ZDNET’s key takeaways
- At $899, the iPhone 16 Plus undercuts the Professional Max by $300 whereas nonetheless providing you with the majority of the big-screen iPhone expertise.
- The configurable Motion button and Digicam Management supply customers extra iOS shortcuts than ever. Anticipate the educational curve, let your creativeness run wild, and benefit from the experience.
- The options that I hoped Apple would enhance this 12 months — such because the 60Hz refresh fee and slower-than-average 20W wired charging — have not modified.
Being a tech fanatic means I at all times default to the beefiest, strongest, wallet-shredding units 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 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 24 hours (and with far more analysis to be finished within the coming weeks), I am anticipating the same client pattern with this 12 months’s iPhones — however with an ever-wider hole.
With this 12 months’s customary iPhone fashions, Apple is taking what I might prefer to name the “Sibling” technique. You understand how the older sibling tends to get all the newest and best issues first — shirts, toys, sneakers? 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 finished 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 may be mapped to a singular operate, from turning on the flashlight to beginning a voice memo to firing up the digicam. In fact, you can even 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 at the moment set to “activate AirDrop for 10 minutes” as I am camera-testing the telephone and steadily importing photographs and movies to my MacBook. That immediate will doubtless change by the tip of the week, which is the great thing about the brand new {hardware} key.
There’s additionally a brand new Digicam Management positioned on the underside proper facet of the telephones, which seems and capabilities just like the one on the Professional variations. On the most simple stage, urgent the Digicam Management snaps a photograph or begins a video recording. For some Apple magic, a lighter, extra light press of the identical key (Apple tells me to not name it a button) brings up a slider in your most up-to-date digicam 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 Digicam 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, Digicam 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, it is going to be many customers’ first expertise with adjusting digicam settings at such a finite stage, and that is very thrilling.
Going into my testing, my biggest concern was whether or not the location (or ergonomics) of the Digicam 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 should you’re on the smaller iPhone 16), you are now capturing images by urgent down along with your index finger as an alternative of your thumb. Retraining your muscle reminiscence is required right here; I typically discovered myself habitually tapping the display screen to focus and seize as an alternative.
Digicam 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 suitable VR headset to eat 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 some other digital content material on the market, the flexibility 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 more likely to make the most of: the brand new 12MP ultrawide digicam. 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 like how the iPhone 15 Professional did with its ultrawide lens.
Mix the utility of the ultrawide with the brand new 48MP Fusion digicam (combines the primary with a 2x digital zoom functionality) and Photographic Kinds that may now be modified earlier than and after the shot, and you have got one of the crucial versatile iPhone digicam 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 not often 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 not often as a result of there was one night after I needed 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 proper photo-op with my household celebrating the Mid-Autumn Competition. 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 digicam on the Professional fashions.
Whereas I hoped to see not less than a 90Hz refresh fee on the brand new iPhones, assuming that ProMotion (120Hz) was restricted to Professional units solely, Apple continues to ship the usual fashions with 60Hz panels. This is not a deal-breaker by any means, and albeit, 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 adequate up to now.
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+) available on the market.
ZDNET’s shopping for recommendation (for now)
There’s one factor I have not talked about but on this overview, 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 technology, 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, not less than.
Till the software program is official, I am going to proceed to judge 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.