Some things were, however, much more obvious. If you've used an XS or XS Max before, you basically know what you expect in terms of look and feel — not that there aren't any differences. After years of fumbling slippery, slick glass iPhones, the matte finish Apple used for the Pros seem like a somewhat helpful touch. (More than anything, though, they just feel good.) The new green finish is a nice touch too, though it's so muted it hardly really counts as "green." Still, after years of expensive iPhones that largely came in the same colors, I'm pleased Apple decided to mix it up a just a little. Can we do better than earth tones next time, though?

This is also the first time in years that Apple left 3D Touch out of its most expensive smartphones. You won't miss it. The company learned with the iPhone XR last year that it could replicate the feature's value with just a long-press on the screen instead of a pressure-sensitive push, so out it went.

Even after just a bit of hands-on time, the iPhone Pro's three main cameras seem like a big improvement over what we got in previous models. That's mostly because of the extra flexibility this new wide-angle cameras -- these are pretty commonplace in higher-end Android devices, and Apple finally decided to embrace the change. We obviously couldn't pull any sample photos off the iPhone Pros, but Apple's interface work here is impressive; when you're shooting with the standard wide camera, you see that your field of view actually extends behind the settings and camera controls, to signify you can see more than what you currently can. And while I was using the on-screen dial to finely set my focal length, I didn't notice any shuttering as I switched between cameras.