First Impressions of the iPhone 16 Pro

“I was perturbed to see it hanging from my mailbox in a plastic bag. In previous years, UPS delivered it to my door and required a signature…”

In my experience, living rurally with a mailbox not visible from the house at the bottom of a long driveway, both UPS and FedEx have been very unreliable about delivering items to the house. Sometimes an item is left at the mailbox, like Adam’s experience, sometimes left part way up the driveway in the woods or a snowbank, and sometimes they actually come to the house. I’ve not been able to correlate the value of the item with the lack of delivery, but anecdotally note that the issue is worse around high demand times such as Christmas. I wonder if the drivers are so stressed to get a certain number of deliveries completed in a day that they feel the pressure to avoid driving up driveways. I’ve found no way to communicate with either UPS or FedEx that the item they show as delivered, wasn’t actually delivered. I’ve often contacted the original shipper to ask them to contact the carrier and/or use a different carrier.

As you can tell from the length of this post, this is an issue close to my heart!

I see in the comparison chart here - iPhone 16 Pro vs iPhone 15 Pro vs iPhone 13 Pro - Apple - that while it’s slightly thicker than my iPhone 13 Pro it’s actually lighter.

That said, I’ll probably wait for the iPhone 17. My iPhone 13 Pro, which remains under warranty, is perfectly fine.

The 5x zoom sounds attractive though.

Just ordered mine…

Regarding UPS:

Last week was a bit strange. On Tuesday, I had a delivery scheduled for a prescription that I order monthly. Typically, the UPS driver leaves it in front of my apartment building, sometimes without even ringing my apartment buzzer. That Tuesday, I was out when he tried to deliver and instead took it to a nearby business that serves a UPS node.

On Wednesday, a delivery for a new Phone case was scheduled. I looked up the delivery on the UPS IOS app, and when it was out for delivery, a map showing the current location of the delivery truck was displayed. I later checked, and it showed the truck a few doors away from my building. I went to the landing for my floor and saw the truck in front of the building. Simultaneously, I also noticed that the elevator had been called. Sure enough, the elevator door opened a moment later, with the UPS driver holding my delivery. I guess that the first-floor door to the building had been propped open.

Finally, on Friday, I went downstairs to check my mail from the previous day and saw a UPS truck across the street (I live on a quiet residential street). I confirmed that that was the truck with my iPhone and Apple Watch via the UPS IOS app and asked the driver about my delivery. He said to be patient. Evidently, UPS treats each side of the street as a separate entity for its deliveries. About 30 minutes later, the app showed the truck approaching again; I stepped outside and had my new phone and watch.

This is the not the first such report I’m reading. I wonder if the Pro has simply jumped the shark. The regular 16 is good value while those that want the fanciest and most expensive just go for the Pro Max.

Hmm… I staged my pre-order purchasing straight from Apple. Kinda nice you could add to cart an it would bill you when it ships. The iPhone shipped from China. I missed my UPS delivery on Friday, I was distracted on a business video conference when UPS knocked and I didn’t hear them. UPS sent me an automated email stating they rescheduled for Monday. Then in the morning I was pleasantly surprised with another email stating that Saturday Delivery was authorized. Signature definitely was required which is why they didn’t leave it between the storm door and the front door. I imagine the Apple contract with UPS is a very big deal for UPS.

What’s weird is UPS collects a massive amount of data on their drivers. They know how many feet they reversed. They know if they put on their seatbelt. There are cameras in the truck monitoring the driver and the back of the truck. They know if you use your phone while driving. They know their speed, how hard they brake. They can evaluate the drivers efficiency, safety, etc. How long they are stopped and their GPS location at all times. I bet their handheld computers are being tracked as well. I can’t imagine, a driver leaving an iPhone hanging off your mailbox would be allowed by UPS management.

@ace I’m with Tonya-looking for a smaller phone along the lines of a mini or something with similar dimensions. I’ve got a 12 mini and will keep it going as long as I can until Apple releases a comparable device.

I don’t comment often, but the photos from the iPhone 16 Pro look pretty bad. I agree that the yellow of the flower is lacking detail from being overly bright.

I know it was probably a quick test, but the cleanup feature is just horrendous. That sample picture has odd artifacts of the stack of berries in the back where you removed the person, the speaker cords are all still dangling, the cloud at the top left behind the left side speaker is crazy. Just awful. All of it.

My plan is to purchase the iPhone 16 Pro. I currently have the iPhone 11 Pro. Will it be possible to do the Quick Start via my Satechi USB-C multi-port Adapter? It has both USB-C and USB-A ports. Using the Apple USB-A to Lightning Cable with my iPhone 11 Pro? The iPhone 11 Pro will be on iOS 18.

I’m on the annual upgrade program and picked up my 16 Pro on Friday. The Apple Store in the Mall was chaos, and the employee tagged to handle my upgrade knew less about how to do it than I did, but she finally activated the phone with T-Mobile. I should have left the Store then, but my agent insisted I do the Restore while at Apple. I won’t bore you with the details, but after 30 minutes of the phone not updating, I decided to leave and do it myself at home with the backups I had created. That was successful, and the only problem I’ve encountered on the 16 Pro is with Books, which is having trouble playing Audible audiobook content. Next year, I’ll forego the Apple Store and go back to having the phone delivered to my home, activating and restoring the iPhone myself.

This was my only minor quibble with @ace’s article. He wrote:

Tonya may never upgrade from her third-generation iPhone SE if Apple doesn’t provide a smaller device for smaller people.

