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I love it. But I understand that it’s not relevant for people who don’t like photography (although I don’t understand why some “hate it”).
Sorry, but those who truly like photography understand that an actual camera offers superior ergonomics, control, and flexibility for actual photography than anything you can do on a phone, with or without gimmicky buttons. We may like and appreciate the convenience of taking a spontaneous quick snapshot with the phone, but we don’t pretend it can replace our cameras, especially with the amount of post-processing it seems to do.
 
Sorry, but those who truly like photography understand that an actual camera offers superior ergonomics, control, and flexibility for actual photography than anything you can do on a phone, with or without gimmicky buttons. We may like and appreciate the convenience of taking a spontaneous quick snapshot with the phone, but we don’t pretend it can replace our cameras, especially with the amount of post-processing it seems to do.
I haven’t said anyone pretends to replace our cameras. I like to take photos with my phone and I like to take photos with my camera.
 
I feel like either I can't get the hang of how to half-push this button, or my button is broken. It just doesn't work, for me, the way the demo videos show. I'm sure it's me -- it just baffles me that something this native to the device is so tricky to get the hang of.
 
Is there a way to reverse the zooming on the camera function button? Is there a way to change the sensitivity to make it zoom more quickly?
 
I used phones to grab violent situations as proof, my footage of TSA messing up ended up on the news and I was paid for it etc. I always wanted a dedicated photo button due to these type of situations that happen quick.

People calling the button useless are taking their time with their staged photos.

I tried the zoom feature on new phone in store and thought it sucked and was slow. I'll get the phone but only to have that camera button. If there is an option to tap the button and get a rapid action, thats good. If it's slow, I find this touch feature useless especially coming from rapid shooting with real cameras at events.
 
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This is what happens when you trot out the same design for half a decade and just have to have SOMETHING to be able to say it's different than the last one.
 
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The button is exactly where my thumb goes when I'm actually using my iPhone as a phone. I keep accidentally opening the camera app and taking photos while I'm holding the phone to my ear and talking to people. I switched to double-click open, makes intentionally using it to open the camera app clumsy. Turning the button off, what's the point of it? I thought it would be cool but it's kinda dumb. I assume I'm just holding it wrong? 😶‍🌫️
 
I hope Apple will keep evolving camera control and not abandon it. Initial implementation of new features usually needs adjustments.
 
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But you have to live with the fact that third-party cases now have a large cutout there.

Oh, the humanity! How will people survive this affront?!?!

It sounds ridiculous, and probably is, but I'm with klasma on this. A software change you don't want is easy to ignore, but a hardware / form factor change is not, and when it provides another point of vulnerability with cases... 🤷‍♂️

In addition, it provides another point where you're used to simply holding your phone that you have to think about accidentally hitting a button.

The button is exactly where my thumb goes when I'm actually using my iPhone as a phone. I keep accidentally opening the camera app and taking photos while I'm holding the phone to my ear and talking to people. I switched to double-click open, makes intentionally using it to open the camera app clumsy. