The promise of global broadband is an attractive one and a worthy one from a ‘civilization’ standpoint, with the entire global community able to communicate with each other, sharing ideas, and bringing to light the richness of cultural diversity.  Of course there are some drawbacks, such as a lack of individuality as that diversity melds into a global uniformity that lacks the cultural identity that made them unique, but that is for a different discussion.  Global networks have been around for many years, starting out as telegraph communication networks based on the Morse system developed in the late 1830’s and championed by railway companies that used them to both communicate and to activate signaling systems used to prevent train collisions.  During the mid-1850’s submarine cables were made available, connecting the continents.  
Twenty-five years later analog telephones became available on a point-to-point basis but eventually morphed into an exchange based system that were connected via trunk lines to become networks and eventually was converted from analog to the digital systems used today.  IP networks opened the internet to billions of users and the GSM mobile network became even larger, expanding on the PSTN (Public Service Telephone Network).  However each network type has its drawbacks, some requiring copper or optical fiber connections between nodes, while others need many towers due to topographical issues that block signals, making it difficult or expensive for such networks to reach isolated customers.
Satellite networks offer a chance for potential connection availability for anyone with an open view of the sky, but in order for a satellite network to be fully available there has to be a vast number of satellites in what is called low-earth orbit, so there is a satellite overhead at all times.  LEO satellite networks have not proven to be economically viable for the average user and satellite networks such as Iridium (IRDM) and Globalstar (GSAT) have not quite reached the cost levels that would make them available to a large swath of the global population, which is why Elon Musk came up with the idea of Starlink (pvt), a mesh network of LEO satellites that will blanket the earth by the end of 2023.
Starlink’s almost 3,000 working LEO satellites create a high-speed, low-latency broadband network that costs $110/month (after a one-time hardware fee of $600) for regular internet service or $500/month for business users ($2,500 hardware fee).  As the satellites are in orbit at 341.75 miles above the earth, as opposed to geostationary satellites, which are ~22,236 miles above the surface, during the time it takes for a signal to reach a geostationary satellite and return (~240ms) the Starlink satellites can receive and send 70 signals, resulting in a latency of ~20ms vs. 600+ for geostationary satellites.  The antenna, which is ~13” or 24” depending on your applications is mounted on the roof, pole or wall, and is self-aiming, with the only requirement being an open view of the sky.  The antenna connects directly to a router (supplied).
The Starlink satellites travel at ~16,776 mph, orbiting the globe in between 90 and 110 minutes and are organized in three layers or shells that are at three different heights above the ground, allowing not only communication between satellites of a particular level, but also between levels.  The Starlink satellites are designed to be small, allowing a typical launch to carry between 34 and 60 satellites, leaving room for potential failures, and after 62 launches with 3,293 total satellites in the payloads, 3,025 are in orbit with 2,989 in operation.  The rest are either not working properly, have lost propulsive capabilities, have reentered the atmosphere or are in a decaying orbit for a 96.77% operational success rate and one that has improved markedly from early launches (see Figure 2).
Of course this all sounds wonderful but it is a bit more complex than the Starlink press might lead one to believe.  Mr. Musk’s has plans for as many as 42,000 satellites in order to get full global coverage (12,000 in the initial 3 shell project), which means the full roll-out will take a considerable amount of time and money.  Earlier this year one launch of 49 satellites ran into a geomagnetic storm which disabled 40 of the satellites, which are said to cost ~$500,000 each, and while the cost/unit will likely continue to decline, the cost of ~39,000 more satellites could result in less coverage or higher prices for consumers.  As to the service itself, a report earlier this year indicated that the Starlink consumer service median download speed was 104.97MB/s with upload at 12.04MB/s as compared to the median for broadband providers of 131.3MB/s download and 19.5MB/s upload, although it is faster than other satellite networks.  That said, it varies considerably by location, with Starlink ahead in a number of countries.
