The iPhone 16 Pro is among the most unfinished merchandise Apple has ever shipped. Almost all of its spotlight options will arrive in future software program updates that can stretch properly into subsequent yr earlier than they’re right here. That’s large stuff, like the brand new Apple Intelligence AI options the corporate says will begin slowly arriving in October, and little stuff, like the entire performance of the brand new Camera Control button on the facet.
Even actually minor issues, like that new Siri animation that impressed the tagline “It’s Glowtime” for the cellphone’s launch occasion? Not right here but. You get the identical outdated Siri bubble as ever till Apple Intelligence arrives.
The exhausting rule of opinions at The Verge is that we at all times assessment what’s within the field — the factor you should purchase proper now. We by no means assessment merchandise based mostly on potential or the promise of software program updates to return, even when an organization is placing up billboards promoting these options, and even when individuals are taking part in with these options in developer betas proper now. When Apple Intelligence ships to the general public, we’ll assessment it, and we’ll see if it makes the iPhone 16 Pro a distinct sort of cellphone.
Until then, the iPhone 16 Pro we’re reviewing at this time is an incremental replace — it’s largely a set of very good however finally minor modifications to the iPhone 15 Pro. It’s exhausting to make the case for an improve proper now: there may be nearly no cause to improve to the 16 Pro or 16 Pro Max from the 15 Pro or 15 Pro Max — particularly because the 15 Pros are the one older iPhones that can get Apple Intelligence when it arrives. And when you have an older Pro cellphone, it’s value ready to see if Apple Intelligence is any good earlier than you improve; there’s no cause to throw cash at {hardware} simply to assist unproven software program.
All that stated, the iPhone 16 Pro does comprise one extraordinarily notable digital camera replace, and it’s one — though it’s most likely not what you suppose. So let’s begin there.
There are two large modifications to the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro cameras: the brand new Camera Control button, and a brand new set of controls for the way photos are processed. The button itself is a hybrid: you may press it down all the best way to take a photograph or give it a lightweight press to set off a haptic click on and convey up a setting like zoom or publicity, which you’ll be able to alter with a swipe. A double gentle press allows you to change between these settings. (You can alter the strain sensitivity of the haptic press within the accessibility settings, which is sweet, though I discovered the default to be simply fantastic.)
By default, a single click on opens the digital camera when the cellphone is unlocked, and one other takes a photograph. It’s fairly enjoyable to flip the cellphone on its facet and shoot with the button like a traditional digital camera, though the bodily button is a bit stiff — a number of Verge staffers discovered themselves shifting the cellphone barely when pushing all the best way all the way down to take a photograph, though I believed it was fantastic.
I discovered myself unintentionally opening the digital camera quite a bit at first since I’m left-handed and the button is positioned the place my fingers are inclined to relaxation after I maintain the cellphone. You can set it to require a double-click, and that solved the issue for me. You may set the button to open third-party digital camera apps; it really works properly with the brand new model of Halide that’s been up to date to assist that performance.
The cause Apple calls it “Camera Control” and never simply “shutter button” is the capacitive controls on the highest, which ought to ideally allow you to alter varied settings with a fast swipe. I used to be actually hoping I’d discover myself utilizing the capacitive controls to regulate issues like publicity and focal size, but it surely’s all a bit fiddly switching between all the things with the sunshine presses and much too simple to finish up altering belongings you weren’t aspiring to. The complete factor can be vastly improved if a second gentle press dismissed the management; as soon as they’re open, they have a tendency to remain open, resulting in inadvertent modifications when your finger slides alongside the button.
You can simply faucet on the display screen to dismiss the management, which I discovered helpful. You may simply swipe on the onscreen settings to regulate them, which permits for extra exact management than swiping alongside the button itself.
In an actual theme for the iPhone this yr, the Camera Control is delivery in an unfinished state. Apple says a software program replace later this yr will enable the button to emulate a standard two-stage shutter button, the place a half press focuses and a full press takes the shot. (I requested, however the firm isn’t giving a agency date for this.) It’s exhausting to know the way large a deal this can be till it arrives; I’ve had lots of complaints about iPhone cameras over time, however setting focus has by no means been one in all them.
Apple could be very pleased with the quicker digital camera sensor within the iPhone 16 Pro, which it claims provides zero shutter lag, and you may certainly click on away fairly quick on the digital camera button whereas taking pictures in HEIF or JPG mode. You can undoubtedly outrun it in case you’re taking pictures in RAW, although — I clocked it round 4 frames per second, which is fairly nice for a cellphone however not wherever near what a contemporary mirrorless digital camera with an digital shutter can do.
