300 times! (not mine)

The advantage of shooting in RAW is it gives you more options.

If I was that bothered I would just use my DSLR and get proper photos. For me the phone is for taking quick photos within the limits of a tiny sensor and tiny lens. Nice to have as good a quality as a phone gets these days but I don’t want to be wasting time processing raw files.

@kerley ok cool, I’m sure everybody else thinks the same too, let Apple know and they’ll take RAW support out again with the next update 🙂

An SLR is a big old bugger to lug around, though. Not something you want to be dragging out on bike rides. I’ve got a Ricoh GR which is great in a bar bag, but anything larger is a bit of a imposition. Never mind all the times you happen to find yourself out taking photos but you never meant to go “out”, let alone grabbing an SLR and going “out out”.

Ad yeah, Instagram is useless for comparing details, but to be fair with the benefit of looking at the originals on the same monitor I’d lean marginally towards the SE’s output in at least two of those cases (one of them being the night shot).

Just been out for a walk with both and took a bunch more photos. Of the ones taken before 4pm, I mostly prefer the SE’s output; sometimes by a whisker, but sometimes by quite a margin. Curiously, one of the things I disliked about the SE at first was its aggressive HDR and especially its hues, notably skies against tree trunks—something you can’t claw back with white balance since it’s effectively mixing two completely different hue adjustments in the same image. But I’m guessing maybe Apple toned it down in iOS updates, because its rendering now is much more natural. The 12 however has some prominent HDR artifacts including (from initial glances) bits of image that become very mushy and what looks like some slightly crude treatment of highlights.

Once we got past 4pm the Pro Max starts pulling ahead quite noticeably. From this point the SE was losing detail and contrast quite rapidly until around 5pm when it’s very mushy. It’ll cope with a streetlit scene such as the example above, but in less contrasty lighting it doesn’t fare well. Whereas the Pro Max just keeps on trucking, even if you switch night mode off.

Tried a couple of videos; the performance wasn’t quite as dramatically different as I expected, but I wasn’t paying too much attention to it. Not something I use much.

The big, bright display on the Max does make for much nicer shooting (and editing), though—as does that fact that the camera interface doesn’t have uneven grey overlays at either side (something which drives me nuts on the SE because it makes it so hard to visually balance the image).

Oh, and another quirk with Face ID: it seems it only works if you hold the phone in portrait. If you pick it up in landscape to start taking photos you’ve got to turn it, unlock it, turn it back again. Annoying. (And it’s annoying enough that no iPhone lets you open the camera without touching the screen; I miss the shutter button from the Lumia 1020 which meant you could keep your gloves/mask/snood/whatever on, or have sweaty fingers, and still open the camera.)

Although there isn’t a physical button, you don’t have to unlock to get to the camera. Just hold the camera button on the Lock Screen.

Ah, yeah, true—silly me. Solves the Face ID issue but not the gloves one.

I went from a 7 Plus to 12 Pro. I’m a midget and found the plus too big butvthe size of the 12 promise great.
Massive imorovemall round and really impressed with the camera but admittedly not tried the raw photos yet.
I love just having it in back pocket when cycling for random photo ops. Either use Siri to open camera or my nose on the camera icon on the lock screen if in a deadzone signal wise!

I’m sure everybody else thinks the same too, let Apple know and they’ll take RAW support
out again with the next update

I don’t care what anybody else thinks, was just saying what I think about it.

I appreciate that cameras on phones are very good these days and great for snaps but for me I prefer using a DSLR if going out with intention of taking photographs and the images I get are always better and not just because much better lens way bigger sensor but also holding camera, viewfinder, controls etc,.
A raw file from a tiny sensor and lens (without all the software jiggery pokery) is not going to come close to a raw file from a proper sized sensor and lens which is why I personally don’t see the appeal of raw from a camera phone.
I may be in the minority but I have spent 50 years in the minority so used to it by now 🙂

If you have gloves on and want the camera just say ‘hey Siri take a photo’ and the camera will come up. Then you can use the volume buttons to take pics.

Actually I came up with another workaround: I customised a watch face with the camera remote in the top right corner, so I can bop myself on the nose with the watch and the camera app opens 🙂 Didn’t actually use it today, though.

Anyway, been having more fun with the cameras, finding ProRaw quite unconvincing at the moment and hoping that Apple will improve the pipeline over time. HEIFs still looking over-processed and oriented towards looking good when scaled down to Instagram size.

Have come to love the big, bright, contrasty screen; loving the battery life, enjoying a couple of other small-not-small benefits like the lack of dark overlay in the Camera app and the area below the space bar that makes for easy scrolling, as well as having two additional focal lengths without needing to attach lenses. But having trouble fitting the bugger into things, so thinking of scaling down to the 12 Pro (if I have faith in ProRaw evolving into something more worthwhile) or the 12 (if I don’t).

One week in with the Max and it’s been an effort to extract the potential from its cameras. I’m getting there—fortunately.

Still in rather a quandary about whether to stick with the Max or swap down to the Pro, and only a couple of days left to decide.

There are only two things I’d be reluctant to give up, but they’re both quite significant. The major one is the battery life (who wouldn’t always want more battery life?) and the minor one is the low light performance of the main camera (the shorter tele on the Pro would actually suit me a little better). I suspect the Pro is plenty good enough but clearly not quite the best… from what I can glean, the main difference in practice is some minor shadow detail in low light plus a second or so longer exposure times in Night Mode.

The downside to the Max is obviously that it’s one big ol’ hunk of beef. The length is just too much for certain pockets, and the width is just too much to be able to grip it securely and use your thumb on it. (I’ve already contemplated using my wife’s old 2016 SE to do the shopping as I don’t think I could scan barcodes with the Max without dropping it.) Sure is nice for editing photos and reading with tired eyes, though.

I suspect that had I bought the Pro originally I’d have no burning desire to swap for the Max, so maybe it’s just a loss aversion bias.

Really I’d be happy if they made the things just a millimetre or so thicker so they could fit in a bigger battery and maybe even the larger camera, and make it easier to hold into the bargain. But talk about first world problems eh 🙂

Sure is nice for editing photos and reading with tired eyes, though.

Return the Max, get a Pro and pick up an iPad Pro while you are in the shop. Hope that helps 😉

Coming from a shagged 6S where the battery lasted about 3 hours use, I have absolutely no complaints about the battery on the (regular size) 12 Pro. Charges very quickly too, from a rapid USB-C charger or the new Apple wireless rapid charger. (just waiting for a decent car option to be available now!)