Which iPhone 13 is the best audio-visual! ??

Four new iPhone 13 series released

The iPhone 13 series has a better "battery life"!

The iPhone 13 series is equipped with the latest system IC chip "A15 Bionic" developed by Apple. Please read the detailed report by Mr. Iso, the editorial department, to see how the high performance is utilized in new cameras.

The A15 Bionic contributes significantly to the power management of the entire iPhone. At the presentation held earlier, Apple introduced that the four models of the iPhone 13 series have improved battery life for about one and a half to two and a half hours compared to the iPhone 12 series released last year. Even if you actually compare the old and new models and play movie / music content, you can feel that the battery life of the iPhone 13 series has improved.

I prepared iPhone 13 Pro Max and iPhone 12 Pro Max, removed the SIM card, met the conditions, and played the high resolution lossless content of Apple Music for 1 hour. As a result, the iPhone 13 Pro Max consumed "2%" of the battery, compared to the "4%" of the iPhone 12 Pro Max.

Next, I played an HDR-compatible movie for 2 hours on the Apple TV app. In both cases, the brightness of the display is set to the maximum. The iPhone 12 Pro Max reduced the battery by "16%", but the iPhone 13 Pro Max still consumed half the "8%".

I think there is a big merit in relaxing and enjoying videos and music without worrying about the battery level even when it is difficult to charge the iPhone, such as when traveling for a long time by transportation.

IPhone 13 mini to enjoy music playback comfortably

Of the four new iPhone 13, the one that I found most appealing as a "music player" is the "iPhone 13 mini." It is compact and easy to handle, and I felt that it is a highly complete portable music player that allows you to easily enjoy music streaming services such as Apple Music and Amazon Music anytime, anywhere while using 5G compatible mobile phone communication and Wi-Fi.

Needless to say, the compatibility between Apple Music, Apple's music distribution service, and the iPhone is the best. iOS 15 has two major updates related to Apple Music. Both of these are new features related to "Spatial Audio by Dolby Atmos" that allows you to enjoy a rich 3D music experience, and both make listening to music on the iPhone 13 mini fun.

First, if you listen to content that supports spatial audio in combination with an iPhone with iOS 15 and AirPods Pro / AirPods Max, you can now use the "Dynamic Head Tracking" function.

Dynamic head tracking is a function that reproduces a realistic sense of reality by localizing the sound heard from the front and surroundings to the desired position while tracking the direction in which the user is facing the face and body in real time. From the music that supports spatial audio, you can feel a richer expanse as if you were listening to it at a live venue or concert hall.

The other is the addition of an upmix function that "spatial audio" the sound of music or video content originally produced as a stereo sound source with two channels on the left and right. This is not limited to songs distributed on Apple Music, but you can also get effects with Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube audio, etc. This feature is enabled when using an iPhone with iOS 15 and AirPods Pro / AirPods Max.

The iPhone 13 mini can also be a palm-sized high-resolution music player

From June of this year, Apple Music has added content that supports high-quality streaming by lossless and high-resolution lossless. You can listen to each song in the best condition by using the accessory that connects to the Lightning terminal of iPhone 13 mini.

For music with CD quality (44.1kHz / 16bit) or sound quality up to 48kHz / 24bit, which is defined as lossless in Apple Music, earphones with a built-in DAC headphone amplifier that can be directly connected to the Lightning terminal can be handled simply. So I recommend it. Apple's genuine EarPods with Lightning is also a good earphone, but RHA's "MA650i with Lightning", which gives a high degree of sealing with silicon ear tips, is also recommended as a good earphone directly connected to Lightning.

If you connect a headphone amplifier with a built-in high-resolution USB-DAC to the Lightning-USB camera adapter and earphones / headphones that also support high-resolution, you can bring out the power of high-resolution lossless sound sources up to 192kHz / 24bit distributed by Apple Music. increase.

From this spring, major domestic mobile communication carriers have started a low-priced plan that supports 5G communication by Sub-6 method and can use 20GB of data every month. When you enjoy Apple Music music streaming outdoors, go to "Music" app settings and change the listening setting for mobile communication streaming from "Audio quality" to "High sound quality" or "High efficiency" of AAC 256kbps. If you do so, you can relax and enjoy listening to music without worrying about the amount of data consumed. If you set it to lossless, listening to an hour's album consumes about 720MB, and if it is high resolution lossless, it consumes about 2.9GB, so be careful even if you are using a large capacity plan.

