iPhone 16

but are we overestimating the impact of Apple Intelligence?

Another week has come and gone – and for me, that means I’ve had another week using my iPhone 16 Pro Max which means I’ve had some more thoughts both good and bad about using it.

Is the Camera Control button useful or a mistake and are we hanging too much on the eventual arrival of Apple Intelligence? Rather than it being its defining feature should we be thinking of it more as the icing on an already tasty cake?

iPhone 16 – is it for you?

Since the phone was unveiled around a month or so ago, much has been said about Apple’s dull lack of innovation and design flair.

Now, I am not here to defend Apple for their every move, but I think a little dash of perspective is perhaps required to balance things out. If we look year-on-year from the 15 to the 16 then I would be the first to agree that not that much has changed.

But surely, that is not the target audience for this phone. In the U.K. (and I believe it’s very similar in the U.S.) most iPhone users neither change annually nor buy their phones outright. Most people, myself included until only a few years ago, get their new phones on carrier deals.

Those deals tend to be spread over two, three or even four years. This means if you are coming to the iPhone 16 from an iPhone 12, 13 or 14 then the changes are going to be huge.

I still have my iPhone 14 Pro – which was surprisingly my first Pro iPhone and the changes are blindingly obvious.

Changing times

For starters, the 14 still had the stainless steel frame – not Titanium.

The switch to Titanium was genius – subtle, but genius nonetheless. It reduced weight, has a more premium finish and is way more scratch-resistant. It feels better and will last the test of time better as well. Another subtle change was the move to softer, rounded edges which made the phone so much more comfortable to hold and use – small but meaningful – the Apple way.

If you’re part of the bezel brigade then you’ll be happy with the 16s much slimmer borders. Again jumping from my 15 to the 16 this isn’t so noticeable – but boy – from the 14 to the 16 it is like night and day.

You have a 48-megapixel ultra-wide camera, 4K/120 FPS slo-mo, the Action Button, two additional focal lengths on the main camera (28mm and 35mm), the lightning port has gone in favour of Thunderbolt and you have faster charging as well. Oh, and you’ll get the 5x zoom camera and a better battery as well.

Suddenly those crying that Apple has let us down don’t seem anywhere near as credible, do they?

Hit and miss

Then we come to the main two new features on the iPhone 16 this year – Apple Intelligence and the Camera Control button.

First – that button.

For me, it’s a bit of a miss. It’s in the wrong place, is slow and vague to use and is missing key elements. Scrolling through the different features is fluffy – sometimes you’ll land on the right thing, but equally as often you won’t.

You have to balance the phone with your left hand when you’re using it and the number of times I’ve taken a picture of my left palm over the past few weeks I’ve lost count of!

It is just odd.

In the public beta of 18.1, they’ve added the selfie camera to the list of cameras you can launch – but in honesty, it’s a slower way to get to it than using the onscreen option. And you still can’t elect the 28mm or 35mm focal lengths from the main camera.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been at a couple of sports events – a half marathon and the BMW PGA golf championship. At neither event did I feel I could trust the new button to capture the moment precisely and quickly. Sure, some of that is muscle memory, but equally a lot of it came down to the fact that as it stands, it’s just not very good.

But…they’ve tried. It will get better of that I am certain. We’re promised the focal lock function in a soon-to-be-released iOS update which might help make it feel more useful.

Look, they didn’t get it right with Apple Watch right out of the gate, so let’s give them some space.

As we’ve been at max smartphone for a good few years now, the chances of coming up with something meaningful and innovative every year will diminish. That said though, let’s not forget it was only recently Apple added ProRes and log shooting to the iPhone which was groundbreaking.

Specs

In the public beta of 18.1, they’ve added the selfie camera to the list of cameras you can launch – but in honesty, it’s a slower way to get to it than using the onscreen option. And you still can’t elect the 28mm or 35mm focal lengths from the main camera.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been at a couple of sports events – a half marathon and the BMW PGA golf championship. At neither event did I feel I could trust the new button to capture the moment precisely and quickly. Sure, some of that is muscle memory, but equally a lot of it came down to the fact that as it stands, it’s just not very good.

PROS CONS

PURCAHSE