Overall, the button could be very good to have, however that’s about it proper now. As it exists at this time, it’s not an enormous enchancment over taking pictures images with every other iPhone.
The precise images, alternatively? Well, it’s difficult.
It’s secure to say that lots of people didn’t love the cameras on the iPhone 15 and 15 Pro. Apple has gotten more and more aggressive with its method to computational pictures over the previous few years, and varied boards and social platforms have been crammed with complaints about that for some time now. The New Yorker revealed a bit about iPhone images wanting unrealistic two years in the past — the sense that these cameras are beginning to look a bit bizarre has been constructing.
The iPhone 15 and 15 Pro hit a sort of tipping level — they produced images so aggressively processed that every one sorts of individuals began noticing and complaining about it. I’ve been reviewing telephones and cameras for a very long time, however I’ll by no means publish a assessment as effectively devastating as Alix Earle asking her 7 million followers why her iPhone 15 digital camera sucks. If individuals who’ve constructed multimillion-dollar content material companies with their cellphone cameras aren’t loving the cameras on their new telephones, one thing’s gone flawed.
If I needed to provide a radically simplified analysis of what’s occurring with all these complaints, it’s that the iPhone received’t go away shadows and highlights alone. You’re not simply taking a photograph whenever you press that shutter button — Apple’s fancy Photonic Engine HDR pictures pipeline captures as much as 9 frames with every press, intelligently exposes issues just like the sky and faces in numerous methods, applies an excessive amount of sharpening and noise discount, and drops a remaining processed picture in your digital camera roll. The complete course of permits iPhones to protect an excessive amount of element throughout a picture, however one facet impact is that it inevitably brightens the darkish elements of a picture and brings down the brilliant elements so you may truly see that element.
The facet impact is that photos appear flat as a result of they lack distinction between gentle and darkish. I at all times take into consideration this like dynamics in music: if each a part of a tune is loud, then nothing truly appears loud. That’s what’s been taking place with the iPhone digital camera over time. Everything is getting so vivid that nothing is vivid, and the images are beginning to look flat, even grey.
This time round, I’ve excellent news and unhealthy information.
The unhealthy information is that, by default, the iPhone 16 Pro digital camera is much more aggressive about night out shadows and highlights than the iPhone 15 Pro. It’s refined, but it surely’s there — you may see it with primary images of vegetation, with footage of individuals, with avenue scenes — it’s all just a bit bit brighter and a bit bit flatter.
Shadows in iPhone 16 Pro images are dramatically boosted in comparison with the common iPhone 16, though the 16 Pro provides a lot nicer depth of subject, does much less sharpening, and performs higher in low gentle. (I truly discovered it exhausting to make the 16 Pro go into evening mode, whereas the common 16 drops to nighttime mode fairly simply.) The bigger sensor with larger pixels on the 16 Pro can seize extra gentle than the sensor on the 16, and Apple’s default settings use all that additional gentle to wage absolute conflict on shadows. And whereas the 48-megapixel ultrawide digital camera on the iPhone 16 Pro produces 12-megapixel images that look awfully just like the iPhone 15 Pro, they’re considerably higher than the ultrawide images from the iPhone 16.
We’re going to do a a lot deeper digital camera comparability within the weeks to return, so I received’t overdo the comparability to the Galaxy S24 Ultra and the Pixel 9 Pro XL, since that requires intense pixel peeping. Suffice it to say that the Pixel has the perfect zoom, whereas Samsung’s shade dealing with stays aggressively chaotic. But again and again, all three cameras produced images that had been basically small variations on the identical ultraprocessed look that these firms have appeared intent on chasing for some time now.
But right here’s the excellent news.
The iPhone 16 and 16 Pro permit you to exclude your self from this narrative totally with an enormous improve to the Photographic Styles function that permits you to alter how the digital camera processes colours, pores and skin tones, and shadows, even after you’ve shot a photograph.
You can choose between 5 “undertone” settings that should alter pores and skin tones and 9 “temper” settings that really feel quite a bit like high-quality Instagram filters. You can shoot with a reside preview of any of the types, after which you may tweak the settings and even change types totally afterward.
And all of those types provide three new fantastic controls: there’s “shade,” which is mainly saturation, and “palette,” which is the vary of colours being utilized. Most importantly, there’s a brand new management known as “tone,” which helps you to add shadows again to your images. It seems Apple is utilizing “tone” on this context to imply “tone mapping,” and in my assessments, the tone management allowed me to reliably deliver the iPhone’s picture processing again to actuality by turning it down.
