I switched to the iPhone 16 from an iPhone 15, and the upgrade was bigger than expected

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 provide customers extra iOS shortcuts than ever. Anticipate the training curve, let your creativeness run wild, and benefit from the trip.
• The options that I hoped Apple would enhance this 12 months — such because the 60Hz refresh charge 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 firms have to supply. So, yearly, when the most recent 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 12 months 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 two days (and with way more analysis to be achieved within the coming weeks), I am anticipating an analogous client pattern with this 12 months’s iPhones — however with an ever-wider hole.

View at Apple

With this 12 months’s commonplace iPhone fashions, Apple is taking what I would prefer to name the “Sibling” technique. You know the way the older sibling tends to get all the most recent and best issues first — shirts, toys, footwear? After a 12 months, or when the thrill for one thing wears off, it is handed right down to the youthful sibling, so what’s previous is new once more. That is precisely what Apple has achieved with final 12 months’s iPhone 15 Professional mannequin and this 12 months’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 might be mapped to a novel operate, from turning on the flashlight to beginning a voice memo to firing up the digital camera. In fact, you can even set the Motion button to change between alert and silent. 

Contemplating that is the iPhone’s have-it-your-way era, it is best to actually attempt to embrace the customization freedom right here. My Motion button is at present set to “activate AirDrop for 10 minutes” as I am camera-testing the cellphone and ceaselessly importing photographs 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 situated on the underside proper facet of the telephones, which seems and features 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 in 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 gentle press on Digital camera Management brings up a carousel of taking pictures modes and settings, every of which you’ll entry with one other gentle 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 characteristic unique to the Professional fashions. As a result of it isn’t, will probably 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 characteristic. Since the hot button is located nearer to the center of the facet edge (extra so when you’re on the smaller iPhone 16), you are now capturing pictures by urgent down together with your index finger as an alternative of your thumb. Retraining your muscle reminiscence is required right here; I usually discovered myself habitually tapping the display to focus and seize as an alternative. 

Digital camera Management encourages you to place the iPhone in panorama orientation, which performs to the 16’s latest capability to seize immersive spatial photos and videos for VR. It is one other characteristic that is trickled down from final 12 months’s Professional mannequin, however nothing to emphasize about utilizing. Very similar to how you will want an elusive 8K TV to look at 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 every other digital content material on the market, the flexibility to seize them must be seen as a bonus and never a requisite as you think about 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 make the most of: the brand new 12MP ultrawide digital camera. With an f/2.2 aperture (versus final 12 months’s f/2.4), the iPhone 16 can pull in additional gentle (learn: seize extra particulars each throughout the day and evening) and take macro photographs, very similar to 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 one of the crucial versatile iPhone digital camera programs 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 Competition. However the iPhone 16’s zoom functionality, capped at 2x, was barely in a position to 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 least a 90Hz refresh charge 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 this point.

However in 2024, when even a $150 Android phone comes with smoother show tech, a 90Hz panel would’ve made me immediately swap 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+) in the marketplace.

ZDNET’s shopping for recommendation (for now)

There’s one factor I have never 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, until you download the iOS 18.1 public beta at this time. That is to say, you should not purchase the iPhone 16 for its AI capabilities — not but, at the least.

Till the software program is official, I am going to proceed to guage the iPhone 16 for what it’s and hold you posted on the way it fares with battery life, video-capturing, day-to-day efficiency, and extra.