Smaller devices aren’t just for smaller people! I’m 6’1" and (ahem) 200 lb and I’m still clinging onto my iPhone 12 mini too. It’s been the best iPhone I’ve had since the 5 and I really don’t want to replace it with a larger model. Unfortunately it’s getting more and more unreliable and I will probably need to get a 16.

Apple, come to your senses!

I believe the direct connection method is new to the USB-C models (15 and 16). When upgrading from lightning phones, Apple says you need the USB-C to lightning adapter and a lightning cable (lightning both ends, IIRC, and Apple no longer sells it.). See Use a wired connection to transfer data to a new iPhone - Apple Support

Indeed. I am very happy with my iPhone 13 mini and will skip this round of new phones. I had been hoping that the rumored 2025 iPhone SE would retain the smaller sizes of its predecessors, but most of the rumors now seem to suggest that it will be a full-sized phone.

I agree about the cleanup feature. The leg of the side table has been cut short as well.

Watch Tony Northrup’s video about the iPhone 16 Pro’s cameras and you’ll reconsider buying one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwLQOIlSzno It shocked me the way the 5x telephoto doesn’t zoom out but just crops the image for smaller zooms ie 3x, 2x etc. I’ll be looking for something with a 1" sensor and better optical telephoto up to 5x.

The fact that the quick start did not work for you resonated with my purchase of an iPad Pro last week. The quick start failed multiple times because it wanted to update me to the latest IOS (18) and that hung over and over. I ended up installing IOS 17.7 so that was the same as my existing iPad and then it did the Happy Screen transfer.

Regarding the “Cleanup” in Photos. Isn’t that part of “Apple Intelligence,” and doesn’t that begin coming in iOS 18.1? Or, is it possible it will WORK much better in 18.1?

And, Adam, may I ask why you prefer that particular 3rd party case to Apple’s, particularly if you’re interested in minimal additional size and heft?

I agree entirely! The point I was trying to make is that smaller people have to make more significant physical accommodations to be able to hold and use a device that’s significantly larger than their hands.

When I was telling Tonya about this last night, she said that Apple’s lack of accommodation for people of her size (she’s 5’ 3", which is just slightly below average for the US) was a small but real factor in why she left the industry. It’s hard to get excited about the latest and greatest iPhone when you know it won’t fit in your hand. She held onto the iPhone 5 form factor as long as she could, and she still doesn’t like the iPhone SE form factor as much.

Those of us whose bodies are larger can (and should) have preferences, but at least the larger devices aren’t as physically difficult to manipulate as they are for smaller folks.

What I’m seeing is wistfulness for the mini models, but no purchases. Adam took the Pro for the cameras. Tonya has the SE/3, I’m sure for good reasons.

The mini seemed to suffer from death by a thousand “buts”. “I almost bought the mini, but the SE was cheaper. I would have bought the mini, but I wanted the longer battery life, so I bought the regular. I should have bought the mini, but I take a lot of photos so I bought the Pro. I could have bought the mini, but I had just bought an 11 and by the time I wanted to upgrade, the 14/15/16’s were out, and there was no 14/15/16 mini.”

Nobody bought the mini 'cept you and me.

Sigh, my 12 mini had a nasty fall this summer, and was no exception to this:

(I am bigger than smaller people too… ;-)

The conditions weren’t great (dark, gray, and rainy), but I was working quickly to figure out why I couldn’t get the iPhone 16 Pro to take a 48-megapixel image, and I could capture those flowers on the deck outside my office without getting wet. I hope to have better conditions and more time to focus on it soon.

As you say, a very, very quick test, and I put no work into selecting items to be cleaned up. The result was much better than the original, so I was happy with the three-tap cleanup. If I had been doing it for real, I would have cropped the sides in to remove some of the extraneous artifacts and put more effort into figuring out what else I could remove.

Yes, Clean Up is only in iOS 18.1, which is what I’m running on both my old and new iPhones. It may work better, though I doubt it will change much since we’re probably just a few weeks away from release. As I said above, a little more work would likely have improved the results quite a lot, but for three taps, I was happy.

I’ve always considered Apple’s cases overpriced and boring. Apple charges $50 for clear or silicone cases, whereas the Smartish Gripmunk case was $35 with one of my favorite photos on the back. (It’s a little grainier in the photo below than it presents in real life.)

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And yes, I’m aware of the conflict between my desire for something smaller and lighter and my use of a case. The simple fact is that even though I’m usually very careful, every iPhone I’ve ever owned has hit the ground several times over its lifespan. Thanks to the case, I’ve never had a breakage. It would drive me crazy to have a crack in the glass or the other kinds of damage that I see regularly on friends’ phones.

They also know exactly what fraction of packages go missing. And they probably have that data down to the zip code level, so they know a safe neighborhood from a risky one.

If you or I lose a package, particularly something as expensive as a smartphone, it’s a big deal. So we might buy insurance or signature confirmation for a few extra bucks to be sure.

At the Apple/UPS scale, it’s just a statistic. Some percentage of packages will get destroyed, lost, or stolen. That percentage is probably small enough, even while multiplied by the wholesale cost of the iPhone, that it doesn’t make sense to spend the extra money to pay a driver to hand-deliver every package. If the loss rate is, say, 1.25%, and the cost of insurance or signature confirmation adds, say, 1.5%, then the math doesn’t work out. They self-insure, eg. they eat the loss, so long as the percentage stays small enough. And I’m sure they watch that percentage closely.