Given that Mr. Musk has estimated the cost to fully build out the Starlink network to require an additional $20b to $30b, aside from Mr. Musk’s personal fortune, the company is always looking for government funding to offset the cost of the system and the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, an FCC program established in January 2020 to bring broadband to over 5m homes and businesses that have been unable to gain voice and broadband service with at least 25MB/s.  With $20.4b to be awarded over 10 years the FCC is auctioning off blocks of locations in auctions, with the winners required to meet a number of performance requirements. 
SpaceX was one of two winners (LTD Broadband (pvt) was the other) in the $9.2b auction that took place about a year and a half ago, but the FCC has issued a decision that concludes that neither winner would be able to provide the service given the requirements.  Starlink’s winning bid would have provided the company with $885.5m to provide 100MB/s/20MB/s service to 642,925 locations across 15 states and while the FFC stated “Starlink’s technology has real promise. But the question before us was whether to publicly subsidize its still developing technology for consumer broadband—which requires that users purchase a $600 dish—with nearly $900 million in universal service funds until 2032.  After careful legal, technical, and policy review, we are rejecting these applications.  Consumers deserve reliable and affordable high-speed broadband.  We must put scarce universal service dollars to their best possible use as we move into a digital future that demands ever more powerful and faster networks.  We cannot afford to subsidize ventures that are not delivering the promised speeds or are not likely to meet program requirements.”
Starlink is not going down easy and has filed an Application for Review with the FCC, essentially asking for a review of the decision on the grounds that it was flawed in both policy and law and it contained data that was off the record and ‘cherry-picked’, showing the FCC’s bias toward fiber, and that under the funding rules it is not required to meet the RDOF speed requirements until 2025.  Strangely the FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr agreed with Starlink, citing the faith that other government agencies have in the Starlink network including a recent $1.9b deal with the Air Force to provide internet service at military bases and that it would cost ~$3b to run fiber to the same areas that would be served by Starlink.  No date has been set for the review, but we expect there will be much in the way of legal fireworks before it is all sorted out, although we expect Starlink to continue its launch plans regardless of the outcome.
 

We have mentioned that Samsung Display (pvt) has been aggressively working toward reducing the cost of its QD/OLED panels, which currently represent its only large panel OLED competition to LG Display’s (LPL) WOLED displays, which are the dominant form of that display mode. As LG Display has been mass producing WOLED large panel displays since 2012 and Samsung Display has been producing QD/OLED displays for less than a year, LGD has the cost advantage, especially from the perspective of making process refinements that would reduce production costs.  That said, SDC’s process, both for the TFT layer and the OLED layer are different than those used by LG Display, which makes direct process comparisons a bit like apples and oranges.
The TFT process steps used for QD/OLED, which are similar in that they use the same photolithographic processes as would be used for WOLED displays, but require more mask steps to create the structures needed to drive the QD/OLED display.  This makes the process slower, more complex, meaning more chance for issues, and more costly.  SDC has been working toward reducing the number of mask steps in order to reduce the overall QD/OLED production cost.
Considering the amount of time SDC has been in actual mass production with the QD/OLED process, as is typical of new display production processes, yields started out very low, with more than 50% of the displays having to be scrapped, but in recent months SDC has indicated that yields have improved significantly, first to 75% and more recently to 85%, a very significant improvement.  That said, it gets progressively harder to make yield improvements as yields increase, as process improvements tend to be smaller, and SDC’s goal of bringing yield up to 90% by year-end will likely take as much or more effort than the improvement from 75% to 85%.  One  way this can be done is by using MMG (Multi-mode glass), a process by which different size panels are processed on a single Gen 8.5 sheet, rather than all being of the same size.  This can improve the substrate efficiency (reducing wasted substrate), although it can take more time to process.
