iPhone 16 and 16 Pro are packed with upgrades led by AI and Camera Control

The new iPhones are here, and they’re all about two things: Apple Intelligence and improved camera capabilities. And while Apple is focusing on those things first and foremost, you can expect better performance, battery life, and loads of other upgrades as well. These are the most significant upgrades to iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro.

Apple Intelligence

Apple Intelligence was announced at WWDC in June, but these new generative AI features coming to iOS 18 (over the course of several updates) could previously only run on the iPhone 15 Pro. That is, until the iPhone 16 line. Tim Cook said multiple times that the iPhone 16 family was “built from the ground up for Apple Intelligence.”

Apple didn’t announce any new features, instead reminding everyone of all the Apple Intelligence announced at WWDC: writing tools, an all-new Siri with personalized context, image generation including AI-made custom emojis, and totally new creative images with the new Image Playground app, summaries of emails and notifications, and so on.

While the iPhone 15 Pro will get all these features, the iPhone 16 line marks the first time Apple is making them available in a non-pro model, and with the iPhone 15 Pro dropping out of the iPhone lineup, the new iPhone 16 models will be the only way to get a new iPhone with Apple Intelligence.

It’s going to be a gradual rollout, though. Apple Intelligence features will appear piece-by-piece starting in October with iOS 18.1 for U.S. English, with additional features and languages coming in later iOS 18 updates. For more on the rollout of Apple Intelligence features, see our guide.

Camera Control and new camera features

Apple finally added a camera button! Actually, Apple doesn’t even call it a button, they call it “Camera Control” because it does much more than a simple button would.

The Camera Control is a new hardware element that sits flush with the body of the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro, placed down on the right side so it sits underneath your index finger when you’re shooting in landscape orientation as a camera shutter would. It’s capacitive and can detect pressure and gestures, and works with the Taptic Engine to provide physical feedback.

There are several functions. Pressing it will open the camera app, and a longer press will open a new Apple Intelligence-powered visual search.

Once in the camera app, the button gains more functionality. Press it again to take a photo or press and hold to start recording a video. Tap the control with a light press to bring up new controls where you can swipe to zoom, adjust exposure, change photographic styles, and more. A double-tap will bring up all the controls so you can pick which one your swipes will adjust. Apple is also making these tools available to developers so they can use Camera Control in their apps in whatever way fits, such as changing filters in Instagram.

Of course, Camera Control is joined by some new camera hardware and software features. The iPhone 16 gains a new 48MP “Fusion” main camera that shoots 24MP and 48MP images and an upgraded 12MP ultra-wide camera that includes autofocus and can take macro shots. The iPhone 16 Pro gets a new 48MP ultra-wide camera and the 5x telephoto camera that was previously exclusive to the iPhone 15 Pro Max will now be available on both sizes of the iPhone 16 Pro. Both iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro have a new anti-reflective lens coating on the main “Fusion” camera to reduce lens glare.

Apple is giving Photographic Styles a big upgrade with new technology that operates deeper into the image pipeline along with a host of new style options. A new control pad interface is designed to make it easier to adjust the styles to your liking, and you can now finally apply and adjust styles after you take the photo.

Battery life and thermal management

Both the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro have new thermal management and design changes that are designed to allow the processor to run faster under sustained workloads, like gaming or long video edits. Apple says this results in 30 percent better sustained performance in games on the iPhone 16 and a 20 percent improvement on the iPhone 16 Pro.

The batteries in both models are larger, which combines with the more efficient A18 processors and other efficiency improvements to offer better battery life than any other iPhone generation.

Apple claims the iPhone 16 Pro will last from 2 hours (streaming video) to 10 hours (audio playback) longer than the iPhone 15 Pro. The iPhone 16 Pro Max’s battery life is improved by 4 hours (streaming video) to 10 hours (audio playback) compared to the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Based on these numbers, it’s the longest battery life in any iPhone ever.

The iPhone 16 is supposed to get two hours longer battery life when playing back video, relative to the iPhone 15, and the iPhone 16 Plus boosts that to 4 hours, also the longest battery life of any non-Pro iPhone yet.

Performance

Of course, every new iPhone comes with a new processor. Apple says it is jumping ahead “two generations” in the non-pro model, moving from the A16 to the new A18.

The A18 is built using a second-generation 3nm process that has faster and more efficient transistors. It’s got an updated 16-core Neural Engine, a 5-core GPU with hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and an improved six-core CPU (two performance cores and four efficiency cores). The GPU is said to be 40 percent faster than the GPU in the A16 Bionic.

The iPhone 16 Pro gets an upgraded processor in the form of the A18 Pro. It still has a six-core CPU (two performance and four efficiency cores) but it’s a new design with larger caches, better matrix operations for machine learning, and improved efficiency. Apple claims it is 15% faster than the CPU in the A17 Pro, and can deliver the same performance as A17 Pro while using 20% less power. The A18 Pro has a six-core GPU that Apple says is 20% faster than the A17 Pro’s.

Both the A18 and A18 Pro have 17 percent higher memory bandwidth than previous-generation Apple Silicon.

Other odds and ends

We’ll have much more to say about the new iPhone 16 line in the coming days, but here are some additional odds and ends you may want to know about.

• The iPhone 16 Pro has a 6.3″ display (up from 6.1 inches) with a body just a tiny bit larger than the iPhone 15 Pro. It’s about 6 percent heavier, too. The iPhone 16 Pro Max has a 6.9-inch display (up from 6.7 inches), is also just a little bit larger, and about 3 percent heavier than the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
• The iPhone 16 Pro has a new microphone array of four “studio grade” mics for improved audio recording quality.
• There are a bunch of iPhone 16 Pro exclusive video features, like 4K HDR video recording at 120 fps, the ability to play back video at variable speeds after capture, new audio mixing features, cinematic slow-mo, and more.
• MagSafe has been updated to support faster charging speeds (25W) with a 30W power adapter.
• Both the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro support Wi-Fi 7.

Price and release date

The iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro will be available for preorder on Friday, September 13, and will be available in stores on Friday, September 20. Prices are the same as the iPhone 15 line:

• iPhone 16: Starts at $799 (128GB)
• iPhone 16 Plus: Starts at $899 (128GB)
• iPhone 16 Pro: Starts at $999 (128GB)
• iPhone 16 Pro Max: Starts at $1,1199 (256GB)