Various third-party research firms estimate that the minis made up around 3-5% of iPhone 12/13 sales, which, if I’m doing my back of the envelope math correctly, works out to several million units and somewhere around three billion US dollars of revenue. That’s not “no purchases.”

I have no doubt that Apple makes a significantly larger profit margin and much more money overall on its larger iPhone models, but I don’t think that means a smaller phone with billions of dollars of sales has no place in its lineup. This is particularly true if you consider the secondary services revenue generated by any iPhone customer. It seems more about pumping up Apple’s margins rather than delighting customers in a “tiny” multi-billion-dollar market segment.

I had a long run of phones w/ no cases and no drops…then one spectacular oops.

:-(

Apple doesn’t agree with you. They’ve tried over multiple generations of iPhones to sell a mini model and each time have given up. That’s pretty indicative that they’re not selling well by Apple’s standards. Not having a mini has not really affected iPhone sales overall, so they’re not losing customers over it – many of the mini customers may actually have simply chosen the phone because of the cheaper cost and happily switched to the iPhone SE when given a choice. The latter phone’s status as a lower cost alternative also shows that no, Apple is not just doing maximum margin extraction in its product matrix.

(Added to this is that no other major manufacturers are really offering phones with substantially smaller screens. It seems like it’s not just Apple that doesn’t see the business case for them)

By all reports, the Plus is selling poorly. And yet it’s still in the lineup.

So instead of just a single option for those that prefer smaller phones, we get two options for large (three if we include the SE3) and two options for huge. /smh

Mini fans need to continue to make noise. Eventually, Apple will be forced to listen to their customers (see steep discounts in China).

When I just checked, current iPhone 16 Plus wait times (a reasonable proxy for demand) are longer than those for iPhone 16s.

Good luck.

+1 for a smaller iPhone. In fact, if they still made an iPod Touch, I’d ditch the phone entirely. A computer in my pocket? Great. A phone? That’s mostly scammers, pollsters, and robocalls.

iPhone 16 Pro has its merits, it doesn’t offer enough enhancements over the iPhone 16 to justify the extra cost for most people.

For me, it’s all about the 5x optical zoom, and I think that is also Apple’s position. iPhone cameras are great, except in two important areas: selfies in moderate light (most selfies) and optical zoom. The 5x was a huge announcement last year, but required the Max. Now, it’s available in the regular Pro.

Having just paid off my iPhone 13 Pro on AT&Ts plan, I got the 16 Pro for basically “free” again, and I’m dying to see how I can zoom in better to wildlife shots, and keep my bulky Canon on the shelf whenever possible.

For anyone who doesn’t care about the extra optical zoom, I’m not sure I see the point of going Pro.

Another mini enjoyer here. Also not small. It’s simply that no iPhone of any vintage has ever felt as good in my hand (singular) as the iPhone 13 mini.

And it’s still working just fine for me. I skipped the v14 and v15 models, and I’m currently tracking to skip the v16 phones as well. I want a smaller phone more than I want the latest tech. At least for now…

Regarding parcel deliveries, I find that Amazon drivers rarely knock or ring the doorbell but they take a photo of the package at my front door. The photo is sent to me promptly in a text message.

For deliveries to the front door it helps living in an ordinary suburban house but occasionally a driver (in a hurry?) will leave a package at the foot of our front steps.

Oh… and thank you for the iPhone review. My partner and I are holding out for a new model that is no larger that our current iPhones 8 - we don’t use the fancy photo features of the big new models (I have a very compact Panasonic camera with 20x optical zoom for trips).

If you have a professional need or wish to shoot photos in RAW, that format is only available in the Pro models (15 or 16). With RAW files you can do a lot of post production adjustments (such as white balance correction, etc) that are not available in JPEG format files.

I’ve lived in the same house in a rural subdivision since 1990. I can remember when UPS drivers would cover a specific route for years, sometimes their entire career. Later, FedEx drivers would generally stay on the same route for years. We knew their names and got to know them. They knew all the neighbors, where to stash packages, whether the dog was friendly (or not) and to ignore our “Dog On Duty” sign because she died in 2004 (we’ve only had cats since).

These days the drivers may be contract employees and in our area they do not seem to stick to the same route for very long. I had a very young UPS driver refuse to accept an official UPS form because he claimed that he had never previously seen one like it. A call to UPS confirmed that he should have accepted it and turned it in at the end of the day.

When I was working I relied on FedEx to ship photos internationally and both companies for shipping valuable equipment. I am so glad to be retired, avoiding the devaluation of my “product” to a cheap commodity and the current state of the service companies I once counted on.

Until recently I had been very happy with my 2022 iPhone SE3. But then its Bluetooth failed, cycling OFF/ON and wearing down its battery within hours. Apple tells me it cannot be repaired; since it is past its warranty, I must buy a new/refurbished phone. From what I have read online, such Bluetooth failures are not uncommon with all iPhone models.

I’ve owned iPhones since the 3S and this is the first time one has let me down. I am going to try and live without Bluetooth and wait for the SE4. There is no way I will pay the going prices for any iPhone 16 model. Like many consumer electronic products they are expensive to repair (when possible) and they have a relatively short useful life considering what they cost.

Meanwhile I am looking at some alternative phones. I’ve used cell phones since the 1980s and I can remember when I got along nicely without relying on Apple’s services.

