iPhone 16: First impressions

It's that time of the year again, the time when the new iPhones come, and the portfolio for this year is the same the last not one but two years – the two regular iPhones and two Pros. The one we have is iPhone 16 (The Plus is just a stretched-out regular iPhone, so will count in too). It's been about 24 hours since we got our hands on the iPhone 16, and we have some early thoughts about it.

To start with, there may not be much new to look at in the iPhone 16 – it's the same as the iPhone 15, except for the rear cameras — they are now stacked vertically on a pill-shaped island and the flash sits on the side, flush with the rear. Apple says this arrangement is better suited to record spatial videos.

The refresh brings in some new colours as well, and these shades are quite vivid and give that joyous feeling. Reports from Day 1 suggest that Ultramarine is turning out to be people’s favourite, the Teal looks great as well, and even the Pink (the one we have) is a pretty looking shade.

Coming to screen, it continues to be 6.1 inch (the one on the Plus measures at 6.7 inches), the Dynamic Island is there, and still runs at 60Hz. Though, it’s brighter and even dimmer than before – per Apple it gets as bright as 2,000 nits and goes down to 1 nit.

Just when many thought that Apple was on its way to ditching buttons on iPhones, Apple surprised us by putting a new button on this year's iPhones. The entire iPhone 16 lineup, whether Pro or not, has a new button below the power button, called Camera Control. It's more than a button, though, and Apple's not even calling it a button.

Essentially, the Camera Control is a shutter button. You press it and the Camera app opens up, and when you press it again, it takes a picture. However, it's not as simple as that.

You can juxtapose the Camera Control with the trackpad on MacBook. It is a capacitive touch button — you can swipe over it and tap on it — just like a MacBook’s trackpad.

Double-tapping on the button will present you with a few options, like exposure, zoom, depth and camera selection, styles and tones (more on this a little later). Swiping over it will zoom in/out, set the exposure, switch between the lenses and more. But, again, it's not as simple as it sounds. There's bit of a learning curve here.

What you can get easily used to is the Action Button. Yes, it's now on the standard iPhone. Long live the mute switch! While the simplicity of the mute switch will be dearly missed, the Action Button seems to make up for it as a good clicky mute switch and it can also do a lot more — there’s also an option to run set a Shortcut.

Even though the cameras have a new look, they remain pretty much the same — a 48MP primary and a 12MP ultra-wide. However, the ultra-wide has a nice trick up its sleeve: it can finally shoot macros. So, in Apple's words, you get "four lenses in your pocket," as the main camera can capture cropped-in 2x shots – so .5x, 1x, 2x and macro.

Apple promises that both cameras should work better than the before, and they do seem to be a little better.

While the cameras may be the same, Photographic Styles has gotten a big update. They aren't just filters, as Apple is promising, and from the little time we've tried the 16's camera, they are indeed more than just filters. There are nine "mood" styles and five other undertones, but they aren't just presets; one can adjust the tone, color, and intensity. It's nowhere close to the Pro mode that we find on Androids, but it's the most control we've ever had on an iPhone's camera.

While there are no upgrades for the regular iPhones when it comes to video recording, they do get Audio Mix. This lets one adjust the way voices sound in videos, and users can choose from three options: In-frame, Studio, and Cinematic. Intrigued and excited to check it out.

The iPhone 16 is "the first iPhone built for Apple Intelligence," or should we say the first vanilla iPhone, as last year's Pro models would be getting the AI features, but the vanilla 15s won’t.

Inside the new iPhone 16 is a new chip — the A18, which Apple says is 30 percent faster than the two-year-old A16 that powered the vanilla iPhone 15, and it should also improve battery life. All this is fine, but the biggest difference this chip will make is when Apple Intelligence rolls out.

Apple Intelligence is Apple's suite of AI features, having a few AI-powered tools, like the ones that'll help you write, create images, even clean them up, and a smarter Siri.The early version of Apple Intelligence is expected to arrive next month, i.e., October, but the Siri glow-up might not come before next year.

It does come with iOS 18 out-of-the-box, so you can try all customisation shenanigans.

Also, the new iPhones charge faster than ever. The wired charging speed is bumped up to 45W and the wireless charging is capped at 25W.

So, the iPhone 16 has a refreshed design, vibrant colours, and two new buttons — Action Button and Camera Control — all this will separate it out from the vanilla iPhones of last few years. Then, you get the new A18 chip that'll enable Apple Intelligence, and Apple is banking really heavily on this. But, is all this worth upgrading? Maybe and maybe not — if you've got an older iPhone, then it might be the right time but if you've got the iPhone 15, then you can really think twice.

We've listed out all that we could find new in this short time with the iPhone 16. Now, it's up to you to brainstorm, but if you still can’t decide, hold off until our full review comes out.

Also, don’t worry, we’ll also solve the dilemma — whether to Pro or not, since this year’s regular iPhones are more close to Pro than ever.