The goal of all of these process and yield improvement goals is to lower the overall cost of the QD/OLED panels to give them a better chance to compete against LG Display’s WOLED panels and Mini-LED LCD panels from a variety of panel producers, particularly to gain favor with parent Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), whose potential deal to purchase 2m OLED panels for a new Samsung OLED TV line with LG Display fell through.  This leaves Samsung with only the relatively small number of QD/OLED TVs it is able to purchase from SDC, which barely makes a dent in its overall TV line.  If SDC is able to bring down the price to a point at which the panels become more attractive to parent Samsung Electronics, SDC will be able to justify expanding production capacity for QD/OLED in 2023/2024.  However if they are not able to bring down the QD/OLED panel cost sufficiently, we expect Samsung Electronics will lose interest and focus its attention on Mini-LED, quantum dots, a micro-LED in 2023/2024.
OMDIA has made some projections as to the cost of producing QD/OLED panels at SDC, which indicates how aggressive the SDC goals are.  If they are met, they will bring down costs to or below those of the WOLED process, and since the cost of WOLED panels was the reason for the failure of the Samsung/LG Display OLED deal, they will become quite attractive to Samsung Electronics.  The goal is to reduce the cost of panel production from 1H ’22 by 40% by year-end, which would also represent a greater than 60% reduction from the cost a year ago, and while we cannot confirm that the OMDIA estimates are the same as those used by SDC, they would seem to be getting the panel costs to or close to a competitive price point.  Not an easy job for SDC and not a lot of time to do it, but a decision about adding new capacity must be made soon if capital is to be allocated and equipment is to be ordered, especially given the relatively long lead times for more specialized tools so the clock is ticking.

While it is hard to put much faith behind estimates out 5 years in the CE space, we do commend those that are willing to make such predictions, despite the fact that once they are public record they are open to recall in later years, which can lead to a bit of apologetic behavior if they are considerably different from the reality at that later date.  That said, if Yole Group is willing to put 2027 numbers into the ether, we believe they should be looked at. We summarize their estimates for smartphone units broken down by network technology below:

​Four years ago the European Commission ruled that between 2011 and 2016 Qualcomm (QCOM) had paid Apple billions of dollars to gain exclusivity as the supplier to the iPhone and iPad product lines and fined the company $1b, leading to a very extended appeal process that seems to have finally ended. The recent ruling, which stated that “A number of procedural irregularities affected Qualcomm’s rights of defense and invalidates the Commission’s analysis of the conduct alleged against Qualcomm,” all leading to the conclusion that it was not proven that the Qualcomm payments reduced Apple’s incentive to switch to other suppliers during the 2014 and 2015 years.
The EU has been considering appealing the decision in Europe’s highest court, the EU Court of Justice, but it seems that EU regulators have decided not to appeal the decision, leaving Qualcomm off the hook for the $991m fine.  The current ruling left little in terms of room for an appeal, as the judges were considerably critical of the way in which the EU handled the prosecution, which was part of the EU’s crackdown on big technology companies that included a billion dollar fine for Google (GOOG) and investigations into the practices of Facebook (FB) and Amazon (AMZN).  Next week the General Court will rule on a challenge to the ~$4.4b fine also imposed on Google under the allegation that the company used the Android OS to keep competition at bay.

​As we have noted previously, there have been issues surrounding the production of displays for the iPhone 14 series this year, with questions as to BOE (200725.CH) status with Apple generally, and problems that LG Display (LPL) was having with the production of LTPO (Low-temperature Poly-Oxide) displays, which are used in the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max.  Given that Samsung Display (pvt) has been producing LTPO displays for a number of customers, including parent Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) since August 2020, they have considerable experience in that display production process and have supplied a number of smartphone brands with such displays, including last year’s iPhone 13 Pro Max.
According to recent industry estimates, Apple has ordered over 17m iPhone 14 units from its display suppliers through the end of August and is expected to order ~16.5m units this month.  With delivery dates of 9/16 for all models other than the iPhone 14+ (10/7/22) we assume the company expects it has sufficient inventory to meet pre-order deliveries that are similar to last year.  That said, Samsung Display ordered additional module process equipment last month and this month for its production facilities in Vietnam, with confirmed orders from at least three local Korean suppliers, AP Systems (265520.KS), HB Solutions (297890.KS), and Philoptics (161580.KS) totaling over $40m.  We expect that the popularity of the iPhone Pro and Pro Max, and the production limitations at LG Display, will skew SDC’s share of iPhone 14 family display share higher than expected, especially as they participate in the production of displays for all four models, although we expect the highest margins (and their biggest focus) is on the LTPO models, which seem to be getting most of the pre-orders (see “iPhone Sells in China Despite Criticism” above).