The tone management is semantically conscious — it’s going to alter issues like faces and the sky in a different way, so it’s nonetheless doing a little intense computational pictures, however the objective is for you to have the ability to take images that look much more like what a standard digital camera would produce in case you deliver the slider all the best way down. (You may go all the best way up for essentially the most intense smartphone HDR images you’ve ever seen, if that’s the type of factor that makes you content.)
Turning down the tone management felt like a sigh of aid — I choose images with much less aggressive tone mapping far more than the default iPhone 16 Pro settings and the images produced by the iPhone 15 Pro. It’s like a haze is being lifted; photos are a bit punchier, a bit extra current. You may really feel in a different way, however I like shadows and highlights, and the addition of the tone management lets me have them on a cellphone digital camera with out leaping by means of the hoops of taking pictures in RAW and processing the images myself.
For me, the tone management provides such a significant enchancment to iPhone images that it’s doable to argue that this one single digital camera adjustment makes upgrading to an iPhone 16 or 16 Pro value it. I’m an enormous photograph nerd who cares quite a bit about these items, and even I don’t suppose that that argument is 100% convincing, however it is extremely doable to make that argument, which is wild.
Could you additionally simply purchase a digital camera app like Halide and use its extremely popular new Process Zero function on every other iPhone to take much less processed images? You may. Could you simply spend this cash on a pleasant level and shoot, that are staging a mini comeback? You undoubtedly may, and also you may change your relationship to pictures in a deeply constructive method by doing so. But in case you take lots of iPhone images, and also you’ve began to note that they give the impression of being a bit bizarre, properly, it’s doable to at the very least make the argument.
Allowing types to be edited and altered after a photograph is taken required Apple to reshuffle the Photonic Engine computational pictures pipeline — it’s the identical primary course of on the iPhone 16 Pro as on the 15 Pro, however tone mapping is now one of many remaining steps. The thought right here is for the edits to be “perceptually lossless”; whenever you take a photograph in a method, that’s how the photograph is saved, however the iPhone provides a bit chunk of knowledge to the picture file that permits it to undo that model and revert the picture to straightforward. This means you may tweak types and even change them totally everytime you need, and I had nice enjoyable making a number of completely different variations of the identical shot.
That bit of additional information leads to information which can be about 25 % larger than earlier than — round 3MB as a substitute of two.5MB, typically — and the vagaries of compression imply that types solely work in case you shoot in HEIF, a format that continues to bedevil mainly all the things outdoors of Apple’s ecosystem. If you set the digital camera to shoot customary JPGs, you don’t get types or the brand new tone management. (Apple’s additionally added the flexibility to shoot within the new JPEG-XL format in each lossy and lossless modes, however that’s a RAW format, and types received’t work.) My suggestion to Apple can be to permit the usage of the tone management as a everlasting exposure-like adjustment when taking pictures JPGs, however I’m only a man who likes shadows.
Styles general aren’t actually prepared for skilled workflows — the one option to alter them after taking pictures is with a fiddly two-axis D-pad management that additionally controls shade, which makes the entire thing really feel woefully imprecise. Trying to maintain observe of which images have which types utilized requires staring into absolutely the abyss of iOS file administration. You can apply a method to a number of images by copying the edits from a stylized photograph, choosing the opposite images you need styled, and pasting the edits. The Photos app in macOS Sequoia will be capable of alter types, however Apple received’t say if third-party apps will be capable of assist model modifying sooner or later.
The complete vibe of all these new controls could be very a lot “you work it out.” The extra you play with types, particularly the undertone types meant for pores and skin tones, the extra it looks like Apple has merely given up on having a perspective for what this digital camera ought to appear to be. Google makes lots of noise about its Real Tone challenge, which is meant to permit the Pixel to seize correct pores and skin tones for every kind of individuals, however Apple’s resolution is to easily let folks select their very own pores and skin tone utilizing the “undertones” types (which works, though it usually modified extra than simply pores and skin tone in our take a look at images). Undertones additionally apply to everybody in a picture, so in case you take a photograph of individuals with a variety of pores and skin tones, they’re all going to get the identical impact. I get the concept behind undertones, however the execution feels prefer it wants a bit extra refinement.
I don’t have quite a bit to say in regards to the “temper” types, that are very enjoyable and expressive. Verge supervising producer Vjeran Pavic mainly fell in love with these whereas he was testing the video options — they reminded him of the extremely popular Fujifilm recipes for emulating completely different sorts of movie. You ought to watch our video assessment for extra on each. The one factor I’ll add is that the brand new spatial audio recording in video is surprisingly difficult and doesn’t actually end in spatial audio the best way you’d count on whenever you play a video again.
