The iPhone 13 family are all excellent phones; we've especially loved the Pro Max, thanks to dat battery. While better battery across the board makes the iPhone 13 family easy to recommend, there are still features we would have loved to see added this year. None of these would drastically change the iPhone 13, but hey, we're still going to nit-pick, because why not. Maybe next time.
Always on display
We may have gotten ProMotion displays on the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max, but one of the other major display related rumours from this year didn't pan out: Apple didn't add an always on display.
Many Android phones now feature an always on display. Even when the phone is sleeping, they present a stripped-down interface that typically displays the time, notification icons, and battery level.
This kind of feature would be enabled by the use of OLED displays, which are featured in the entire iPhone 13 family. OLED displays can light up pixels on an individual basis (rather than needing to turn on the entire display) so the impact of just revealing a few details shouldn't be overly taxing on battery life.
In addition, the ProMotion display found on the top-tier iPhones can set refresh rate as low as 10Hz, which would have further helped save battery while enabling always on functionality.
A more fingerprint resistant fingerprint finish on the Pro models
The iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max are Apple's most premium handsets, featuring a lux stainless steel frame. Unfortunately, it's a massive fingerprint magnet. While Apple has mastered the art of making fingerprint resistant glass, the same isn't the case when it comes to stainless steel, and nothing betrays the look of a two grand phone more than a patina of smudges.
USB C charging
With Apple steadily transitioning almost every iPad model over to USB C, it doing the same for the iPhone 13 family would have been a welcome change. Lightning naturally still does the job, but I'd honestly love to be able to think about one less cable.
Reverse wireless charging
Reverse wireless charging is nifty tech we've seen in a few Android phones that lets you use their wireless charging mechanism to charge another device. While far from essential, being able to top up your AirPods using your iPhone's spare battery capacity would have been a nice little treat - especially considering every iPhone 13 now has a bigger battery.
In-screen fingerprint reader
An in-screen fingerprint reader was one of the other big iPhone 13 rumours that didn't pan out this year. Given many of us are still wearing masks, having an alternative to Face ID that doesn't require owning an Apple Watch would have been nice.
Alex Choros
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