Enjoy powerful video playback iPhone 13 Pro Max

For video playback, I think the iPhone 13 Pro Max, which has the largest 6.7-inch Super Retina XDR display in the series, will be the best choice. As mentioned above, it is a powerful iPhone that allows you to watch bright and colorful videos comfortably without worrying about the battery level even if you continue to watch HDR-compatible mobile movie content.

The new iPhone 13 series has improved sound quality of the built-in speaker, not just the maximum size Max. With the change in the design of the notch in all four models, the shape and arrangement of the opening of the front top speaker has changed. Perhaps by retuning the optimizations associated with this design change in various places, the localization of the sound image has become clearer. When you listen to music on Apple Music, the balance between the left and right sounds feels more natural. Music content that supports spatial audio has a refreshing view in the depth and height directions. The immersive feeling of music videos distributed on Apple Music will be further enhanced.

What is the effect of ProMotion technology installed in the Pro series?

For the first time, the high-end iPhone 13 Pro series uses ProMotion technology, which automatically changes the refresh rate (frequency of screen rewrites) between 10Hz and 120Hz according to the content displayed on the display.

Since there are still few video contents and games for mobile devices that support 120Hz, there are only a limited number of situations where you can realize "smooth video display", which is one of the major advantages of 120Hz drive, but there are still situations where the benefits of ProMotion technology can be conveyed. There are others.

For example, the flicker of characters when scrolling quickly on a web page with a large amount of characters or an e-book page can be suppressed. If you frequently read news content and ebooks on your iPhone, we highly recommend you to try the 13 Pro series, as it will reduce eye strain.

It also reduces battery consumption by limiting the refresh rate to a minimum of 10Hz when there is little movement on the display. It can be said that ProMotion technology has contributed to improving the battery life of the 13 Pro series.

I tried using a new MagSafe compatible leather wallet that supports the "Search" app

Finally, let's change the topic a bit and introduce the new MagSafe-compatible iPhone leather wallet released by Apple at the same time as the iPhone 13 series.

The new MagSafe-enabled leather wallet now has the ability to be explored using Apple's "Find" network.

When you attach the leather wallet to your iPhone for the first time, the animation will start. As you follow the guidance and proceed with the setup, you will be registered as a user's "device" in the iOS "Find" network.

When you open the Find app, your leather wallet will appear in your list of devices with your iPhone or iPad. Tap to open the menu details, so set "Notify when removed" to on. Then, when the leather wallet has been removed from the iPhone for more than 1 minute, a notification will be sent to the iPhone to promptly notify you. This is a useful feature if you inadvertently lose only your leather wallet.

If you also turn on the "Show phone number" function in the settings, you can wait for the person who picked it up to contact you. The loss prevention tracker "AirTag" released in the spring uses a mechanism that allows the person who picks up the AirTag to hold an NFC-compatible smartphone over the AirTag to convey the phone number and email address. For new leather wallets, the registered phone number will be displayed when the person who picks it up attaches the wallet to the iPhone. The threshold may be a little higher as you will need an iPhone 12 series or later device that supports MagSafe. Of course, you can also look up the current location of the lost wallet on the map of the app and search for it on your own.

A growing range of MagSafe-enabled accessories, including non-Apple third-party products such as cases and battery packs. The iPhone 13 series is not compatible with the old and new cases because the positions of the buttons and silent switches on the side are slightly different from the iPhone 12 series. Also, since the size of the camera unit on the back is a little larger, it may not be possible to divert accessories that occupy a large area on the back.

We also look forward to the birth of new MagSafe accessories that can be devised to enjoy audio-visual content.

Author: Atsushi Yamamoto

Journalist and writer. He became a freelancer after working as a web editor and reporter for an audio-visual magazine. Since he has been interviewing the electronics show "IFA" held in Berlin, Germany every year, he is particularly familiar with the latest situation related to smart home appliances and IoT in Europe. He has a deep knowledge of audio-visual fields and covers a wide range from high resolution to music distribution, 4K and VOD. Taking advantage of his fluent English and French, he handles many events and interviews with developers from Japan to overseas.