This Year's IPhone Photography Awards Prove How Capable Your Older IPhone Still Is
A collection of winners of the iPhone Photography Awards.
iPhone Photography AwardsFrom Portugal to Tucson, Arizona, photography enthusiasts and iPhone or iPad owners worldwide participated in the latest rendition of the iPhone Photography Awards. The winners were announced this week and will have you reconsidering just how powerful the camera set on Apple's devices can be.
Also: The best phones you can buy right now
The iPhone Photography Awards have been held annually since the launch of the first iPhone in 2007 and span 14 categories, including abstract, cityscape, portrait, and nature. Participants can submit any photo shot on an iPhone or iPad, as long as it's their own, has not been previously published, and hasn't been edited in a desktop image software. The photos can be edited on the iPhone using any iOS app.
The competition is for the title of the IPPA Photographer of the Year, with one grand prize winner receiving an iPad Air and the following top three winners each receiving an Apple Watch Series 3.
Entries are now open for the 2024 selection of the iPhone Photography Awards. Would-be participants can submit their photo and entry fee until March 31, 2024.
"Heroe" by Ivan Silva, in Mexico, won the Grand Prize. This image was shot on an iPhone 12 Pro.
Ivan Silva/iPhone Photography Awards"Oculus" by Akira Kawahata in New York City won second place in the Architecture category. The photo was shot on an iPhone 13 Pro Max.
Akira Kawahata/iPhone Photography Awards"Girl" by Sofia Ershova, in Orange County, CA, won first place in the Children category. This photo was shot on an iPhone 13 Pro.
Sofia Ershova/iPhone Photography Awards"Wonder Wheel" by Scott Galloway in Columbus, Ohio, won first place in the Nature category. This photo was shot on an iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Scott Galloway/iPhone Photography Awards"Taming Waves" by Sasa Borozan in Croatia won second place in the Photographer of the Year category. This photo was shot on an iPhone 13 Pro.
Sasa Borozan/iPhone Photography Awards"Islas Afortunadas" by Alina Rudya in Fuerteventura, Spain, won second place in the Other category. This photo was shot on an iPhone 12.
Alina Rudya/iPhone Photography Awards"Once en Rosa" by Skye Snyder in San Diego, CA, won first place in the Animals category. This photo was shot on an iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Skye Snyder/iPhone Photography Awards"Early Morning Farm" by Ton Ensing in The Netherlands won first place in the Landscape category. This photo was shot on an iPhone 12 Pro.
Ton Elsing/iPhone Photography Awards"Last night before Xmas" by Long Nguyen in Paris, France, won first place in the Travel category. This photo was shot on an iPhone 12 Pro.
Long Nguyen/iPhone Photography Awards"Bi Mo" by Jian Wang in China won second place in the People category. This photo was shot on an iPhone 8 Plus.
Jian Wang/iPhone Photography Awards"Coronavirus Confinement" by Santiago Martinez de Septien in Spain won third place in the Lifestyle category. This photo was shot on an iPhone 11 Pro.
Santiago Martinez de Septien/iPhone Photography Awards"Life in a tube-shaped building" by Jinsong Hu in China won first place in the Cityscape category. This photo was shot on an iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Jinsong Hu/iPhone Photography Awards"Majestic Bald Cypress Stand" by Pamela Jones-Morton in Tallahassee, FL, won third place in the Nature category. This photo was shot on an iPhone 11 Pro.
Pamela Jones-Morton/iPhone Photography Awards See also How to record a phone call on an iPhone How to clear the cache on your iPhone (and why you should) How to take a scrolling screenshot on Android and iPhone How to add your transit card to Apple WalletThis IPhone Trick Gives You An Alert When Your Phone Is Fully Charged
We're about to watch Apple unveil the brand-new iPhone 15 series some 16 years after the first-generation iPhone's arrival, and battery life still makes us anxious. Plus, our concerns extend further than just how long an iPhone will last and whether it'll get us through the day.
