Apple today announced the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max—its latest flagship smartphones—featuring larger displays, an all-new Camera Control button, and the A18 Pro chip.
The iPhone 16 Pro has a 6.3-inch display, while the iPhone 16 Pro Max features a 6.9-inch display—the biggest iPhone display ever. The borders around the display are the thinnest of any Apple device. The titanium frame now features a new blasted finish and comes in a refreshed selection of color options: a darker Black Titanium, brighter White Titanium, Natural Titanium, and a new Desert Titanium.
The devices are powered by the new A18 Pro chip, made using 2nd-generation 3nm technology. It offers a 16-core Neural Engine with 17% more memory bandwidth, making Apple Intelligence tasks up to 15% faster compared to the previous generation. The 6-core CPU features two performance cores and four efficiency cores, providing 15% faster performance and 20% more efficiency. Additionally, the 6-core GPU is up to 20% faster than the A17 Pro, with hardware-accelerated ray tracing for more realistic lighting in games. Faster USB-C speeds and twice the data processing for video encoding are also supported.
The iPhone 16 Pro features a new "Fusion" 48-megapixel camera with a 2nd-generation quad-pixel sensor, enabling zero shutter lag for 48-megapixel ProRAW and HEIF photos. The ultra-wide camera has a 48-megapixel quad-pixel sensor with autofocus for the first time, and the 5x tetraprism telephoto camera is now available on both the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max.
Apple has overhauled Photographic Styles to allow real-time adjustments to colors and shadows, adapting specific tones in the image. Styles can be personalized more deeply, with new black-and-white and natural options, and can be applied during live previews or after capturing the photo.
The 48-megapixel Fusion camera on the iPhone 16 Pro also supports 4K120 fps video capture in full HDR, which can be used in slo-mo or regular video mode. Playback options include 120, 60, 30, or 24 fps, with intelligent audio treatment for wind noise reduction. The ability to capture spatial audio allows for more immersive recordings, particularly when paired with AirPods or Apple Vision Pro.
The Camera Control is a dedicated, flush sapphire crystal button with haptic feedback dedicated to camera app functions. Clicking the Camera Control launches the camera app. Clicking again takes a picture, while clicking to hold records video. The Camera Control also offers touch gestures, allowing it to distinguish between a click and a lighter press. A light press reveals a new clean preview to help users focus on framing the shot, while a new overlay allows for quick access to camera functions like zoom and switching between lenses. Users can press lightly twice to see other controls and slide to the preferred one. Camera Control will be updated later this year to lock focus and exposure with a half-press.
The Camera Control also gains Visual Intelligence, a new Apple Intelligence feature exclusive to the iPhone 16 lineup. Visual Intelligence is invoked by the Camera Control, allowing users to point their iPhone's camera at something and pull up contextual details such as information about a restaurant, as well as take actions like filling out a calendar event.
With improved microphones, the iPhone 16 Pro supports Spatial Audio capture during video recording, for a more immersive experience when using AirPods or Apple Vision Pro. A new Audio Mix feature uses machine learning to identify and separate background audio and speech. For example, "In-Frame Mix" isolates the voice of the person on camera. "Cinematic Mix" handles audio like a movie, with on-screen audio in front and environmental noises in the surroundings. There are also updates coming to the Voice Memos, allowing you to layer a track on top of existing recordings.
Battery life is improved with up to 33 hours on the iPhone 16 Pro Max, enhanced by a new mechanical architecture and advanced power management, with 20% better sustained performance due to improved heat dissipation.
The iPhone 16 Pro starts at $999 for 128GB and $1,199 for iPhone 16 Pro Max for 256GB. They are available for pre-order on Friday and launch on September 20.