I don’t know what you’ve read, but this is news to me. I’ve been using various iPhone models since the 4S and I’ve never heard of Bluetooth failures being commonplace.

But if you’re searching support forums, you’re going to get a skewed impression because satisfied customers don’t generally express themselves in support forums.

And I don’t think you need to. Apple still sells the 14 and SE3, both of which are perfectly good devices. Your mobile service provider may sell older models for even lower prices (I see Verizon is selling certified pre-owned 11’s and 12’s).

No reason why you shouldn’t. If you’re not so invested in the Apple ecosystem (not using many iOS apps or can run them on an iPad or Mac), then by all means look at Android phones or cheap “feature” phones. The goal is to get what meets your needs/wants, not what someone else tells you you should want.

But be aware that the Android ecosystem isn’t any cheaper. A good quality smartphone from Samsung or Google will probably cost about the same as one from Apple.

You can get less expensive phones, of course, but you need to do your homework. Depending on what you need, a cheap phone might not have the horsepower to run the apps you want to run.

No impressions of iPhone 16 Pro here so far, but I was also disappointed with the slight increase in size and weight. I used to pay extra to buy a smaller and lighter mobile phone back in the 90’s – now somehow a bigger one should cost more :-). If there is too little screen estate, then people should get an iPad instead. I think my iPhone 13 mini is a bit too big and the black bezel on the screen is too narrow and I have big hands! I could play a game of solitaire about 20% faster on the original iPhone SE (which was the best so far apart from the camera).

As to the camera – the main reason to upgrade – it was not mentioned by Adam, but apparently JPEG-XL is now supported, but you still cannot use that for photos taken despite that the quality per MB should be much better than for HEIC. I still use old JPEG on iPhone 13 as in my test they look better than the HEIC photos – they would not have looked better (I believe) if the file sizes had been the same, but since they compress the HEIC ones a bit too much that’s the end result. It could possibly have changed since I did my test, but the JPEGs are good enough and I do not have to think about changing the format when editing them (in Photoshop or Affinity Photo – I usually now edit them in both as the clarity filter is better in Affinity, but all else better in Photoshop).

Bigger size may make it easier to write correctly on the phone, but the main problem there is the auto-correct (which does not know about any Apple-specific words apparently, for example …). The phones look good (without covers), but supposing they would have wanted people to use them, like I do, without a cover then they should improve the grip on the sides – it is currently better than the rounded edges (Samsung copycat phones) they made for a while though. (Maybe sometimes Cook should think what Steve would have thought even if Steve suggested he should not … .)

Some third-party iOS apps make it possible to shoot RAW images with non-Pro models. I’m most familiar with ProCamera, which I think is also less expensive than Hallide, another comparable and popular app.

ProCamera DNG-RAW shooting is compatible with the iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone SE, iPhone 7, and iPhone 7 Plus as well as newer models. This should not be confused with AppleProRAW, which requires iPhone 12 and later Pro models. Apple ProRAW has additional “computational photography information” while the classic RAW format bypasses the iPhone computing system.

If you want to learn more about the pros & cons of the two formats, there are articles and YouTube videos available online.

After reading your response to my post, I looked-up the definition of “uncommon” which made me realize that I have been misusing the term. So I’d like to “edit” my earlier post to read that the issue is more common that I had expected.

Of course, short of there being editorial reports of a particular hardware issue and perhaps a resulting class-action lawsuit, Mac forums are the primary places to read about the problems other Apple customers are experiencing. I don’t limit myself to them but I usually begin with the official Apple community forums, MacRumors and Reddit, then see where else the trail leads. . .

While the magnitude of a particular problem may be “skewed” because people generally go to such places to complain rather than praise Apple, it is also true that such posts are a sampling of user experiences, which unfortunately cannot be quantified. On the extreme end there are also examples of Apple products widespread hardware problems that were not responded to or properly addresses by Apple until the number of public comments passed a critical mass. So it goes.

Recently I have been considering such things as device repairability and cost and my own particular needs when it comes to a cell phone. Rest assured that the myriad considerations you raised have been on my mind while I look at my options.

There is a small museum in London, The Old Operating Theatre, which has a narrow 52-step circular staircase from the street to the lobby. (You can see it at the beginning of this video.) When I was in the lobby, I saw a FedEx delivery person approaching the top of the stairs with a parcel (fortunately not heavy). He stopped a few steps short of the top to hand it to a friendly staff member. Now that’s dedication!

Bit of a hellscape here with the restoration from iCloud on my 16 Pro.

It is, over a day later, still restoring apps and data. Pretty well unusable while underway.

It’s been crashing every 10-20 mins on top of this.

Very unsatisfactory support chat with Apple, leaving overnight again… hopefully all done by then and this crashing… is not a thing…

Yeesh!

I hate to say it, but I’d be tempted to do a factory reset and try again. This is not normal behavior. If it happens again, I’d exchange it for another one.

Dave

Update: After 36 hours or so, my restore is ‘complete’… and the phone is responsive and no longer crashing.

Problems persist however,
my Share sheet has a lot of missing items and is non-responsive, tapping ‘More’ does nothing.
Also, I can load apps, most of them… the two problematic ones are…

• Settings. Loads with a blank white screen which persists.
• Mail. Loads, shows the list of emails, jumps around the different views, no problem. Until I tap to read an email and then it fails to display anything and freezes, eventually crashing.

I’ve tried force-quitting them, hard resets on the phone. About to re-ignite my Apple support session.

End result - returning the phone, replacement due next week.

