ZDNET’s key takeaways
- At $899, the iPhone 16 Plus undercuts the Professional Max by $300 whereas nonetheless supplying you with the majority of the big-screen iPhone expertise.
- The configurable Motion button and Digital camera Management supply customers extra iOS shortcuts than ever. Anticipate the training curve, let your creativeness run wild, and benefit from the experience.
- The options that I hoped Apple would enhance this yr — such because the 60Hz refresh price and slower-than-average 20W wired charging — have not modified.
Being a tech fanatic means I all the time default to the beefiest, strongest, wallet-shredding gadgets that corporations have to supply. So, yearly, when the newest iPhones roll round, testing the usual fashions brings me again to mainstream actuality.
These are the iPhones that most individuals purchase, with Counterpoint Research reporting that in 2024, the iPhone 15 outsold the iPhone 15 Professional. Within the yr earlier than, the iPhone 14 outsold each the iPhone 14 Professional and iPhone 14 Professional Max.
Additionally: We’ve used every iPhone 16 model and here’s our best buying advice for 2024
After testing the iPhone 16 Plus for the previous 24 hours (and with rather more analysis to be accomplished within the coming weeks), I am anticipating an analogous client pattern with this yr’s iPhones — however with an ever-wider hole.
With this yr’s normal iPhone fashions, Apple is taking what I might wish to name the “Sibling” technique. You know the way the older sibling tends to get all the newest and biggest issues first — shirts, toys, sneakers? After a yr, or when the joy for one thing wears off, it is handed all the way down to the youthful sibling, so what’s previous is new once more. That is precisely what Apple has accomplished with final yr’s iPhone 15 Professional mannequin and this yr’s iPhone 16, and I do not thoughts that in any respect.
Additionally: iPhone 15 vs. iPhone 16: Should you upgrade to Apple’s latest model?
The new Motion button, for instance, replaces the bodily mute-switch toggle and may be mapped to a novel operate, from turning on the flashlight to beginning a voice memo to firing up the digital camera. After all, you too can set the Motion button to modify between alert and silent.
Contemplating that is the iPhone’s have-it-your-way era, you need to actually attempt to embrace the customization freedom right here. My Motion button is presently set to “activate AirDrop for 10 minutes” as I am camera-testing the cellphone and often importing photos and movies to my MacBook. That immediate will doubtless change by the top of the week, which is the great thing about the brand new {hardware} key.
There’s additionally a brand new Digital camera Management positioned on the underside proper facet of the telephones, which appears to be like and capabilities just like the one on the Professional variations. On the most simple degree, urgent the Digital camera Management snaps a photograph or begins a video recording. For some Apple magic, a lighter, extra mild press of the identical key (Apple tells me to not name it a button) brings up a slider to your most up-to-date digital camera setting, whether or not that is zoom vary, publicity, or f-stop.
Additionally: Apple says the iPhone 16 is a lot easier to repair than its predecessor. Here’s how
A double mild press on Digital camera Management brings up a carousel of taking pictures modes and settings, every of which you’ll entry with one other mild press. Lastly, swiping on the touch-capacitive floor will dial between the settings. That is to say, Digital camera Management has a studying curve, a lot in order that I would not have been mad if Apple made the function unique to the Professional fashions. As a result of it is not, it is going to be many customers’ first expertise with adjusting digital camera settings at such a finite degree, and that is very thrilling.
Going into my testing, my biggest concern was whether or not the position (or ergonomics) of the Digital camera Management would spoil what was in any other case a genius function. Since the bottom line is located nearer to the center of the facet edge (extra so for those who’re on the smaller iPhone 16), you are now capturing photographs by urgent down along with your index finger as a substitute of your thumb. Retraining your muscle reminiscence is required right here; I usually discovered myself habitually tapping the display to focus and seize as a substitute.
Digital camera Management encourages you to place the iPhone in panorama orientation, which performs to the 16’s latest capacity to seize immersive spatial photos and videos for VR. It is one other function that is trickled down from final yr’s Professional mannequin, however nothing to emphasize about utilizing. Very like how you will want an elusive 8K TV to observe 8K movies, you will want a appropriate VR headset to devour spatial content material. I’ve watched a number of spatial movies on each the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3, and whereas they are much extra immersive than another digital content material on the market, the power to seize them ought to be seen as a bonus and never a requisite as you take into account the iPhone 16.
Additionally: Every iPhone 16 model features a new camera button. Here’s what it can do
One thing you are extra prone to reap the benefits of: the brand new 12MP ultrawide digital camera. With an f/2.2 aperture (versus final yr’s f/2.4), the iPhone 16 can pull in additional mild (learn: seize extra particulars each through the day and night time) and take macro pictures, very like how the iPhone 15 Professional did with its ultrawide lens.
Mix the utility of the ultrawide with the brand new 48MP Fusion digital camera (combines the principle with a 2x digital zoom functionality) and Photographic Kinds that may now be modified earlier than and after the shot, and you have some of the versatile iPhone digital camera techniques ever. Whether or not it was reproducing the colourful colours of my dinner in a dimly lit restaurant, extracting particulars from small succulents, or capturing the managed chaos of my morning commute, I hardly ever felt just like the iPhone 16 Plus was unable to get the shot.
Additionally: How to clear the cache on your iPhone (and why you should)
I say hardly ever as a result of there was one night once I wished to take a photograph of the moon. It appeared nearer to the Earth than ever, was glowing in a heat orangish hue, and felt like the right photo-op with my household celebrating the Mid-Autumn Pageant. However the iPhone 16’s zoom functionality, capped at 2x, was barely capable of seize the essence of the second. There was a noticeable quantity of noise as I hesitantly dialed up the digital zoom, and I sorely missed the 5x optical digital camera on the Professional fashions.
Whereas I hoped to see at the very least a 90Hz refresh price on the brand new iPhones, assuming that ProMotion (120Hz) was restricted to Professional gadgets solely, Apple continues to ship the usual fashions with 60Hz panels. This is not a deal-breaker by any means, and admittedly, customers coming from older non-Professional iPhone fashions will not know what they’re lacking. Rendering fewer frames additionally helps the iPhone 16’s battery life, which has been enough to date.
However in 2024, when even a $150 Android phone comes with smoother show tech, a 90Hz panel would’ve made me immediately change from an iPhone 15.
Additionally: How iOS 18 changes the way you charge your iPhone
To Apple’s credit score, it did bump up the wi-fi charging pace (as much as 25W by way of MagSafe) on iPhone 16 fashions, although wired charging charges stay at 20W. From my testing, the iPhone 16 Plus charged from 0% to 100% in roughly one hour and 47 minutes, which is noticeably slower than most flagship telephones ($700+) available on the market.
ZDNET’s shopping for recommendation (for now)
There’s one factor I have not talked about but on this evaluate, and that is Apple Intelligence, the suite of synthetic intelligence instruments scattered throughout iOS 18. That is as a result of the majority of the AI expertise, which features a revamped Siri, name recording, and textual content era, will not be available till October, when iOS 18.1 rolls out to the general public. That is to say, you should not purchase the iPhone 16 for its AI capabilities — not but, at the very least.
Till the software program is official, I will proceed to guage the iPhone 16 for what it’s and preserve you posted on the way it fares with battery life, video-capturing, day-to-day efficiency, and extra.