It’s quite hard reviewing the new iPhone 16 series this year, because they are technically not finalized products. The four new iPhones this year are heavily advertised by Apple as the first iPhones to be “built from the ground up to run Apple Intelligence,” the latter two words referring to the American tech giant’s suite of generative AI services.
But Apple Intelligence is not ready, and in fact, not in the retail version of iPhones right now. Instead, the features will come via software updates in October, and that’s only some features, like a smarter Siri or generative AI photo editing. The more complex features, like Apple’s Google Lens competitor (Visual Intelligence) or image generation via text prompts, will come in early 2025.
To be fair, Apple Intelligence is available for demo if you install a beta version of iOS, and the beta software runs smoother than just about any beta Android software I’ve tested. But still, the reality is the number one marketed features of the new iPhone 16 series are not ready for general consumers right now. I will talk about the AI features further down the article, but if you want to see it in action, it’s in the video embedded below.
Fortunately (for fans, reviewers, and Apple PRs), the new iPhones also got some nifty hardware upgrades that still justify some excitement. I’ve been using the largest and priciest model, the iPhone 16 Pro Max, for a month now, and I have enjoyed the experience more than usual.
Thinner bezels
The new Pro iPhones look similar to last year’s models mostly — it’s still constructed out of beautiful titanium, and the softer edges introduced last year returns. But the new Pro iPhones have slightly larger screens, with the Pro Max model jumping up to 6.9-inches. Despite the screen size bump, the overall dimensions aren’t too much larger than last year’s 15 Pro Max, because the 16 Pro Max also gained thinner bezels that wrap around the screen. While cases for the iPhone 15 Pro phones will not fit the 16 Pro phones, the in-hand feel between 15 Pro and 16 Pro are virtually identical.
The OLED display gets very bright and looks stunning. iPhone screens have usually lagged the best Android phone screens for most of the last 7-8 years (iPhone bezels were usually thicker, display not as bright, and had a larger notch cutout), but this year’s 16 Pro screens are absolutely as good as anything out on the market.
The most powerful silicon gets better
Powering the phone is the Apple A18 Pro and it is merely Apple further increasing its silicon lead over anything on the Android side. This chip completely blows anything from Qualcomm or MediaTek or Samsung out the water in benchmarks, and in real life performance, is capable of running AAA title games and also handle complicated video editing. It’s also extremely efficient, giving me some of the best battery life of any flagship phone.
New button that Apple doesn’t call a button
There’s a new button on the bottom right side of the phone, which Apple calls “Camera Control.” As the name implies, it controls the cameras. The idea is that it doubles as a physical shutter button when the phone is held sideways. The button also supports taps and swipes, so you can toggle through the camera UI with just that button too, without ever needing to touch the screen.
I’m just going to spoil it right away: the Camera Control button sounds great in theory but doesn’t quite work for me (and many of my peers) in real life. The number one issue for me is that the button does not protrude from the side of the phone (instead it sits slightly recessed), so it’s hard to find by touch, and hard to press lightly (because the button is indented). I find that I have to press with slightly more force than usual just to ensure the button is pressed, and that extra use of force will often move the phone.
I suppose with enough practice and muscle memory, I can train myself to press the button without moving the phone, but there’s also the idea that you have to swipe through the button repeatedly to cycle through camera UI. For example, to switch from ultra-wide lens to 5X telephoto zoom, you need to tap the button to jump into the lens control and then swipe at least two to three times before you can make that lens switch.
Why go through all that trouble if I can just tap on the on-screen 5X button and switch immediately? Trust me, I really wanted to like this button — I am an aspiring street photographer and I like the idea of having a physical shutter. But the Camera Control, in this current form, is just poorly implemented. I tried using it for one week then I just stopped using it. I’ve touched that button maybe two or three times in the past three weeks.
Better cameras
The iPhone 16 Pro Max camera hardware is mostly the same as last year, with a new 48-megapixel ultra-wide camera as the sole new sensor, but Apple has built a new ISP (image signal processor) that’s supposedly faster, and allows for customization of tones and colors. The result is the best iPhone camera for still photos ever, and the first I really enjoy shooting stills with in about five years.