Odd side event - Not being able to access Settings I had to give the IMEI from the packaging, whereupon I noted that the box was for an iPhone 15 Pro, 128Gb model. I had ordered a 512Gb 16 Pro. Not being able to check the capacity given the freezing device, but certain of the model at least, (the camera button and three lenses did that) I wondered if Apple had spare iPhone boxes from the 15 era left over and were using them. I also wondered if Vodafone (my phone company who I purchased it from) had some side deal with some other source, but that seems highly unlikely.

To erase all my data, I had to declare it as lost using Find My on my iPad, it never advanced beyond ‘Trust this computer’ when I attached it to my Mac. Then after it erased I had to log back in to it given that my iCloud account still controlled it, whereupon I could finally access Settings, verified the 512 capacity…, and reset to factory defaults.

I’m very happy with my iPhone SE 3rd gen, BTW, 6 ft / 182 cm tall.

I’ll likely not replace my iPhone 15 Pro with the 16 Pro for a month or two, but I’m keenly interested in comments on the satellite capabilities. Has anyone used it on this forum yet? We live in Sedona, Arizona in high desert, so going many places out of town can involve lengthy drives. Additionally, we hike in many areas, even easy hikes, without cell coverage. So for me going forward, nice cameras notwithstanding, satellite features will be greatly appreciated.

Two things that surprised me:

After years of determined iPhone mini preference, I am surprised (almost embarrassed) by how much better my big paws can type on a 16 Pro Max. I just never thought the bigger phones were big enough to make a difference.

It is the first iPhone I’ve bought that did not come with a charger. So, with USB-C, the only thing I have to charge it with is my Mac Studio desktop. (Yes, I am sure folks are lined up to sell me a solution to that.)

But then, I think I could get used to not having a phone by my bed.

;~}

I’m probably not helping the market because I tend to hang onto my phones until they will no longer run a new enough operating system. My current SE is going on five years old. I haven’t looked at the current offerings, but I sure hope they’ll have a similar size SE when I’m ready to replace it. I don’t need all the fancy cameras and stuff.

My new iPhone has arrived – a 16, not 16 Pro. First impressions are excellent. It feels slightly snappier than my 13 Pro, it’s noticeably lighter, and the screen (despite not being ProMotion) looks really good. I got the purple (“ultramarine” in Apple’s parlance) and the color is lovely in physical form. I’ve ordered a transparent case so that I can see the color through it.

I transferred my data using Quick Start and a physical cable and it took less than an hour for everything to be up and running smoothly. The cameras are fine (I’m not a skilled photographer) and the new camera button works well (still fiddling with the half press vs. full press). I changed the Action Button to flashlight and am slowly working to remember that in the moment.

Everyone has their own mileage, but I’m extremely pleased with the upgrade thus far.

I was surprised that our experiences differed so much.

I also ordered an 16 Pro (upgrading from a 12 mini). I’m not quite as rural is Adam’s photo but in a neighbourhood of another New England college town with low crime. UPS would not leave the phone, instead requiring a signature. Even the “sign the slip we left” wasn’t an option, though the orig Monday redelivery shown on the UPS tracking page was updated to be Saturday “at senders request”.

Having been planning on getting a new iPhone and most likely the Pro, I also noted how close the non-Pro matches the features I cared about most (satellite, improved camera). The only distinguishing feature left that pushed me to the Pro was the 5x optical zoom.

Overall happy with it, although I miss the pocket size of the mini and didn’t need the .2" screen size increase from previous years.

They don’t look bad to me:

And what I’ve personally taken is also looking good, though I changed my default Photographic Style from Standard to Natural.

I was intrigued by Adam’s problems with the Quickstart process.
When upgrading my wife’s parents’ phones recently and being stumped using my old method of making an encrypted backup on a Mac first, but running into forgotten backup passwords and old macOS versions, I was pleasantly surprised by the Quickstart process running flawlessly.

Having had problems with Quickstart in the past, I never really got any experience with this process. But now I’m thinking, it always failed for me when trying with new devices, whereas my in-laws upgraded from iPone 6’s to SE3’s.

Well, my replacement worked fine. Transferred all in about an hour. Phone feels good in the hand if a little top heavy, could only relax when I got it into a case.

Having digested (sorta) the thread on the camera, time to check it out

I must be in need of coffee. I read Colleen talking about her “SE” and the first thing I thought of was a Mac SE It’s good to keep those old computers going.

We’re dating ourselves! I worked on any number of Mac SEs, and know of a crawlspace with a number of them entombed, along with their contemporary brethren.

My only interest in AI would be a more conversational SIRI and a better autocorrect. If both were more contextually aware that would be great. Unlike almost all Apple pundits, who can’t mention the assistant without a strong put down, I find that SIRI works great right now for the relatively simple queries and commands I give it - it works at least 95% of the time. I couldn’t care less about summarizing, rewriting, image generation or the hallucination-prone LLMs.

I have a 13 Pro Max which does everything I want except for camera zoom - it would be nice to have a good 10x zoom with an image stabilization good enough to support it. I like to take bird pictures in decent light and the 3x is not quite good enough.

I was tempted by the 16 Pro Max mainly for the 5x zoom, but nothing else about it is compelling. I don’t think I would like the fiddly camera control button and the battery life and thermals in my current phone are still great. I can wait for a more suitable phone.