​Apple (AAPL) is considering adding memory products sourced from Yangtze Memory Technologies (state), a Hubei Province based company we have mentioned a number of times, particularly in reference to the company’s efforts to replace as much US made equipment in their semiconductor process fabs as possible with Chinese sourced tools (05/10/21),  our note on the investigation of China’s “Big Fund” management company (07/29/22), which has funded much of China’s semiconductor efforts, and Foxconn’s (2354.TT) attempt to purchase a 10% stake in Tsinghua Unigroup (state), which would give it more direct access to UNISOC (pvt) and YMTC (08/10/22).
While the company is not on the US Commerce Department’s ‘entity’ list, there has been some political discussion concerning the company’s ties to Tsinghua University, a state run institution that is said to have a number of laboratories that are researching defense related projects.  YMTC began producing 64 layer 3D NAND in 2019 and has moved to 128 layer using a 20nm node, but unlike SMIC (688981.CH) and Fujian Jinhua IC (state) the company remains off of the DOC list, with support from a number of global semiconductor associations (SEMI.org, SIA, ITIF, etc.), while a number of think tanks and Congressmen have suggested the company’s ties to the Chinese military should warrant its inclusion under the terms of the 2018 Export Reform Control Act.  Last month rumors surfaced that pressure from Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo pushed congressional committees to examine the company, China’s largest memory producer, to see whether Congress would support its inclusion to the entities list.
Apple is said to be considering the company’s products for use in some iPhones assembled and sold in China, with no intention of their use in products that leave the Mainland, but members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee have suggested that “Apple will effectively be transferring knowledge and knowhow to YMTC that will supercharge its capabilities and help the Chinese Communist Party achieve its national goals.  While we expect that if Apple were to source NAND from YMTC, there would be some technical communication between the two, especially given Apple’s high quality control standards, but with much of iPhone assembly done in China, Chinese technology spies would already have access to much of Apple’s design technology, and could reverse engineer much of what exists in an iPhone, so the panic concerning Apple sourcing YMTC NAND seems a bit overly dramatic. 
From the perspective of broadly not wanting to help the Chinese semiconductor effort in any way, including the purchase of any components, adding YMTC to the entities list would slow the Chinse semiconductor industry’s growth to a degree, but the politics around anti-China sentiment, especially concerning semiconductors, seems to give politicians a platform that is hard to counter without seeming anti-American or anti-worker.  While there is certainly a very legitimate goal in not supporting the expansion of the Chinese military effort, Apple’s purchase of YMTC NAND flash is going to do little to move the needle in China’s ability to produce ICBMs and other military equipment.  If US politicians are so concerned about the development of China’s semiconductor efforts, perhaps a more unified vote (68 for/32 against) and less resistance to the recently passed CHIPs Bill would have shown China they have a cohesive adversary in the semiconductor space rather than a bunch of self-serving politicians.

