The iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro will have a dedicated camera button, but you’ll need to wait months for the promised AI features.
If there’s one question on every iPhone owner's mind right now, it's “Should I upgrade?†Our iPhone 16 Pro review is out now if you want to check how the new phone stacks up. For those still hemming and hawing about dropping hundreds of dollars on a new device, there are a few things to consider first, especially if you’re planning on waiting for the iPhone 17.
For many, switching will boil down to whether a dedicated camera button seems useful to you or how much you truly care about being the first to test the upcoming Apple Intelligence. You don’t need an iPhone 16 to download iOS 18 and all the additions to Apple’s ecosystem found within. Apple supply chain analyst Ming Chi-Kuo shared that new phone pre-orders haven’t matched the iPhone 15 from a year ago. More people are reportedly less excited about the new Pro phones than usual.
If you don’t care about AI, the big changes to the latest iPhone are related to hardware. Alongside a new, more powerful CPU and battery improvements, the iPhone 16 has two extra buttons you don’t have on a base iPhone 15. The Camera Control button can open your camera app, snap pics, and even change a few camera settings with a few swipes. The feature is not fully formed, and you’ll need to wait a few months to get DSLR-like shutter button capabilities. There’s so much missing from the initial release that it may be worth holding off on pre-ordering until you can see all the touted features tested firsthand.
The iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro models get the iPhone 15 Pro’s action button. By default, it triggers ring or silent modes, but users can set it to access other capabilities like flashlight, translate, or other shortcuts for apps like Shazam’s music recognition. It’s a handy feature on the iPhone 15 Pro and proof that sometimes you just need a physical button instead of a touchscreen.
The big new addition is Camera Control. It’s a shallow, “taptic†button that recognizes shallow presses, deep presses, and sliding along it with your finger. Pressing the button can immediately jump to the camera app from your home or lock screen. In the app, you can press it to take a picture. If you slide along the button with your finger, you can select from several photo settings, including zoom, exposure, and depth of field.Â
You’ll have to wait for the button’s coolest feature. Apple promised that Camera Control could act like a DSLR’s shutter button later this year. When you half-press it, the camera will set the focus and allow you to reframe the shot before fully snapping the pic. The Camera Control button, and the camera app in general, will also work with Apple Intelligence to add events to your calendar when you snap a picture of a concert poster or a party invite. It can even perform Google Lens-like image searches. All those features won’t be available on release.
The cameras on both the Pro and non-Pro phones have received some minor upgrades. Apple’s calling this year's camera banks its “fusion†camera, though the base iPhone 16 has a 48MP main sensor with a 2x telephoto option. In addition, there’s a 12MP ultrawide that promises better macro photography. The Pro can take video at 4K and 120 FPS, allowing some slo-mo shooting. The new Pro has a 48MP ultrawide and a 12MP 5x telephoto sensor. That’s improved from the 12MP ultrawide and 12MP telephoto on the iPhone 15 Pro. It’s meant to match up to Pixel 9 Pro.
The base iPhone 16 and the iPhone 16 Plus models get the same chip as the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max, though the more expensive phones have a more powerful CPU. Just like the A17 Bionic, it’s a 3nm chip, but it now sports a bigger, 16-core NPU used to power background AI processes. The A18 Pro has the same CPU cores as the A17 but has 17% more memory bandwidth for better AI processing.
The regular A18 promises 30% better CPU performance than the last generation’s A16 Bionic. The new chip also includes a 5-core GPU, which should provide better performance in some games with this hardware. That combines with iOS 18’s Game Mode, which, like on Mac, limits background tasks to improve gaming performance. The Pro chips should also see two times faster video encoding.
The A18 Pro includes a 6-core GPU for even better gaming performance. Apple said it's 20% faster than the previous-gen chip. This new phone also supports faster hardware-accelerated ray tracing. Apple showed Death Stranding played on an iPhone 16 Pro at its showcase, though we'd have to play more games to see if it can match up to any desktop or laptop counterparts.
Both phones now have a base of 8GB of RAM, 2GB more than the iPhone 15 Pro. Depending on how you use them, you won’t see much of a difference, though the memory is necessary for all those upcoming Apple Intelligence features, according to the company.
The iPhone 16 won’t get Apple Intelligence on release Sept. 20. The iPhone 15 Pro, the only other Apple phone with the RAM and neural processing capabilities to handle on-device AI, won’t have it until later. While Apple hasn’t offered a precise release date for any AI features, the company explained that some features will be coming in October with iOS 18.1. With the next release, Siri will get her redesign with a new typing interface and better comprehension. You’ll need to wait until 2025 for the promised ability for Siri to understand your activities across your apps. If you’re impatient, you could sign up for the iOS 18.1 developer beta and subscribe to later versions. Of course, things may be glitchy if you opt for a beta, so be sure to back up your phone before you try it.
This year, you’ll also get a few more AI-enabled upgrades to Apple Mail that can prioritize some messages for you. The phones will add some AI art generation with “Genmojis†alongside a Magic Eraser-like Clean Up tool in the Photos app. Image Playground, Apple’s AI art generator, won’t come until iOS 18.2 or later. Based on the single generated image the tech giant shared with Wired, I can’t say we’re missing much.
The expected integration with ChatGPT will arrive before the end of the year, but Apple hasn’t offered a precise date. This means users can get the chatbot right from their phones, though it's essentially little more than the ChatGPT app, which you can download for free. You can use your account if you pay for ChatGPT Plus, and it will answer some questions that Siri is less suited for, namely, online search. It can also manage Apple’s Writing Tools for proofreading, summarizing, or writing your college essays for you. As it stands, ChatGPT integration is a stopgap for when Apple makes Siri better in 2025.Â
Essentially, all of Apple Intelligence is coming out slowly. If you’re not interested in any of those features or this piecemeal approach, you could hold off buying the iPhone 16 until 2025. At that point, I’d argue you’re better off waiting for the iPhone 17 that will likely debut in September next year. Pray Apple doesn’t eventually make us pay for these or future AI features.