Exactly. It’s so dumb sometimes, and often fails to do simple things I know it knows how to do. And an update a couple years back supposedly moved more of the processing onto the device itself, and yet sometimes it can’t even start a timer for me when I can’t get Internet access. Laughable, except that laughing is not usually my response…

Note that the iPhone 16 Pro (not just the Max) has the 5x zoom now, and I think, for the first time, it’s no longer inferior to the camera on the Max. So I got the iPhone 16 Pro, largely for that 5x zoom (see my post in another thread). But yes, I wish we had 10x zoom like the one Samsung model; bird pix are also something I love to get :-)

Just so you know, you can turn off the camera control button if you think it is a problem. If you don’t find that feature compelling, it’s not a reason to reject the phone.

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I didn’t use the camera control as a reason for rejecting the phone as though it were a flaw. I simply didn’t find it to add at all to the desirability of the new phones. AI is in the same category - not a compelling feature for me and, from what I have heard, not likely to be one for some time. Whether AI becomes compelling in the future is questionable - most of the features touted by Apple are not interesting to me. When there is a compelling AI capability together with a longer lens I will probably buy the phone.

Yikes! 10X !? That’s tripod territory even for heavy camera iron. I have the 5X on the 15 and it is not easy even given Apple legerdemain to get a clear shot without using a local fencepost.

Dave

I think one of the Android phones has 10x. I have no idea how well it is implemented. To be useful it would require an improvement in the image stabilization. I am guessing that the next iPhone will have a 48 megapixel sensor for the 5x lens and Apple could use the central 12 megapixels to get a 10x lens (essentially a digital zoom). This would only work if the 5x lens quality is good enough that the MTF would be decent at spatial frequencies ~1/(pixel pitch), ie the blur from a point source is smaller than the pixel spacing. I believe this is the case with the main lens and longer lenses need fewer elements to get high resolution.

I’m going to chime in that I think the dedicated Camera Control button is the most important addition to the iPhone in years.

This isn’t just from having the new iPhone 16 Pro for a couple weeks now; it’s from decades of NOT having it. Several years back, they made the camera FAIRLY accessible by allowing us to swipe left from the Lock Screen. This was functional, but was no help when the phone was both unlocked and had any app running, so your dock was also inaccessible. And the Control Sheet was still more friction and delay than desirable when you had a quick pic you wanted to take.

And there was no way around this problem. We struggled with it for years. Finally, the top dogs at Apple came to their senses and granted Camera app a promotion that is reserved for only the most royal monarchs of iPhone Features: a dedicated button.

If offers another plus, too. It overrides what you’re touching on the screen: you can touch or multi-touch your screen, and that button will still launch Camera and take a shot. When your hands are full and you want to take a selfie, that’s a big help, because sometimes it’s hard to ensure there’s nothing touching the screen.

And it’s useful for another reason: shooting a photo when you can’t hold the iPhone at an angle where you can see the screen (or the on-screen shutter button) like trying to reach under the sink to get a pic of its Model # or 1000 other examples. In fact, you can now easily take a selfie with the much-higher-quality (and less distorted) back camera for the first time: point the screen away from you and the lens towards you, and press the Camera Control button twice

For the latter facing-away-from-you application, you COULD use the volume control buttons. But let’s be honest: who remembers whether it’s Volume Up or Down, and then who can find the right one when it’s photo time? And now that we have the Action Button next to those, it’s even harder to figure out which Left Side button is which. But the Camera Control button is on the less-crowded side, and is recessed so you can’t confuse it with anything.

This is the most important iPhone usability and productivity feature that I can remember in a long time. It’s so fundamental and obvious, that it has and will go mostly uncelebrated. In fact, it’s just getting us back to where we were 60 years ago with consumer cameras. But in 2 years, everyone will scratch their heads about how they tolerated fiddling with apps in order to take pix.

I based my skepticism about the camera control button upon several reviews I have seen. Here are the two things which stood out. First, activating the shutter requires a somewhat hard push which can cause camera shake, introducing blur. Tapping the screen to take the picture is much less likely to do this, as the tap can be very light. Second, the button is extremely overloaded: it can do many things depending on duration and strength of the press. I don’t like the extent of overloading that Apple has already introduced in its iPhone UI - I can no longer rest my finger on the screen without causing some action.

I should stress that I have never used an iPhone 16 (Pro/Max) so it might be better than I imagined. It also might improve with new software.

FWIW, as far as activating the camera while the phone is unlocked and taking a photo as a shutter button, the action button can be chosen to do that very well on the 15 Pro/Pro Max and the 16 series phones as well. As it’s the furthest right/left (depending on how you hold the phone), it’s a very easy button to find and use as well.

If pushing a button caused camera shake, wouldn’t every standalone camera ever made have had that problem?

I find camera shake far more common tapping the front screen. It’s not just the tap itself, but a slight turning of the screen that happens when I try and tap. I can’t count the number of pictures I’ve taken that were blurry because of this and I had to retake them. It has gotten better on recent iPhone models as Apple has increased the speed of the photo capturing process, but it still does happen. I haven’t seen any issues taking a photo with the new Camera Control. The button is delightful to press.

On the overloading issue, I agree it can be a problem. I am still working through that. In Settings you can turn that half-press completely off or adjust its sensitivity, which I haven’t tried yet. The biggest issue for me isn’t the half-press itself – it’s using the half-press a second time to move the current menu to a different one. If the default menu I’m controlling is what I want, a half-press gets me there and I can slide to adjust, but if I want a different control (i.e. focus or exposure or zoom), trying to half-press to get that is confusing and feels slower than just looking at the screen and tapping what I want to control.