  Alabama: Shelby (R-AL), Nay                  Tuberville (R-AL), Nay
 Alaska:      Murkowski (R-AK), Yea           Sullivan (R-AK), Yea
 Arizona:    Kelly (D-AZ), Yea                    Sinema (D-AZ), Yea
 Arkansas:  Boozman (R-AR), Nay              Cotton (R-AR), Nay
 California: Feinstein (D-CA), Yea              Padilla (D-CA), Yea
 Colorado:  Bennet (D-CO), Yea                  Hickenlooper (D-CO), Yea
 Connecticut: Blumenthal (D-CT), Yea        Murphy (D-CT), Yea
 Delaware:  Carper (D-DE), Yea                  Coons (D-DE), Yea
 Florida:      Rubio (R-FL), Nay                              Scott (R-FL), Nay
 Georgia:    Ossoff (D-GA), Yea                  Warnock (D-GA), Yea
 Hawaii:      Hirono (D-HI), Yea                  Schatz (D-HI), Yea
 Idaho:        Crapo (R-ID), Yea                    Risch (R-ID), Yea
 Illinois:       Duckworth (D-IL), Yea            Durbin (D-IL), Yea
 Indiana:     Braun (R-IN), Nay                              Young (R-IN), Yea
 Iowa:         Ernst (R-IA), Nay                     Grassley (R-IA), Yea
 Kansas:      Marshall (R-KS), Nay               Moran (R-KS), Nay
 Kentucky:  McConnell (R-KY), Yea           Paul (R-KY), Nay
 Louisiana: Cassidy (R-LA), Nay                Kennedy (R-LA), Nay
 Maine:       Collins (R-ME), Yea                 King (I-ME), Yea
 Maryland: Cardin (D-MD), Yea                 Van Hollen (D-MD), Yea
 Massachusetts: Markey (D-MA), Yea                  Warren (D-MA), Yea
 Michigan:  Peters (D-MI), Yea                              Stabenow (D-MI), Yea
 Minnesota: Klobuchar (D-MN), Yea           Smith (D-MN), Yea
 Mississippi: Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Nay        Wicker (R-MS), Yea
 Missouri:   Blunt (R-MO), Yea                             Hawley (R-MO), Nay
 Montana:  Daines (R-MT), Yea                  Tester (D-MT), Yea
 Nebraska:  Fischer (R-NE), Nay                 Sasse (R-NE), Yea
 Nevada:     Cortez Masto (D-NV), Yea       Rosen (D-NV), Yea
 New Hampshire: Hassan (D-NH), Yea       Shaheen (D-NH), Yea
 New Jersey: Booker (D-NJ), Yea                Menendez (D-NJ), Yea
 New Mexico: Heinrich (D-NM), Yea           Lujan (D-NM), Yea
 New York: Gillibrand (D-NY), Yea            Schumer (D-NY), Yea
 North Carolina: Burr (R-NC), Nay            Tillis (R-NC), Yea
 North Dakota: Cramer (R-ND), Nay                    Hoeven (R-ND), Nay
 Ohio:          Brown (D-OH), Yea                 Portman (R-OH), Yea
 Oklahoma: Inhofe (R-OK), Nay                 Lankford (R-OK), Nay
 Oregon:     Merkley (D-OR), Yea               Wyden (D-OR), Yea
 Pennsylvania: Casey (D-PA), Yea              Toomey (R-PA), Nay
 Rhode Island: Reed (D-RI), Yea                 Whitehouse (D-RI), Yea
 South Carolina: Graham (R-SC), Yea                  Scott (R-SC), Nay
 South Dakota: Rounds (R-SD), Yea           Thune (R-SD), Nay
 Tennessee: Blackburn (R-TN), Nay             Hagerty (R-TN), Nay
 Texas:        Cornyn (R-TX), Yea                 Cruz (R-TX), Nay
 Utah:         Lee (R-UT), Nay                       Romney (R-UT), Yea
 Vermont:   Leahy (D-VT), Yea                             Sanders (I-VT), Nay
 Virginia:    Kaine (D-VA), Yea                             Warner (D-VA), Yea
 Washington: Cantwell (D-WA), Yea                    Murray (D-WA), Yea
 West Virginia: Capito (R-WV), Yea           Manchin (D-WV), Yea
 Wisconsin: Baldwin (D-WI), Yea                Johnson (R-WI), Nay
 Wyoming: Barrasso (R-WY), Nay              Lummis (R-WY), Nay
 

​The iPhone is popular in China, although in most quarters, its share lags behind a number of Chinese smartphone brands.  The partial demise of what was China’s formerly best-selling brand Huawei (pvt) a result of US trade sanctions, has given Apple a bit of room to gain former Huawei customers as iPhone buyers, although other Chinese brands have also gained share for the same reason.  The lower price of the iPhone 13 have even more incentive to Chinese buyers when it was released last year but there is a certain status associated with the US brand in China and that is also a contributor to the iPhone’s success and share on the Mainland over the last two years.
