You don’t need me to tell you the iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max are the most advanced iPhones ever. Because of course they are.

What you’re likely wondering is whether or not Apple’s latest and greatest are worthy of the “pro” name. If you’ve read the entirety of this review, it’s pretty obvious they are.

With a versatile triple-camera system, noticeably longer battery life, powerful A13 Bionic performance, and even better display, the iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max rightfully earn their premium pricing.

There are for sure arguments to be made that Apple isn’t pushing the envelope on design again, instead choosing to reuse the iPhone X’s two-year-old look, with just a change to the glass texture and camera bump.

But anyone who thinks innovation can only be purposeful if it looks new on the surface doesn’t really understand what iPhones are: powerful devices that enable you to do more, not just on day one or in six months, but years down the road.

How many Android phones get four years of software updates and quickly? I can’t name a single one, but the iPhone 6S, a four-year-old device, is getting iOS 13, which bodes well for the iPhone 11 Pros. How many other phones can add 4-5 hours of battery life without making them significantly larger? Mmhmm.

The iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max don’t have a new sparkly color the way the Note 10 does or a notch-free display like on the OnePlus 7 Pro, but aesthetic fades fast. Nor do they have any unproven technologies such as foldable displays or 5G — I’ll wait until this stuff isn’t half baked, thank you very much.

At the end of the day, the things that matter most aren’t how the device looks and feels (most people will put a case or screen protector on their phones, anyway), but whether it works reliably, and the iPhone 11 Pros do.

“Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like,” Steve Jobs famously said. “People think it’s this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

It’s not enough to have great hardware and dank software (or vice versa) — you need both to be best and the iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max prove Apple still has the magic touch.