My main gripe with iPhone cameras in years past is that the processing was too reliant on heavy HDR and digital sharpening, and the iPhone color science a bit too dull, resulting in photos that just looked flat. The new iPhone 16 Pro Max introduces a series of “Photographic Styles” which are like the film simulation filters we’ve seen in Fujifilm cameras and also Chinese phones. The idea is these styles move away from the overly digital look and bring back deep shadows, a bit of grain, and more contrast.
All of these styles can be customized via a tonal grid, and it’s made a world of difference in how iPhone photos look. Below are three shots with the main camera of the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Look at the deeper shadows, which add a visually striking contrast, giving images more depth. These shots look great, and I don’t think previous iPhones could have snapped these. Definitely not the 13 or 14 Pro, whose images appear flat and overly digital.
Part of me wonder if Apple image engineers took notice of what Chinese phones have been doing over the past couple of years. The likes of Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi have gone all in on creating photos that look more raw, more organic, with deeper shadows and contrast for the past few years — and many camera nerds including myself have hailed phones like the Vivo X100 Ultra or Xiaomi 14 Ultra as the best camera phones.
I’m not gonna say the iPhone 16 Pro Max has surpassed those phones in still photography (it has not), but it’s closed the gap significantly.
One camera area where the iPhone is indeed king is video recording. This is an area Apple has always excelled, and the 16 Pro Max continues, with super fluid videos, and the ability to shoot 4K/120fps, which can then be slowed down for smooth slow motion videos.
Perhaps the biggest video upgrade is there are four improved microphones on the iPhone, and they take in the best audio of any phone I’ve tested. In fact, I think for beginning or aspiring video content creators who have not invested in a bluetooth microphone yet, the iPhone 16 Pro phones will record audio so good it may delay their realization that they will need bluetooth microphones eventually if they want to create video content seriously. You can watch the video embedded a few paragraphs up to hear the audio samples — they’re best in class.
Apple Intelligence
Okay, let’s talk about the unfinished features: Apple’s take on generative AI.
I’ve been testing beta versions of this AI, and for the most part, they work well, but still lag behind what Google is already offering on the Pixel and Samsung phones.
Siri is smarter: he/she can understand context, including follow-up questions. If you fumble words mid-question and correct yourself, Siri usually is aware enough to understand and give the right answer. For example, as a test, I asked Siri, in the exact words “what’s the time in Taiwa… no wait, I meant Thailand,” and Siri was able to give me the time in Thailand. I then followed up with “okay, what about Tokyo?” and Siri gave me the time in Japan.
There’s generative AI photo editing, which right now mostly consists of removing things from images. But you can create original emojis in the future via text prompts. Apple’s object remover works pretty well, but not quite as well as Google’s crazy good version.
Apple Intelligence can also help you generate text, like you can ask it to draft an email. It works decent enough, but is a feature I will never use. As a writer, I am proud of having my own voice, and would never want AI to help me write a simple email.
Overall Apple Intelligence works and will improve the daily usage of iPhone users, it’s just that the features aren’t ready yet unless you install a beta version of iOS.
Extremely good battery life and overall performance
Battery life on the iPhone 16 Pro Max is the best I’ve gotten from a flagship phone in the last few years. I’m a very heavy user who’s always out (I don’t like sitting at a desk at home) and this phone still finished almost everyday with juice to spare over a month. Only once or twice did I have to reach for a battery pack before I made it home for the night. I’m talking about 12-14 hours outside by the way. Most people are not out continuously in one go like this, so for most normal people I don’t think battery life will ever be an issue.
The phone is also plenty fast, with the most powerful silicon in the industry. Every action zips, and the phone has never crashed on me when I am running normal commercial version of iOS. I am on a beta version now, and there are very minor bugs like a keyboard that freezes up in certain apps, but this is a beta software that, again, most normal consumers will never use.
Overall, after a month of use, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is very, very impressive. I am ultimately an Android guy who prefers a more diverse range of phones (like foldables) and superior camera hardware (from the Chinese brands), but I completely understand why most people just want to use the iPhone. There’s almost no flaw I can say about the iPhone 16 Pro Max other than Apple Intelligence not being ready and that if I nitpick, the super niche Chinese phones still have a superior camera hardware. For most people, this is the best phone, and Samsung and Google really need to step it up as they’re the main competitors for Apple in North America, western Europe, and countries like Japan.
