iPhone 16 Pro
apple inc.
Apple’s The iPhone 16 series phones will hit store shelves on Friday. I’ve been testing the high-end iPhone 16 Pro Max for the past five days ahead of launch.
It’s a great phone, with cool updates like a dedicated camera button, and it charges faster via MagSafe than earlier Pro models. The screen is also slightly larger than previous versions.
But this review is tricky because one of the signature features Apple has been touting on stage and in new ads is Apple Smart. This is Apple’s suite of artificial intelligence features for the iPhone, which won’t be launched until later this year.
We have reason to be excited. Some new AI features, such as Siri changes, photo editing, and the option to have AI rewrite text for you, will be available in beta in October. More additions, such as Apple’s image and emoji generator, more personalized Siri responses, and integration with ChatGPT, will be rolled out later.
I was able to test out some beta features for this review. Not available to others. These limitations make it difficult to fully evaluate a new device or recommend whether an upgrade is worth it.
Apple shares fell earlier this week after analysts suggested there would be less demand for this year’s iPhone 16 Pro models. Tianfeng Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said the problem is that Apple Intelligence has not yet been launched. Barclays is also concerned that this may be because the Chinese version of Apple Intelligence will not be launched until 2025.
Here’s what you need to know about the new iPhone 16 Pro Max right now.
Changes to know about
The biggest change you’ll notice is the new camera button. I’m still getting used to it after a few days, but I’ve defaulted to just pulling the phone out of my pocket, clicking the button and taking a picture.
My wife rightly asked me why I didn’t just tap the camera button on the lock screen like I did on earlier iPhones. I don’t have a good answer for this. Pressing the camera button feels more natural.
During my son’s first soccer game, I liked half-pressing to get camera controls like zoom, although I found it was sometimes easier to pinch to zoom. The new 48-megapixel wide-angle lens provides clearer images in the zoom lens to capture more scenery.
Photographers may like the 4K 120fps recording feature offered by the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Still, I try to keep the quality of my clips low because I share them with family and friends via text messages.
iPhone 16 Pro Max has the longest battery life of any iPhone to date. Apple’s new A18 Pro processor, coupled with a larger battery, can provide up to 33 hours of video playback time, compared with 29 hours of video playback time in last year’s iPhone 15 Pro Max. I’m usually able to make it until dinner time before needing to recharge the $15, and I can make it until bedtime (or even longer) with the new phone, depending on how much I use it.
I like that Apple has improved the charging speed of MagSafe. I used MagSafe when it first came out, but eventually switched to regular cable charging because it was faster. Now, if you use a 30-watt charger (not included), MagSafe can be charged to 50% in 30 minutes.
This year’s Pro model has a slightly larger screen. The size of iPhone 16 Pro Max has changed from 6.7 inches to 6.9 inches. I didn’t notice any difference, only when I held the two phones next to each other. It’s still a great screen, with a high refresh rate, which means scrolling is smooth. It’s colorful and bright, and I love the always-on display so I can see notifications without having to pick up the phone. It’s not a new feature this year, but it’s still useful, and it’s only available on the Pro model.
Apple information
Apple Intelligence Photos
apple inc.
Since there is no Apple Intelligence at launch, I can only test some beta features. As expected in a beta, they’re hit and miss.
Apple Intelligence can help drive a new round of iPhone upgrades. apple report iPhone sales in the third fiscal quarter were US$39.3 billion, accounting for approximately 46% of the company’s total revenue, down 1% from the same period last year. CEO Tim Cook Indicates that the segment is growing on a constant currency basis.
I like the email summaries provided by Apple Intelligence. They are accurate and can summarize in just a few lines what is said or paraphrased in the email. This only works with Apple’s Mail app, though, so if your company lets you use Outlook or you prefer Gmail, the feature won’t work. Likewise, I found that Apple Intelligence accurately summarized long paragraphs of text (including the introduction to this review) and returned accurate snippets.
In notifications, that’s it. The summary of the news alert is correct. Newsletter summaries are sometimes unnecessary. For example, in a text message from my wife, Apple Intelligence advised me to throw a dinosaur at my daughter and make her cry before apologizing. In fact, the culprit was my son. The original text is enough.
In a notification from the daycare app I use, Apple Intelligence summed it up nicely that my daughter “took a nap, ate cereal, and had a lot of fun.” This is perfect for the amount of information received while driving.
Apple Intelligence Photos
apple inc.
Another feature of Apple Intelligence can help you create movie memories, which are short clips of photos and movies set to music. In a TV commercial, Apple showed a young woman using Siri to create a memory of a dead goldfish with the help of it.
I can’t use Siri to make a movie like this. Instead, I opened the Photos app, clicked on Memories, and wrote in the prompt asking for a photo memory of my son “Learning to fish at Skytop, set to fishing tunes.” It correctly showed a family going on a wave Photos from the trip to Konos, but didn’t include any photos of my son fishing there. Jiang Jiaqiang called this piece “Fishing Tune”, but it doesn’t sound like fishing tune to me. Another test, which asked for a photographic memory of my son “playing a football,” worked better, but also included a photo of him as a child holding a football in his hand.
There’s also a new Siri interface that glows along the edges of the screen. I like the look of it compared to the globe, and it makes it easier to type into Siri by tapping the on-screen indicator at the bottom of the display. Siri doesn’t change much for me now, although I like being able to ask iPhone-specific questions like “How do I scan a file using my iPhone?” and “How do I screen record?” Got the answer.
Now you can talk to Siri even when there are distractions. So if you’re stuck thinking and say “Hmm” or “Wait a minute,” you can continue with the question along the same lines, such as “How tall is the Eiffel Tower?” and then follow up with, “When was it built?” ?” But it doesn’t always work. I tried “How far is Boston?” for example, followed by “What’s the weather like there?” Siri gave me weather information for my current location.
Apple Intelligence is useful and I’m excited to see where it goes.
Apple iPhone 16
On September 9, 2024, Apple held an event at the Steve Jobs Theater on the Cupertino campus in California. An attendee held two iPhone 16s.
Manuel Orbergozo | Reuters
The focus of my review this time is the iPhone 16 Pro Max. The iPhone 16 is slightly smaller and has slightly shorter battery life, but is otherwise identical. My colleague has a regular iPhone 16.
There are some differences between the two. The iPhone 16 comes in more colors and is made of aluminum rather than titanium like the higher-end Pro models. It also has a new camera button, but lacks the higher refresh rate and always-on functionality of the Pro model’s display.
iPhone 16 will support all of the Apple Intelligence features I mentioned above, as well as upcoming features. Apple also upgraded the processor for faster performance and added a new macro camera mode for shooting objects up close, as well as support for the Apple Vision Pro headset to capture spatial images. It offers up to 22 hours of video playback, compared to 20 hours on last year’s iPhone 15.
Should you buy it?
The iPhone 16 Pro Max is a solid upgrade, but if you have an iPhone 14 Pro Max or earlier, you’ll likely notice the biggest changes. The biggest improvements over last year’s phone are the addition of a camera button, a faster chip, a new camera and a slightly larger display.
When it comes to Apple Intelligence, we all have to wait for features like using Siri to ask for previous calendar events, questions that require personal context, using Siri to control your apps, or Apple’s integration with ChatGPT. So if you buy now, you can buy everything except artificial intelligence.