This is early days, however, and things like that can be fixed in a software update.

I am most intrigued by the forthcoming half-press to lock focus/exposure feature, which works the way most standalone cameras do, and is a feature I think I’d use a lot.

I don’t like the Action button for this because it’s not a press, but a press-and-hold to get it to activate. The Camera Control is just a press and works much better. Also, that leaves the Action button for more elaborate uses, like running Shortcuts.

I am basing my comment on a video from Macrumors where one of the participants said that the pressure needed to fire the shutter always caused the camera to shake. I have lots of film cameras (no digital except the iPhone) and the force needed to squeeze the shutter button is very small - it was deliberately engineered that way. It would be interesting to see whether the iPhone button causes problems (take photos using it and the screen button and look at differences using enlarged images).

I haven’t noticed that at all. In fact, because of the way you hold the phone, you tend to squeeze the two sides together (like a thumb-index pinch) to press the Camera Control button, which I find means I’m actually gripping the phone tighter and holding it more still.

Your wish is my command. I just tried a quick test shooting a closeup of a TV remote using 5x lens of my 16 Pro Max. I figure the 5x lens would show any movement more.

First the on-screen shutter button:

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Second, using the Camera Control button to take the picture:

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I tried to be fair and stay as still as possible during both clicks, but the first (on-screen) seems slightly fuzzier to me. (The “EXIT” button is blurrier, for instance.) I vote for physical button for the win.

(I did read something somewhere that because the phone is actually taking many pictures when you press the button, it can actually select the shot with the best focus, before you moved the phone, to eliminate camera shake.)

The real conclusion here is I need to get my canned air and deep clean my TV remote!

If it were camera shake, everything would be blurrier. It is probably a depth of field problem - the DOF is very small for closeup photography. I use a NASA test chart for my resolution measurements - there are numerous test charts one can download.

Exactly. I was going to say the same thing.

You do have some control over the light press gestures for this new button.

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I don’t see any control over the full press.

Regarding the button being overloaded, so far it hasn’t been a problem. But sometimes I do find that I’m in half press mode unexpectedly. I could use the above setting, and some training, to compensate for that. But also worth noting that being in half press mode, if I don’t slide left or right, doesn’t do anything of consequence. I can still full press and get the shot, which works as expected.

In fact, I haven’t found any way to get out of half press mode once you get in, without tapping the screen (which we’re trying to avoid; hence this button). So it’s possible Apple intends for you to linger on whatever half press menu you left off using as you proceed to full press the shutter. Worth noting that when you double half press, while not closing the half-press menu, at least takes you to the top menu where sliding left and right doesn’t modify parameters.

Goodness yes! There are so many great uses for the Action Button. Meanwhile; we now have a dedicated camera button. Save the action button for something else!

NO. In photography school I had a reputation for being able to hand-hold at slower shutter-speeds than most. I find trying to hold a phone steady infuriating. With a SLR, you can get a much steadier grip and stance while still having all the controls space comfortably under your fingers.

There is nothing “comfortable” about iPhone camera functions (and yes, I have a 16 Pro Max). Fortunately I didn’t buy it for the camera.

While I agree the form factor is still an issue, a phone is vastly lighter than a SLR and much easier to hold steady.

I take a lot of pictures one-handed while hiking with my dog and him tugging on the leash, nose to the ground, oblivious that I’m about to snap a photo. I could never do that with my DSLR that requires two hands. I’m loving the new Camera Control button.

I thought I read that when the phone is locked (display is in always on mode, or dark) one press of the camera control wakes the screen, then you have to press again to activate the camera. With the action button, a long press always activates the camera.

So as I said in the action button survey, I can find nothing else useful for the action button at all. There isn’t a shortcut I need to run that would be useful to me. My phone is always silent. My focus modes are kicked off using a time schedule or they are automated. If I ever need to do so manually, it’s a lot easier from control center on my watch. I don’t use the flashlight all that often and the on screen button or control center works for me for that. So using rhe action button for the camera actually works well. (I just started doing this recently.)

True, but in practice, the phone unlocks when you look at it, so generally I find it’s already unlocked when I tap the Camera Control button to open the Camera.

You can also just double tap it, which I find is still faster than holding Action button. (I just did some non-scientific tests and it feels like Camera Control button is slightly faster, but it’s honestly not much different.)

In general my two workflows are:

1. phone is already out and in my hand and probably unlocked, so one tap on Camera Control button opens camera for a quick shot, which I can get by pressing the same button to take a picture.

2. phone is in pocket and locked so I double tap as I pull it out and by the time it’s up to my eye it’s ready to take a photo and I press the shutter to capture a picture.

Both are quite quick.

I wish Action button was flush with phone like the Camera Control button so it wouldn’t need to be a long press. I would use Action a lot more. The long-press just kills it for me. I find it completely useless as that slows me down so much that by the time I think how to use it (my usual attempt is a single press, then “Why is nothing is happening?”, then “Oh crap, it’s a long-press,” and then doing a long press), it’s faster to do whatever it was another way.

(BTW, I did just discover as I was testing Action button for camera launching, that pressing Action with the camera open takes a picture. I never knew that! I would always use the volume button to take a picture, which meant moving my hand to another button. I liked that with Camera Control I didn’t have to move my finger, but I guess that was there all along with Action and I didn’t notice.)