Apple’s Alex Kirschner advised me that spatial audio seize is primarily there to allow the (very cool!) new audio combine function that permits you to take away background noise from movies of individuals speaking; you’ll get headphone-based spatial audio when listening by means of AirPods, however Apple’s bizarrely chosen to have the Apple TV play these movies in 5.1 or 7.1 encompass as a substitute of one thing like Atmos, so that you’ll lose any peak results. (Worse: in case you AirPlay a video captured with spatial audio, it’s going to solely play again in stereo.)
Is it bananas {that a} smartphone can report 4K video in encompass sound? It completely is. It can also be getting more and more exhausting to grasp what Apple means by “spatial audio” and the way it may be edited and performed again throughout varied audio gadgets.
It’s additionally notable what isn’t current on the iPhone this yr: there’s no generative AI wackiness in any respect. There’s no video increase or face-swapping, no including your self to group images, no drawing so as to add stuff with AI like on the Pixel or Galaxy telephones — actually, none of it. I requested Apple’s VP of digital camera software program engineering Jon McCormack about Google’s view that the Pixel digital camera now captures “reminiscences” as a substitute of images, and he advised me that Apple has a robust perspective about what {a photograph} is — that it’s one thing that truly occurred. It was a protracted and considerate reply, so I’m simply going to print the entire thing:
Here’s our view of what {a photograph} is. The method we like to think about it’s that it’s a private celebration of one thing that actually, truly occurred.
Whether that’s a easy factor like a elaborate cup of espresso that’s acquired some cool design on it, all over to my child’s first steps, or my dad and mom’ final breath, It’s one thing that actually occurred. It’s one thing that may be a marker in my life, and it’s one thing that deserves to be celebrated.
And that’s the reason after we take into consideration evolving within the digital camera, we additionally rooted it very closely in custom. Photography just isn’t a brand new factor. It’s been round for 198 years. People appear to love it. There’s quite a bit to study from that. There’s quite a bit to depend on from that.
Think about stylization, the primary instance of stylization that we are able to discover is Roger Fenton in 1854 — that’s 170 years in the past. It’s a sturdy, long-term, lasting factor. We stand proudly on the shoulders of photographic historical past.
That’s a pointy and clear reply, however I’m curious how Apple contends with the relentless addition of AI modifying to the iPhone’s opponents. The firm is already taking small steps in that course: a function known as “Clean Up” will arrive with Apple Intelligence, which is able to permit you to take away objects from images like Google’s Magic Eraser. McCormack advised me that function will someway mark the ensuing photos as having been generatively edited, though he didn’t say how.
I did ask if Apple would undertake a picture verification customary like C2PA, which firms like Adobe, Microsoft, OpenAI, and now Amazon and Google have determined to assist; McCormack advised me Apple was ready to see how issues advanced earlier than it made selections. This is honest, as that customary is a little bit of a multitude proper now, and it’s not clear it’ll even be that efficient on social platforms. But with the ability to belief the photographs we see goes to get increasingly complicated and vital, and the iPhone is the preferred digital camera on the planet, so it’s clear that the trade will finally bend round Apple’s method. We’ll see.
Everything else in regards to the iPhone 16 Pro is extremely incremental.
The shows now go all the way down to 1 nit of brightness, which could be very good for not waking your associate when you doomscroll in mattress. Those shows are additionally larger now — the Pro is 6.3 inches, whereas the Pro Max is 6.9 inches, which is the biggest ever on an iPhone. The common Pro doesn’t really feel that a lot larger, because the bezels are smaller and the telephones didn’t get any thicker. But the 16 Pro Max feels meaningfully bigger than the 15 Pro Max. I’ve large arms and I’ve at all times picked the large cellphone, and the 16 Pro Max is certainly proper on the road of too large to deal with like a cellphone as a substitute of a pill.
Both telephones have an A18 Pro chip inside, which Apple claims is quicker by varied impressive-sounding percentages than the A17 Pro. As with all iPhones, these efficiency numbers are largely about headroom and longevity at this level — my iPhone 15 Pro doesn’t really feel sluggish, and the 16 Pro doesn’t really feel quicker. I’m very curious to see if the addition of Apple Intelligence modifications this notion, however we’ll have to attend and see.
I really feel the identical method about battery life. While the iPhone efficiency benefit means these telephones will keep related for a very long time, my expertise with battery degradation is simply the alternative. After a couple of yr, my iPhone 15 Pro Max battery capability has dropped to 93 %, and it now struggles to make it by means of a day with out enabling Low Power Mode.