That success seems to have continued with the recent release of the iPhone 14 line, which is available for pre-order in China.  According to numbers from JD.com (9618.HK), who hosts the Apple store, just 24 hours after the iPhone 14 line became available for pre-order, 2m orders had been placed, despite the fact that no price reductions relative to last year’s models were given.  In fact it was noted that some configurations were seeing mark-ups over standard pricing.  Significant was the fact that the two iPhone 14 models that the iPhone Pro Max and the iPhone Pro, the two of the four models that contain the new A16 Bionic chip and are the most expensive models, received the most orders, 1m and .8m respectively, while the iPhone Plus and the iPhone 14 models received only 10% combined.
This all comes as the iPhone 14 line received a lukewarm reception from critics, with little innovation, both from the technology and the design, from many reviewers, with which we agree.  It would seem that relative to Huawei’s most recent offerings, which do not offer 5G, the iPhone offers both more valued features and the cache of status to Chinese buyers, especially in the premium smartphone segment.  Complaints about the fact that Apple’s China site was slow or unable to process payments during the onset of the pre-order period seemed to create a bit of a stir, but the with that number of orders going through, roughly matching the popular iPhone 13’s first 24 hours last year, the site issues did not seem much of a deterrent.

​A seemingly kinder and gentler US Bureau of Industry & Security issued an ‘interim final rule’ that revised Export Administration Regulations concerning the release of certain technology and software in the context of standards setting and development in standards organizations.  The ruling is the result of considerable pushback from industry stakeholders concerning clarification of the government’s stance on what are called ‘low-level’ technology releases to those on the entities list, particularly Huawei and its affiliates. 
In June of last year the BIS called for public comments concerning the release of ‘certain items’ to ‘certain entities’ in a standards organizational environment, which has been a sore spot given Huawei’s vast collection of IP and hardware relating to wireless technology, leaving many to wonder whether they were or could be in the future, violating US trade restrictions with Huawei when participating in standards discussions.  The ruling is said to ensure that US stakeholders are fully engaged in international standards organizations and are not limited by a lack of clarification as to what technology might need a BIS license, while ‘preventing technology transfers that harm our national security.’  In other words, you can work with Huawei on standards because without them the standards are not real ‘standards’ because they would not necessarily include China, although this doesn’t include others on the entities list.  Or…rules are rules until they no longer serve our purpose…
 

Semi.org is a global industry association that represents electronics manufacturing and design supply chain covering ~1.3m industry workers and more than 2,500 members.  The organization tracks various aspects of semiconductor industry spending and publishes forecasts and data for its members and occasionally, the public.  The organization just released expectations for semiconductor equipment spending for this year and next, estimating 14.5% growth this year and 2.8% growth in 2023.  Based on their expectations for 2022 the implication would be for 2H sales of $66.39b, up 29.9% over the 1st half and up 22.5% y/y. At 56.5% of the full year estimate, the year is a bit weighted toward 2H as the typical 2H ratio of full year sales is 52.4%.
Almost all of the growth in 2023 will be from Foundry & Logic equipment, which is expected to grow from 55.2b to 59.5b, while memory/storage and Assembly & Packaging tool sales are expected to decline modestly from 7.8B to 7.7b, with Test & Measurement tool sales increasing slightly by 0.4%.  On a regional basis, Taiwan regained 1st place over China in 2Q after falling behind Mainland equipment sales in 4Q of last year, although both regions had almost identical spending in 2Q.  As we have previously noted, Chinese foundries have accelerated purchases of lithography equipment in anticipation of the US tightening restrictions on DUV tools following restrictions on more advanced node EUV tools.  While China continues to expand its semiconductor foundry business at a rapid pace, we expect the value of foundry and locic equipment sales will see less growth as US trade restrictions further limit tool purchases to mature nodes, while Taiwan and Korea are able to purchase those higher priced but higher value tools without restriction.