It’s still early days with the new hardware button and I’m learning what works for me and doesn’t, but I don’t see the harm in having the Camera Control button. If you don’t want to use it, don’t – use Action. I love that flexibility.

(I may experiment with having Action button bring up a third party camera app and Camera Control bring up native camera. That might be the perfect setup as I don’t use third party app that often, but I’d use it more with one-button access.)

The larger, heavier DSLR/Mirrorless has greater inertia and is more resistent to motion. Physics.

So, today was a perfect example. I’m dealing with a leaky toilet, and had to crawl into a tight (awkward, dingy) space to get pix of the subfloor. I had a headlamp to free up one hand. The other hand had to hold the iPhone. But, thanks to the new Camera Control button, at least it didn’t have to be done with two fingers (leaving the thumb free to press the shutter button). Ignoring the fact that I wouldn’t have been able to see the screen or the shutter button, it would not even have been physically possible to hold such a heavy device with gravity acting against me at that angle. And so if you can picture me lying on my back looking up at that subfloor, those “side views” of the pipe were both taken with me completely unable to see the screen… again, thanks to the new button (and the opposable thumb).

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One gotcha comes from the fact that, in cases like this (and in lots of good photography) I need to see each shot after it’s taken, so I know how it came out and whether I need to shoot again. That, unfortunately, requires me fiddling with the screen. So here’s a feature request for Apple: configure the (currently unused) double-full-press of the Camera Control button to show you the shot you just took. Bam! Or another option: place this new Review feature under the soft-button-press, positioned so that a quick right-swipe takes you right back to the parameter you previously working with, if any. Now that would be productivity.

One tip that I do in such situations is to shoot video. Then I can scroll frame-by-frame through the video and find just the shots I need (I can screenshot a frame if it’s one I want to keep for easy reference such as a serial or part number).

Good point. That could be a workable hack for some utilitarian applications like this.

Although the Camera Control may be helpful for this, a selfie stick and video with AirPlay Receiver saved the day for me a few years ago.

Although Siri by itself can’t take a photo, a shortcut can, and you trigger that with Siri. Or you can ask Siri to take a screenshot and see what’s showing in the Camera viewfinder.

Yep. Fortunately there are things that can help for any camera:

Proper stance, including elbows in (tons of articles on the web.) Strong muscles help, legs and core are as important as arms.

Avoid caffeine.

If there’s a wall, tree or fence handy, lean against it or hold the camera against it.

If you’re on an expedition such as a park or zoo where you’re likely to want to take a lot of photos and don’t mind carrying an extra thing or two, you can use a support or stabilizer of some ilk. Sophistication, effectiveness, cost and convenience are highly variable. All of these need a phone mount. Some come with one built in, but mounts only cost a few $$, so choose the base first (check the specs to be sure it can hold more than the weight of the phone + mount for safety). Use a bluetooth shutter or apple watch to avoid camera shake.

• a somewhat heavy hand grip

• light duty monopod or tripod

• tabletop tripod with bendy legs (small, light and can be attached to a post or fence rail)

There are also compact handheld motorized gimbals. I’ve always had the impression that they’re only useful for video, but I’ve run across a few random articles lately claiming that’s not so. I’m tempted to get a cheap one as a play toy but it’s going to take some research. From a quick scan of B&H Photo offerings, they all seem to require phone apps of dubious provenance, and don’t support all phone models or all phone camera features so you have to look closely at the specs and manual–if there is one. Some of them have lengthy and invasive ‘need these permissions’ lists for android, so they probably grab whatever they can for ios too.

After several weeks with the iPhone 16 Pro, I’m going to add another reason why the Camera Control button is the most significant addition to iPhone in a long time: orienting the device.

I have found that, when used with a case, feeling for that unique indentation on the side of the device is the most effective way to get the phone oriented top-to-bottom and left-to-right.

I know the iPhone has a bunch of buttons, but they’re just so hard to quickly decipher. In fact, every time I use the volume control buttons, I have to spend a while feeling around to make sure I’m not confusing Volume Up with the Action Button.

And I know there are the bulgy lenses on the back. But I explicitly make a point of picking up the phone by its edges because I don’t want fingerprints on the lenses.

What remains is the USB-C port at the bottom and the Camera Control on the right. And since I don’t have a hand the size of Andre the Giant, I don’t pick up the phone from the top/bottom edges; I do it from the sides. So the USB-C port isn’t immediately accessible by my hand, and therefore not a great candidate for quick orientation.

At this point you have to factor in the case… For those who use the iPhone 16 Pro naked, the CC button is nearly flush with the side of the phone, and therefore not very useful for orienting it. In that case, you can ignore this post. Sorry, I live in the real world where devices get dropped and $1000 isn’t growing on a tree in my back yard, so a case is always a reality. I will even leave a brand new phone on a table in a carpet-covered room if it arrives before my matching case in the mail; not risking dropping it naked.

So, while buttons on case-covered iPhones are usually covered with extra “padding”, the touch-sensitive CC button doesn’t lend itself to that. So on my Spigen case (and probably all others?) there’s a generous indentation at that point of the case to let your finger access that surface directly. That mini cavern is the perfect place for a finger to land and tell me what’s the lower-right corner of my iPhone.

It’s hard to quantify how useful this non-feature is, but it’s substantial. I’m curious how other cases compare in this regard.

I use the button the same way, my ESR case has a similar indentation. I do find however the lenses weight tends to tilt the iPhone in hand to the upside down position, and the indentation aids correcting the orientation.