For the previous ten years, Tim Cook’s biggest accomplishment as Apple CEO has been vastly extra of the identical. More iPhones, extra iPhone equipment, extra apps, and a lot extra money. While the Mac and iPad have often fallen into disrepair, the corporate retains coming again with new causes to purchase its biggest hits yearly — and this 12 months’s iPhone 13 occasion is a near-perfect case examine in how far refinement can take you.

As my colleague Jon Porter factors out, the iPhone 13 is successfully the iPhone 12S, an iterative, incremental replace to final 12 months’s telephones as a substitute of one thing that feels model new.

But oh, what an replace. What firm wouldn’t dream of having the ability to say they improved the processing energy AND the battery life AND the cameras AND the shows AND the storage capability AND the connectivity AND the design in the middle of a single 12 months, all with out altering the value one bit?

In 2021, the identical $829 you’d pay final 12 months now buys you twice the storage, a whopping 2.5 further hours of quoted battery life, extra 5G bands, and an extra 175 nits of brightness over the iPhone 12, plus the 47 % bigger sensor and sensor-shift stabilization system that was beforehand solely accessible within the $1,099-and-up iPhone 12 Pro Max. A brand new cinematic video mode isn’t unique to the Pros, both (although clean 120Hz screens, a brand new tmacro images mode and ProRes video will probably be.) And whereas the corporate doesn’t supply any actual numbers to again it up, Apple claims even the iPhone 13 Mini gives you the quickest processor accessible in any smartphone in the marketplace.

Also, you may’t say the design didn’t change in any respect. While the notch nonetheless exists, it’s smaller! (I just like the iPhone 13 Pro’s blue an terrible lot, too.) The solely tradeoff I can discover this 12 months — forward of our opinions, that’s — is that the iPhone 13 lineup is oh-so-slightly thicker and heavier. You can discover our comparability charts right here.

This 12 months’s iteration is so compelling that I’m vaguely tempted to improve my completely good iPhone 12 Mini to get that higher digital camera with sensor-shift and an extra hour or so of battery life. (I most likely received’t, because the announcement means the resale worth of my current cellphone has seemingly already tanked, however I do fear Apple would possibly nonetheless reduce off the Mini subsequent 12 months as a result of reportedly lackluster gross sales.) If I had an iPhone 11 or earlier, I’d positively be preordering one on Friday.

And whereas it would really feel felony that the brand new $329 10.2-inch iPad nonetheless makes use of a Lightning connector and first-gen Apple Pencil, Apple’s nonetheless issuing an honest improve there with out asking for extra money — doubling the bottom storage from 32GB to 64GB, transferring from the A10 Fusion chip to A13 Bionic, and hopefully lastly placing an honest front-facing digital camera (12MP, vs. simply 1.2MP!) onto its entry-level pill laptop.

The story’s somewhat bit totally different with the Sixth-gen iPad Mini, thoughts, because it begins $100 greater than earlier than at $499. But the improve incentives are nonetheless sturdy: it’s a crystal-clear replace over its predecessor with a bigger and better decision 8.3-inch display regardless of its barely smaller and lighter body, with a magnetic connector to dock a 2nd-gen Apple Pencil. It’s bought the A15 Bionic chip from the brand new iPhone 13, however with the additional graphics core you’ll solely in any other case fined on the iPhone 13 Pro. The digital camera’s greater and quicker at 12MP and f/1.8 (in comparison with 8MP and f/2.4), with 4K video for the primary time, and each the Wi-Fi 6 and 5G help that the 2019 mannequin lacked. Just don’t go in search of a headphone jack.

Apple is managing all of this throughout a pandemic and a world chip scarcity, and to date there’s solely been a single indication that Tim Cook’s large manufacturing machine can’t sustain: The new Apple Watch Series 7 was rumored to be delayed as a result of manufacturing points, and whereas it reportedly overcame them, we don’t have any launch date for the brand new watch save “later this fall” and Apple’s being cagey in regards to the particulars.

A leaked spec sheet for the watch suggests it was alleged to ship in September alongside the brand new telephones, however the fantastic print says even its specs are “subject to change without notice,” and Apple didn’t reply to a request for remark in regards to the doc.

The watch is why I say this 12 months’s occasion is a practically excellent case examine: it’s not as clear why somebody would purchase the Series 7 over a reduced Series 6, regardless of the bigger and reportedly extra sturdy display. With the identical battery life and no motive to imagine there’s extra processing energy or performance, plus a late begin, it may be the one inadequate iteration this 12 months.