Apple says the iPhone 16 Pro will get considerably higher battery life than the iPhone 15 Pro, though the corporate received’t quote something apart from video playback instances. The Pro Max is meant to have the perfect battery life ever on an iPhone, and the batteries actually held up for full days throughout my testing, which was very heavy on digital camera utilization and screen-on time. But it’s unclear how Apple Intelligence working varied locations throughout iOS will have an effect on battery life, and it’s equally exhausting to know if the battery will keep robust after months and years of use. iPhone 16 Pro battery replacements from Apple price greater than earlier than, so that is one thing to concentrate to over time.
Software-wise, my assessment models are working iOS 18, which lets you radically customise the homescreen, lockscreen, and Control Center, and which helps RCS for higher messaging with Android customers.
You can kind of theme the homescreen any method you need, all the way down to adjusting icon colours globally, and the lockscreen now permits you to change the fast entry buttons to third-party apps. The preview construct of Halide I used to be testing supported this, so I switched it in for the system digital camera app, which was good. Once extra digital camera apps assist this, we’ll find yourself with a lot of the way to open digital camera apps from the lockscreen now — you’ll be capable of set the Action Button, the Camera Control button, and the lockscreen button all to completely different digital camera apps, if you’d like, and nonetheless have the flexibility to open the system digital camera by swiping to the precise. Pretty neat.
The revamped Control Center is a little bit of an adjustment. If you’re like me and also you’ve used it by pure muscle reminiscence for years, even the change from squarish icons to circles is a bit disorienting. The complete factor is now organized into vertical sheets: favorites, media controls, house controls, and the assorted radio and community controls. You can transfer controls and teams of controls round at will, resize them as you’d like, and usually create a bit freeform command heart of your go-to settings. This one will all come all the way down to how a lot time you need to spend creating the right association of controls — I’m an enormous nerd, and I can’t wait to spend an hour or so getting it good.
Apple additionally up to date the MagSafe charging system, which may now cost at as much as 25 watts utilizing the brand new Qi2-compatible MagSafe puck and a 30W charger. I charged my assessment unit for fairly some time at full pace, and it didn’t even get heat.
Price-wise, issues are the identical as final yr: the iPhone 16 Pro begins at $999 for the mannequin with 128GB of storage, whereas the bigger Pro Max begins at $1,199 with 256GB of storage. You can get them in desert, pure, white, and black, which all look fantastic — I’m a bit jealous that the common iPhones get enjoyable colours this yr, however I simply stick these items in instances anyway, so it doesn’t actually matter.
So that’s the iPhone 16 Pro… to this point. As it exists at this time, it’s a remarkably iterative replace to the iPhone 15 Pro — it’s exhausting to search out causes to improve from final yr’s mannequin. And I’m in no way satisfied that it’s value upgrading to the 16 Pro from older Pro fashions simply but, both — the Camera Control button and Action Button are good however not game-changing, and except you’re enthusiastic about dialing within the new Photographic Styles and the brand new tone management, you may discover the even brighter and flatter images to truly be a step backward in photograph processing. If you may’t inform, I’m personally thrilled by the tone management, so that is a straightforward alternative for me, but it surely feels prefer it’s value ready a tick for everybody else.
Lots of people have requested us if the additional cash for the Pro cellphone is value it this yr because the spec sheet of the iPhone 16 seems to be very near the Pro. We’ve acquired a full assessment of the common iPhone 16 right here, however my quick reply is that the Pro digital camera is meaningfully higher and that Apple delivery a 60Hz display screen in 2024 is simply foolish, so I’m a Pro cellphone individual all the best way.
It actually does really feel like Apple supposed to ship these items with Apple Intelligence, but it surely’s merely not right here but, and the entire function set Apple’s introduced with issues like picture era and ChatGPT integration received’t be right here till subsequent yr. And in case you’re within the EU or China, you is perhaps ready for fairly some time as Apple navigates varied regulatory hurdles in these areas to launch these items in any respect.
That’s to not say the iPhone 16 Pro is a nasty cellphone — it’s an ideal cellphone with some fascinating concepts about smartphone pictures embedded in it. But it’s additionally clearly unfinished, and I feel it’s value ready to see if Apple Intelligence can full a few of these ideas earlier than spending the cash on an improve.
Correction, September 18th: A earlier model of this assessment acknowledged that you just couldn’t apply a method to a number of images directly. It has been up to date to mirror that you would be able to.
