The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus are official, with action buttons carried over from the 15 Pro and a new design for the camera bump. We tested them in Cupertino, California, after the announcement, and the big news is that the color is back — they look great.
The rear cameras are now stacked vertically on top of a smaller, pill-shaped protrusion. This arrangement is better suited to capturing space video, just in case we forgot about the Vision Pro. It’s also simply a new look for the regular iPhone, and Apple likes to add one every few years to change things up.
They come with the same-sized displays as their predecessors: a 6.1-inch screen on the iPhone 16 and a 6.7-inch screen on the 16 Plus. Aside from the vertical lenses, the design hasn’t changed much, but the 16s do come in some new, more vibrant colors. They’re much more saturated than the washed-out colors of the 15 series, with vibrant new ultramarine, teal, and pink options joining the black and white.
But these non-Pro iPhone 16 models also get an entirely new feature: the “camera control” that acts as a dedicated shutter button and a way to change various settings both in the Camera app and elsewhere. The new button comes alongside other improvements to the 16’s camera, which now has the “equivalent” of four lenses despite having just two.
There are other upgrades that are less visually obvious, too. The iPhone 16 also comes with the new A18 chip, which is supposedly 30 percent faster than last year’s model, and is supposedly more durable and less prone to scratching or breaking. It’s all good news, though the new chip will become more important when Apple Intelligence arrives, which may not happen until 2025. A “shiny” new Siri is a centerpiece of Apple’s ai feature set, but it’s one that most people will have to wait a little longer for.
The 16 and 16 Plus models will be available next week, starting at $799. Will the new buttons be worth the upgrade? That's what I'll find out once I can get my hands on them for more than an afternoon.
