The iPhone 16 Pro affords you an unusual level of freedom

The latest iPhones are being sold under the tagline «Hello, Apple Intelligence». However, seeing as Apple’s AI features aren’t available at launch, this «hello» seems to have been sent from the future. We’re unlikely to see Apple Intelligence in Europe any time soon.

AI aside, the iPhone 16 Pro hasn’t improved much compared to its predecessor at first glance. The most significant change made to the device is a shutter button that Apple doesn’t want to call a button. There are also a few camera upgrades, a marginally larger display and a longer battery life.

So, is it all a bit underwhelming? Not quite. Away from the headline features, there’s an exciting new addition working its magic: the iPhone 16 Pro lets you decide how your photos should look.

Camera: impressive software, disappointing button

For several years now, camera technology has been stagnating on the hardware front. Sensors are improving at a snail’s pace. As for smartphones, camera lens design is limited by the physical constraints of being housed in a pocket-sized device.

To secure improvements in image quality nonetheless, Apple has been focusing on software. The iPhone’s designed to get the maximum out of raw sensor data. Combining data from several images, it runs them through the image pipeline, where algorithms such as Photonic Engine and DeepFusion are at work. Only the engineers know exactly how they work.

The bottom line is that the rise of computational photography means that when you press the shutter button, software decides a lot for you. Things such as people’s skin tones, how much the shadows are lightened and colour saturation levels. On the one hand, this is practical. On the other hand, it means you’re bound to Apple’s idea of what constitutes an aesthetically pleasing image. With the iPhone 16 (both the regular model and the Pro), it’s a different story.

Photographic Styles: do it yourself

Photographic Styles have been around since the iPhone 13. Until now, you could only use them to adjust the contrast and white balance. Rather than being slapped onto the photo afterwards like an Instagram filter, the settings are already activated in the image pipeline by the time the photo’s taken. Doing the former would worsen the quality.

The iPhone 16 boasts an expanded range of Photographic Styles. Here are the four new things you can now customise:

1. Undertones and moods determine the basic look. Rather than being general filters, these specifically influence certain colours and aspects of the image. Amber, for example, makes skin tones a little warmer, but leaves other colours alone. Undertones are more subtle, while moods create more drastic changes.
2. With Palette, you can adjust the intensity of the undertone or mood.
3. The Colour option (adjusted by swiping left/right on the control pad) could just as well be called «saturation». It determines how intense colours are.
4. Tone (adjusted by swiping up/down on the control pad) refers to «tone mapping». This allows you to adjust the contrast. More precisely, the main thing the slider influences is how much the iPhone brightens up shadows.

If you open the camera and set a style, the phone forgets it again afterwards. Previous models didn’t. If you want to set a default style on the iPhone 16, you can only do so in the system settings.

There’s another major difference between these Photographic Styles and the old ones. Namely, that if you shoot in HEIF format, the Styles can still be adjusted afterwards without visible losses. This is possible because Apple’s shifted the customisations to the end of the image pipeline instead of burning them into the file. The settings for the neutral, original image are saved too. As a result, the concept has similar advantages to a RAW image, but takes up much less space and is easier to deal with.

I think it’s fantastic. With the right settings, the undertones in particular give my photos a consistent look that’s not too in-your-face. Using the Tone control, I can decide how dark I want shadows to be without any losses in quality. Gone are the days of the unrealistic HDR look. My favourite settings at the moment are: amber, palette 65, colour 0, tone -50.

The Photographic Styles are the only factor that’d make me consider upgrading from a previous model. The only thing I think has been poorly done is the little four-way control pad used to adjust the colour and tone. It’s too imprecise.

Camera Control: Apple’s tried to do too much

Unfortunately, the new shutter button, referred to by Apple as Camera Control, is imprecise too. I can use it to open the camera app of my choice, change settings and take photos. The ability to focus the camera by half-pressing the button isn’t yet available at launch.

Still, Camera Control’s already overloaded as it is. Pressing the button firmly only opens the camera if the iPhone’s already activated. If not, it takes two attempts. Whenever I want to adjust a setting, you have to press gently once, then swipe. To switch between settings (e.g. exposure, fake bokeh, zoom, focal length, Photographic Style, sound), you press gently twice, then swipe.

This is just as fiddly and complicated as it sounds. I’m forever ending up in some settings menu by mistake. After wrestling with the issue for two days, I deactivate the gentle press command in my system settings. At this point, the Camera Control becomes a simple and not particularly good shutter button. The pressure point is too exact, causing the image section to shift or photos to blur.

This considered, the shutter’s a total disappointment. Apple’s tried to do too much with the button. In order to pave the way for extra camera features, the company’s built it into the phone as a capacitive touchpad. It does several things badly, whereas a mechanical button would be able to do one thing much better – capturing a photo. Sony, for example, has proven this with the Xperia 1 VI.

Cameras: new wide-angle hasn’t improved

Apple has changed the cameras in three places:

1. The main camera (24-millimetre full-frame equivalent) can read its sensor faster.
2. The ultra-wide-angle camera (13 mm) has a new 48-megapixel sensor and autofocus.
3. The iPhone 15 Pro Max’s 5x zoom (120 mm) has made it into the regular-sized iPhone 16 Pro.