The long-awaited Apple (AAPL) event’ took place yesterday, and while it was full of adjectives about the nuances the company brought to this year’s iPhone, if we had to characterize the overall iPhone 14 line this year, we would have to say that the changes were utilitarian rather than revolutionary.  That said, we summarize what we see as the noteworthy changes, if any, below by looking at the differences between last year’s iPhone 13 family and the new iPhone 14 family.
iPhone 14 – The iPhone 14, which is expected to be released on 9/16/22, will sell for $799, the same initial price of the iPhone 13 (128GB).  The size of the new model is the same as the previous one, other than being 0.1mm thinner and it weighs 2 grams less, so there is little to shout about here.  The 6.1” OLED display is the same as is the Apple A15 Bionic chipset, other than a 5 core Apple graphics processing unit as opposed to last year’s 4 core.  The cameras are basically the same, as are most of the other features, with the addition of the satellite SMS emergency messaging system that we noted earlier this week, although (hold on to your seats) the case color purple has been added, although it replaces last year’s pink and green offerings.
The iPhone 14+ is a new member of the iPhone family so there is no comparison, so we compare it to the new iPhone 14.  The iPhone 14+ is 19.4% larger than the iPhone 14 and is 25 grams (18%) heavier (like adding the weight of a mouse) and has a larger (6.7”) screen that has a higher resolution with a similar pixel density.  The iPhone 14+ will sell for $899 and will be available October 7.
The iPhone 14 Pro, which will sell for $999 and is essentially the same size and weight of last year’s  iPhone 13 Pro, and while they both have a 6.1”OLED display, this year’s model has a brighter screen that is based on LTPO (Low-temperature poly oxide) which reduces power consumption.  But the main difference is the Apple A16 Bionic chipset (4nm node) that replaces the A15 Bionic (5nm node) from last year.  The iPhone 14 and the iPhone 14+ both use last year’s A15 Bionic chipset. While it is early for benchmark tests, it should be a bit faster than last year’s model and comparable Qualcomm (QCOM) Snapdragon chipsets but by how much and whether it will be noticeable by users is a question that will take some time to answer.  One of the cameras in the iPhone 14 Pro has also been upgraded from 12MP to 48MP with the Pro becoming available 9/16/22.  The iPhone 14 Pro Max will sell for $1,099 and is the top of the iPhone line, with a 6.7” OLED LTPO display and the same upgraded chipset and camera as in the previous model, so the real difference between the Pro and the Pro Max is the larger screen size, for which they charge $100 more.
Aside from the satellite SOS capabilities that we mentioned in an earlier note, there is one improvement of note in this year’s models.  There is an obsession among smartphone fans concerning the area in which cameras are located, typically called a notch.  The notch began back in 2017 with the Sharp (6753.JP)  Aquos S2 and Apple picked up the idea with the iPhone X that same year.  Over the last few years notches became larger as more cameras and sensors were added and then the tide turned away, with fans seeing the larger notch taking up valuable screen real estate.  Apple changed the notch in the iPhone 14 Pro & Pro Max to a ‘pill’ shape, obviously smaller than a full notch, and rather than waste the space created what they call the “Dynamic Island”, a notification window that sits over the cut out.  Apple seems to have spent a great deal of time and effort designing the notification window shapes and formats for various message types, but it does allow the user to avoid having to move between applications to check status, as the “DI” can remain open without affecting other applications.  It’s a handy feature that puts the notch to good use and seems far better than the screen bar notifications that are typical with Android phones.
That said, there was little else to get excited about, at least from a hardware standpoint, so the release seems to be pretty much as we expected, with little change to the phones themselves.  Its hard to get excited about something that is essentially the same as last year’s model, but we are sure Apple fans will find things to crow about and the endless stream of slick advertisements showing hip folk doing cool things with their iPhones will surely attract attention, but short of the ‘Dynamic Island’, which is a nice feature, and a better camera set-up, there is little to move customers to upgrade from the iPhone 13 series in our view.