I’ve been using iPhone 16 for a month. Here’s what stands out:

From taking beachfront photos during a weekend getaway to capturing cute moments with my cat to capturing gadgets for CNET stories, I use my iPhone 16’s camera a lot. But almost every time I go to take a photo, I find myself bypassing the new camera control button and selecting the camera icon on my iPhone’s lock screen or home screen.

Apple has big plans for the camera control button, which goes beyond just launching and controlling the camera. When Visual Intelligence is activated, your camera controls essentially turn into AI buttons that allow you to ask questions about the world around you through Apple, ChatGPT, or Google with the push of a button.

However, that experience has not yet become a reality. After using the iPhone 16 for a month, my impressions are the same as when I first reviewed it in September. Playing around with the camera controls might be fun, but that’s not a reason to buy a new iPhone. Rather, the appeal of the iPhone 16 is how all the little elements like the action button, dynamic island, and now the camera control button all stack up together. All these extra features make the iPhone 16 seem like a better value than the iPhone 14, which was launched just two years ago at the same price without any of these extra features.

Otherwise, the iPhone 16 offers some improvements in battery life and performance compared to the iPhone 15. And if you’re upgrading from an iPhone from a few years ago, like the iPhone 12, you’ll definitely see a huge improvement in camera performance.

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Look at this: iPhone 16 review: About the buttons

10:04

Camera controls are not the main attraction

The camera control key, which lets you launch the camera and adjust shots, is the most important new feature available on iPhone 16 at launch, especially since Apple Intelligence hasn’t been released yet. This button makes it easy to quickly swipe through camera settings or zoom length, but I’m not used to tapping on-screen buttons.

Honestly, most of the time I forget there’s even a camera control button. As long as you’ve been using your iPhone, it’s hard to change the habits of doing things a certain way, especially when it comes to activating the camera. If you’re going to introduce a new mechanism for using something as essential as a cell phone camera, it has to be significantly faster or easier. In its current form, I don’t think Camera Control can achieve that goal.

But that button can do a lot more than just launch the camera, including opening third-party camera apps, Magnifier, and code scanner apps. As I wrote in my first review, you can swipe between settings to adjust exposure, depth, zoom, photo style, tone, and even switch camera lenses. It’s a nice way to switch between these settings and modes without covering the screen with your fingers, but I don’t think it changes your photography experience enough to make you want to upgrade.

On the bright side, it’s easier to tap a button on the edge of your phone than the screen when your hands are full, so it’s somewhat useful when you’re trying to take a photo with one hand. I also enjoy using the buttons to preview photo styles when I’m framing a shot. This turned out to be one of my favorite iPhone 16 features.

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The camera has come a long way since the old iPhone

If you’ve used an iPhone from a few generations ago, the iPhone 16’s camera will feel like a quantum leap forward. When I compared how much the iPhone 16’s camera and iPhone 12’s camera have changed, I noticed that the colors are bolder, the zoom quality is sharper, and skin tones are more accurate without being washed out. I did.

Take a look at the pink flower photo below for one of the best examples of how the iPhone 16’s camera is better than the iPhone 12’s. In iPhone 16 photos, pink tones are more vibrant and realistic, and elements like grass and leaves are also more defined.

iPhone16

iPhone12

This result shows how far iPhone cameras have come in four years. Apple’s latest phone has a 48-megapixel main camera compared to the iPhone 12’s 12-megapixel camera, and also supports macro photography and nearly 10x digital zoom.

Apple has made incremental and significant improvements to the iPhone’s camera over time. So upgrading from an older phone will be more noticeable. Compared to the iPhone 15, the iPhone 16 has a macro mode, support for new versions of photo styles, an updated “Fusion” main camera that Apple says can take 2x optical zoom photos, an ultra-wide camera and Apple Vision Pro. Ability to capture spatial photos and videos for viewing.

It may sound like a lot, but these are mostly iterative changes, and if you’re upgrading from a phone that’s at least 2 years old, if not 3 or 4 years old, there are more ways to go. It will be done in

A closer look at iPhone 16 battery life and performance

Compared to last year’s iPhone, the iPhone 16 performed slightly better than the iPhone 15 on benchmarks that measure graphics and general computing power. It also outperformed the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus in Geekbench 6, a common computing test, but lagged behind Samsung’s phones in graphics tests.

When it comes to battery life, both the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus outperformed last year’s iPhone in CNET’s 45-minute battery test. The trial requires you to perform a combination of everyday tasks such as streaming videos, playing games, making 10 minutes of video calls, and scrolling through social media, and aims to reduce the battery life by 45 minutes of continuous daily use. to see what impact it has.

In CNET’s 3-hour YouTube streaming test, which measures battery levels hourly over three hours while streaming YouTube videos at maximum brightness, the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus performed about the same as last year’s devices. showed the same performance.

Benchmarks and tests don’t tell the whole story, but these phones can run Apple Intelligence, so it’s nice to see some performance improvements. This means it will need to support demanding AI tasks for years to come.

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iPhone 16 Overall impression after 1 month

The iPhone 16 doesn’t have a lot of changes compared to the iPhone 15, but that doesn’t have to be the case. It feels like the days of upgrading your iPhone every year are over, and the iPhone 16 is proof of that. Instead, you’ll benefit most from experiencing years of updates that cumulatively combine to make your iPhone faster and more useful than before.

It’s easy to criticize the iPhone 16 as not being as exciting or monumental as previous iPhones, especially since it didn’t launch with its star feature Apple Intelligence. Additionally, the iPhone 16 lacks key improvements I’ve come to expect from this generation, such as an always-on display that lets you see the time and other information at a glance, and faster wired charging. I’m always happy for these upgrades to the camera control buttons, but I might change my mind once visual intelligence kicks in.

But the more I think about how much more I get for the same $800 price compared to a few years ago, the more I love the iPhone 16.

There’s no longer “one big feature” you need to upgrade. However, if you have an iPhone 13 or earlier, you’ll probably find a lot of little things to like about the iPhone 16.