Hands-On With the New iPhone 16

Happy iPhone 16 launch day! Apple's latest ‌iPhone 16‌ and iPhone 16 Pro models are now in the hands of consumers, and we thought we'd do a quick first impressions overview for those of you who are waiting for a delivery or who are still on the fence about upgrading.


This year's ‌iPhone 16‌ is the biggest upgrade for a standard model that we've seen in some time. Performance is not too far off from the Pro models, the Action Button is no longer Pro exclusive, and Apple brought the fun new Camera Control button to all ‌iPhone 16‌ models, not just the 16 Pro and Pro Max.

The Action Button is more useful than ever before with iOS 18 because you can assign Control Center actions and even third-party app functionality. It can turn on the flashlight, open the Translate app, toggle on Dark Mode, open your favorite app, and so much more.

iphone 16 hands on camera control
Apple has talked up the new Camera Control button, which is meant to be used for taking photos in either landscape or portrait mode. It is a little confusing at first, because it's a button, but it also supports pressure sensitivity touch gestures like swipes. The placement is not super convenient in portrait mode and can be a little awkward to use, and it takes some time to adjust to how the button works.

The button does do a lot, though, and you can press twice to snap a photo, press once and then press and hold to take a video, or use gestures to swap different tools to adjust photo parameters.

iphone 16 hands on camera
If you're holding your camera in landscape orientation, the button placement makes more sense, but a lot of iPhone photography is done in portrait mode rather than landscape mode. Apple moved the camera lenses from a diagonal position to a vertical position, and the ‌iPhone 16‌ models now support spatial photo and videos for the Vision Pro, but it's not clear how many people are actually using that functionality.

Apple added new Photographic Styles and a handy little adjustment pad for editing the intensity and look of those styles, so it's overall a much more useful feature than before. You can set up a favorite style and then apply it to all of your images for a custom look.

iphone 16 hands on front
For video, there's an Audio Mix feature that changes the way that audio sounds in your video recordings. You can pull out the voice of the subject of a video while muting the background noise, or direct all sound forward like in a movie.

There are new color options this year, and the teal ‌iPhone‌ that we tested was a bright, vibrant shade of blue. You can also get ultramarine (a dark purple blue), pink, white, and black.

iphone 16 hands on back
As for the A18 chip, depending on which ‌iPhone‌ you're upgrading from, you might not see any speed improvements because most ‌iPhone‌ apps don't stress the CPU or GPU of modern processors, but the A18 does support Apple Intelligence. All ‌iPhone 16‌ models get the ‌Apple Intelligence‌ features coming in iOS 18.1 and later updates.

For a smartphone starting at $799, the ‌iPhone 16‌ is a surprisingly good value this year, and it's a worthwhile upgrade if you're coming from anything older than an ‌iPhone‌ 14. With the ‌iPhone‌ 14 and beyond, it's a less obvious upgrade, but there are still some great features to look forward to.

Related Roundups: iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Pro

Popular Stories

maxresdefault

Apple Releases iOS 18.4 With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music, New Emoji and More

Monday March 31, 2025 10:03 am PDT by
Apple today released iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4, the fourth major updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating system updates that came out last year. iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 come two months after Apple released iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to...
iPhone 17 Pro 34ths Perspective

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 10 New Features

Sunday March 23, 2025 10:00 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
iOS 19 Mock WWDC25 Feature

iOS 19 Expected to Run on These iPhones

Monday March 31, 2025 5:28 pm PDT by
iOS 19 will not be available on the iPhone XR, iPhone XS, or the iPhone XS Max, according a private account on social media site X that has accurately provided information on device compatibility in the past. The iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max all have an A12 Bionic chip, so it looks like iOS 19 will discontinue support for that chip. All other iPhones that run iOS 18 are expected...
top stories 2025 03 29

Top Stories: WWDC 2025 Announced, iPhone 17 Pro and iOS 19 Rumors, and More

Saturday March 29, 2025 6:00 am PDT by
Apple's big developer event is a little over two months away, and rumors about what we can expect to see in Apple's next major operating system updates are becoming increasingly frequent. A public release of iOS 18.4 is also imminent with a number of updates and improvements, although we won't be getting the major Apple Intelligence Siri upgrades that had reportedly been planned for this...
Magic Mouse Green

What to Expect From the Magic Mouse 3

Saturday March 29, 2025 10:15 am PDT by
Apple is reportedly working on a new Magic Mouse. Below, we recap what to expect. The two key rumors for the Magic Mouse 3 so far include a relocated charging port, along with a more ergonomic design. It was briefly rumored that the Magic Mouse 3 would also feature voice control, but that was misinterpreted information. Relocated Charging Port While the Magic Mouse switched from...
iOS 18

iOS 18.4 Expected Next Week - Here Are the Release Notes

Friday March 28, 2025 2:01 pm PDT by
With the second release candidate of iOS 18.4 that Apple seeded out today, the company finally provided us with release notes that give a full rundown on what to expect. There's an Apple Vision Pro app, new Apple Intelligence features for notifications and additional language support, plus an Apple News Food feature for Apple News+ subscribers, and several updates that should improve the...
Foldable iPhone 2023 Feature Homescreen

Six Things to Know About Apple's Upcoming Foldable iPhone

Friday March 28, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by
We've been hearing rumors about a foldable iPhone for almost a decade now, but it looks like we might finally see the device come to fruition in 2026. We're going to be waiting many more months for the foldable iPhone, but so far we're hearing good things. Apple wants to make it creaseless. It's taken Apple multiple years to design a foldable iPhone that it's satisfied with because Apple ...
iOS 19 visionOS UI Elements

Apple Codename Provides Clue About iOS 19's Rumored New Design

Sunday March 30, 2025 6:40 am PDT by
Multiple sources have claimed that iOS 19 will introduce a new design with more translucent buttons, menus, notification banners, and more, and there is now another clue that points towards this glass-like appearance. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today said the new design project is codenamed "Solarium" internally. A solarium is a room with glass walls that allow in plenty of sunlight, so this...

Top Rated Comments

slippery-pete Avatar
7 months ago

60hz. Need I say more?
Large majority of people buying the 16 won't notice or care about 60Hz.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MacTwick Avatar
7 months ago
Picking up a 16 pro today upgrading from a 13 pro. So excited!
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
WarmWinterHat Avatar
7 months ago

The Camera Control button is confusing because it's a button? Every camera I've ever owned has a button for taking the picture (it is called a shutter button" for a reason)!
It's confusing because it's not a shutter button, though it can be used as one. It's a touchpad that allows swiping from side to side to change settings with a regular touch, lite press and full press all doing different things.

My brother and his wife have a 16 pro and 16 regular as of this morning, and they both say it's weird. She has been using DSLR and mirrorless cameras for years, so I take her word for it.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
citysnaps Avatar
7 months ago
So much negativity here. Everyday. I wonder if it disappoints MR writers who put a ton of time into every story they create/write?

Hat-tip and thanks to all of them!
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Devyn89 Avatar
7 months ago
This is the first time since the iPhone 13 where the base models feel like a complete thought and the Pro models just add something a little extra. You get all the iPhone 16 experiences with the base model and just a nice increase in display size and quality and cameras on the pro models.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Cirillo Gherardo Avatar
7 months ago
This video is so weird. The button is clearly meant to be used when holding the phone in landscape. It never even occurred to me to use in portrait before watching this video, which oddly seems to be obsessed with taking portrait photos. The only time I take portrait photos is a relatively close up picture of a human subject. Otherwise it is all landscape, as photography should be. I'll be using the Camera Control in landscape 98% of the time, and stick to the on screen control for portrait, which is more comfortable.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)