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We also need to ensure that we take care of iPhone battery health as much as we can. And we do that by charging the iPhone the right way, which means not keeping it plugged in or on the MagSafe wireless charger longer than needed.
In what follows, I'll show you a trick to alert you as soon as your phone is fully charged.
The correct way to charge your iPhoneWhether or not you use the trick below, you should take advantage of an iPhone battery setting that Apple introduced a while back to protect battery health.
Head to the Settings app, look for the Battery menu, and select Battery Health & Charging. Toggle on Optimized Battery Charging.
This is a key iPhone feature to enable if your charging routine is predictable. If you recharge overnight, for example, the iPhone will pick up your routine and always stop charging the battery when it reaches 80%. It will then finish charging right before you typically wake up, according to your alarm schedule.
How to get notified when the iPhone reaches 100%I used to have a predictable charging routing for my iPhone until the iPhone 14 Pro came out. The battery lasts about 36 hours, so I usually charge it every other day instead of nightly. That Optimized Battery Charging feature doesn't work in my favor. Therefore, I manually check the battery level before disconnecting the iPhone from the MagSafe charger.
However, there is a way to get an alert when your phone reaches a full charge, thanks to the Automation feature inside the Shortcuts app. Here's how to set it up:
The automation is ready, and it'll alert you whenever the battery reaches 100%, or any other level you set it to. You might want to set it to 95% or a different level. You can edit the automation if you need to tweak it, or disable and delete it later.
There's no point in selecting both Play Sound and Play Music. I just did it to show you what's possible. In this case, the phone plays a sound and starts playing music.
Things to considerI've selected both options as I might not hear a quick notification. But I'll certainly pay attention to music playing on my phone. However, if you're playing music on your iPhone while recharging, it might be a problem. The automation will interrupt your playlist only to restart it. Also, it's a problem if you recharge your iPhone on the go in a public place.
Secondly, I think you don't need this automation if your iPhone charging habits are predictable. The built-in optimization tool will prevent the iPhone from drawing energy after it hits 80%. In turn, this will preserve battery health.
If you enable the automation while charging overnight, that alert might wake you before your alarm goes off. Depending on how you deal with alarms, that's either an annoyance or a bonus feature.
Speaking of iPhone battery charging, I'll also remind you of a similar trick that forces the iPhone to stay on Low Power Mode all the time, which is something you might want to enable on older devices with bad battery health.
South Korean Under-30s Tend To Buy Android First, Then Switch To IPhone
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra (left) and Apple's iPhone 14 Pro
New research claims that while 85% of South Koreans aged under 30 will have first bought an Android phone, more than half then switch to Apple's iPhone.
The iPhone is already holding up well against Android in the declining US smartphone market, and it's even expanding more than rivals in China. Now new figures from Counterpoint Research show that the number of switchers to iPhone is high even in South Korea, home of Apple's largest rival, Samsung.
First-ever smartphone versus current smartphone for South Korean under-30s. Source: Counterpoint
While Counterpoint doesn't give precise figures, it says that from its survey, about 85% of South Korean smartphone users younger than 30, had an Android as their first phone. But now in that same survey, 55% were using iPhones.
"The reason why Android phones account for a very high proportion of first-time smartphone purchases in South Korea," write Counterpoint analysts in a statement, "is that most users in that age group, particularly adolescence, give priority to the preference of those with real purchasing power, such as parents, when buying their first smartphone."
Asked about their decision to switch, 32% cited performance, and 31% gave "brand image" as their priority.
Plus among those surveyed who said an iPhone was their first-ever phone, 92% of them said they still used Apple. Some 76% of those said they would not switch to Android, with 52% giving design as the reason, and 29% saying performance.
However, of users who had switched from iPhone to Android, over half said that it was because of easy-to-use features such as Samsung Pay, and Android's user interface. These users were reportedly similar in their certainty that they would not switch back.