The main camera takes the best photos by far. They’re scaled from 48 to 24 megapixels as standard, are rich in detail, hardly show any artefacts and have a good dynamic range. I can’t spot any quality differences compared to the iPhone 15 Pro’s camera. The time lag between shutter releases actually seems to be slightly shorter.

Despite a native resolution of 48 megapixels, the 24-megapixel option on the main camera isn’t available on the ultra-wide-angle camera. In the typical setting, the images still have 12 megapixels. Even when I directly compare the two phones, I can’t see any more details in the iPhone 16 Pro’s photos than in the 15 Pro’s. Not even when I save the images with the full 48 megapixels. Test laboratory DxOMark has come to the same conclusion. The small sensor negates the benefits of the high resolution.

The telephoto camera’s sensor is even smaller, but I like it anyway. The long focal length (120 mm) is well suited to street photography or narrowly cropped architectural images. The old 3x zoom (77 mm) would be better in certain situations, but hey, you can’t have everything.

Video: contemporary slow motion

The iPhone 16 Pro is one of the leading smartphones for video recording. The main camera’s faster sensor now allows you to take high-quality slow-motion videos: 4K at 120 frames per second (fps). Meanwhile, the other two cameras are still limited to 60 fps. The 4K videos at 120 fps look good, allow a 20-per-cent slowdown and can be edited directly on the iPhone.

Apart from that, there isn’t really anything new to report when it comes to video. Although the ultra-wide-angle camera’s new sensor brings out a little more detail in moving images, comparisons on YouTube, clearly demonstrate how minor these differences are compared to the iPhone 15 Pro.

Design: please, don’t make it any bigger

The iPhone 16 Pro’s display has been extended by 0.2 inches to a total of 6.3 inches, while the Max measures in at 6.9 inches. Given the previous Max handset was already too big for me, the latest model might even be borderline for people with large hands. It’s a similar story for me when it comes to the regular-sized Pro. I’m fine with 6.3 inches – especially since the edges around the display are slightly thinner. But the iPhone can’t get any bigger than that.

Apart from this, Apple hasn’t changed the design much. The titanium frame is shinier than on the iPhone 15 Pro, and the new Desert Titanium colour is subtle, but classy. I still like the light grey Natural Titanium shade best. After my experiment with keeping my phone uncased backfired last year, I’m giving my iPhone back its silicone protective layer this year anyway.

Performance: untapped potential

The A18 Pro chip is better than the A17 Pro. Although this is cool, it’s meaningless at the moment. I mean, when was the last time you wished your iPhone was faster?

Looking ahead to the arrival of Apple Intelligence, the new chip makes more sense. AI functions require a lot of computing power. The iPhone should be able to handle some of these directly on the device. It certainly helps that the A18 Pro’s neural engine is about twelve per cent faster than the A17 Pro’s.

At the moment, however, Apple Intelligence is nothing more than vapourware. It seems strange that the iPhone 16 Pro’s headline feature is missing at launch. Instead, it’ll be rolled out in stages over the coming months:

• October 2024: First generative text features, transcriptions of calls and voice memos, clean-up tool for photos, new Siri interface with chat option. These features will initially only be available in English, and will be accessible in Switzerland but not the EU.
• By the end of 2024: ChatGPT integration, Genmojis, Image Playground, AI categorisation of e-mails
• 2025: Completely new Siri that’ll be able to bring up information and complete tasks in any area of the device, with access to personal context. There’ll be support for other languages, including German, French and Italian.

With this in mind, the usefulness of the AI can only be judged in phases over time.

Battery: drains more slowly, fills up faster wirelessly

The new chip isn’t just faster – it’s more efficient too. At the same time, one video breakdown says Apple has increased the iPhone 16 Pro’s battery capacity by almost ten per cent. The iPhone 16 Pro Max, on the other hand, boasts a six-per-cent increase.

All in all, this should mean the battery lasts noticeably longer. In any case, it easily lasts the whole day for me – even in a demanding test environment involving a lot of photography in sunlight. Systematic YouTube reviews confirm that the regular-sized Pro has about twelve per cent more battery life than the previous year’s model. Interestingly, the Pro Max has around 20 per cent more.

The internet’s abound with contradictory information about the Pro’s charging speed. Some reviews claim the iPhone 16 Pro can be charged with 40 watts via USB-C. Others maintain it’s still 20 watts. All Apple’s saying is that MagSafe now enables 25 watts instead of the previous 15.

When I charge the iPhone in idle mode, I measure an output power of 23 watts on my power station via USB-C. It’s exactly the same measurement I get with the iPhone 15 Pro. If I fire up a game at the same time, it’s 30 watts. Meanwhile the previous model stays at 23 watts. This means the iPhone 16 Pro charges slightly faster when it’s being used at the same time.

I measured 27 watts via MagSafe, which, once you account for the efficiency loss, should correspond to the 25 watts of charging power promised by Apple. The iPhone 16 Pro now charges wirelessly at about the same speed as via USB-C. However, it does get quite warm. It’s doubtful whether this is good for the durability of the battery in the long term.

The rest: good as usual

The speakers, microphones and modem are just as good as on the iPhone 15 Pro. I can’t see any difference between them. The display also has a variable refresh rate, ranging between 10 and 120 hertz. The maximum brightness is 2,000 nits, the minimum 1 nit. That’s nice when I’m looking at my phone at night.