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Apple leans heavily on photography for the new iPhone 16 and 16 Pro

The addition of a camera shutter button highlights the key focus of this year's iPhones.

Nick Broughall

Sep 10, 2024 — 3 min read

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There weren't too many surprises when it came to the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro announcements in this morning's Glowtime event, other than how little coffee I had consumed.

As expected, the iPhone 16 saw a number of last year's Pro-grade features introduced. You get the Action button on the side and A18 chipset, first seen in the iPhone 15 Pro.

Apple has also introduced a new camera shutter button, which offers not just a way to snap photos, but a shortcut to some of the camera's settings, like aperture and exposure control.

It's interesting that the core iPhone 16 jumped from the A16 Bionic to the A18 processor this year, though Apple's messaging made the reason abundantly clear: Apple Intelligence.

In order to perform the kinds on on-device AI functionality common in today's flagship smartphones, you need to have a powerful processor, and that means the new phone needed to be bumped up to the A18.

The iPhone 16 also includes the latest generation of Ceramic Shield glass, which it claims is 50% tougher than the first gen and 2x tougher than the glass on any other smartphone.

And internal reworkings mean Apple has managed to increase battery capacity across the board, though it still didn't want to communicate what those capacities are.

On the camera front, Apple has realigned the dual lenses on the core iPhone 16 models to take spatial photos and videos for the Vision Pro.

You get a 48MP Fusion camera and a 12MP ultra-wide, which all combines to offer a 2x optical zoom in and 2x optical zoom out range.

iPhone 16 Pro gets the camera control button too

On the Pro front, Apple has managed to reduce the bezel around the display substantially, while also using the improved Ceramic Shield glass.

There's a bunch of AI functionality that Apple seems pretty excited about, but to be honest I have very little interest in letting software write a message for me or create an image for me.

More interesting is the Camera Control button here as well, except Apple has combined it with 4K120 slow motion video recording in Dolby Vision.

It has significantly boosted microphone performance, and uses the new mics and Apple Intelligence to adjust the levels and volumes of voices in your video recordings.

Apple has further expanded it photographic style templates here as well, so you can easily create a more personalised look and feel to your photos.

Pricing and availability

Perhaps the best news about the iPhone 16 announcement today is that Apple has dropped the starting price of the iPhone 16 compared to last year's model. The iPhone 15 started at $1,499, but the iPhone 16 starts at $1,399.

The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus are available in ultramarine, teal, pink, white, and black in 128GB, 256GB or 512GB capacities.

iPhone 16 128GB - $1,399
iPhone 16 256GB - $1,599
iPhone 16 512GB - $1,949
iPhone 16 Plus 128GB - $1,599
iPhone 16 Plus 256GB - $1,799
iPhone 16 Plus 512GB - $2,149

The iPhone 16 Pro also starts a bit cheaper. The 15 Pro started at $1,849 , but the 16 Pro starts at $1,799.

The iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max are available in black titanium, natural titanium, white titanium, and desert titanium, with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage capacities (the Max isn't available in 128GB).