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. Count on the training curve, let your creativeness run wild, and benefit from the trip.
- The options that I hoped Apple would enhance this yr — 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 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 Analysis 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 have used each iPhone 16 mannequin and this is our greatest shopping for recommendation for 2024
After testing the iPhone 16 Plus for the previous two days (and with way more analysis to be accomplished within the coming weeks), I am anticipating an identical shopper development with this yr’s iPhones — however with an ever-wider hole.
View at Apple
With this yr’s normal 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 most recent and best issues first — shirts, toys, footwear? After a yr, or when the joy for one thing wears off, it is handed right down to the youthful sibling, so what’s outdated is new once more.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: Must you improve to Apple’s newest mannequin?
The new Motion button, for instance, replaces the bodily mute-switch toggle and will be mapped to a novel perform, from turning on the flashlight to beginning a voice memo to firing up the digital camera. After all, you may also set the Motion button to change between alert and silent.
Contemplating that is the iPhone’s have-it-your-way period, it is best 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 cellphone and ceaselessly importing photographs and movies to my MacBook. That immediate will seemingly change by the tip of the week, which is the fantastic thing about the brand new {hardware} key.
Calling this iPhone 16 shade “Pink” doesn’t do it justice. As a substitute, I might name it “Atomic, Razzleberry, Flamingo, Bubblegum Blast.”
Kerry Wan/ZDNET
There’s additionally a brand new Digicam 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 elementary stage, urgent the Digicam 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 lots simpler to restore than its predecessor. This is how
A double gentle press on Digicam Management brings up a carousel of capturing modes and settings, every of which you’ll be able to 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 function unique to the Professional fashions. As a result of it is not, will probably be many customers’ first expertise with adjusting digital camera settings at such a finite stage, and that is very thrilling.
Digicam Management works whether or not you are holding the cellphone in vertical or horizontal orientation. For lefties, you may also flip the cellphone in order that the cameras are on the correct facet and press the important thing along with your thumb.
Kerry Wan/ZDNET
Going into my testing, my greatest concern was whether or not the location (or ergonomics) of the Digicam Management would spoil what was in any other case a genius function. Since the secret’s located nearer to the center of the facet edge (extra so if you happen to’re on the smaller iPhone 16), you are now capturing pictures by urgent down along 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 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 skill to seize immersive spatial pictures and movies 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 may want an elusive 8K TV to look at 8K movies, you may want a appropriate VR headset to eat spatial content material. I’ve watched a number of spatial movies on each the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional and Meta Quest 3, and whereas they are much extra immersive than another digital content material on the market, the flexibility to seize them ought to be seen as a bonus and never a requisite as you contemplate the iPhone 16.
Additionally: Each iPhone 16 mannequin encompasses a new digital camera button. This is what it might do
One thing you are extra more likely 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 gentle (learn: seize extra particulars each in the course of the day and night time) and take macro photographs, very similar to how the iPhone 15 Professional did with its ultrawide lens.
Images captured with the iPhone 16’s 48MP Fusion digital camera and 12MP ultrawide, which doubles as a macro lens.
Kerry Wan/ZDNET
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 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 you can clear the cache in your iPhone (and why it is best to)
I say hardly ever as a result of there was one night after 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 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.
The iPhone 16 Plus (7.03 ounces) weighs barely lower than the iPhone 15 Plus (7.1 ounces).
Kerry Wan/ZDNET
Whereas I hoped to see at the least 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 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 ample to this point.
However in 2024, when even a $150 Android cellphone comes with smoother show tech, a 90Hz panel would’ve made me immediately change from an iPhone 15.
Additionally: How iOS 18 adjustments the way in which you cost your iPhone
To Apple’s credit score, it did bump up the wi-fi charging velocity (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 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 era, will not be available till October, except you obtain the iOS 18.1 public beta as we speak. 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 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.