[floatboth]

This is Apple's "Zen+" style generation: a mild refresh when you don't need anything more (and that "more" needs more time to get ready).

> These are performance gains are generally paltry despite a huge increase from 11.8B transistors to 15B.

But all of those billions went into the Neural Engine. Look, Google is doing the same thing with Tensor SoC. Shoving more neural nets into the computational photography pipeline is priority number one for the smartphone giants because better camera systems are what likely drives a lot of new smartphone sales.

[HelixEndeavor]

Precisely. I watched the live event, and like 80% of their time on the iPhone 13 range was spent on the new camera features (cinematic mode, sensor shift stabilization, native ProRes support, etc.)

They're reaching a point of seriously competing with entry level DSLR and mirrorless offerings for beginner filmmakers.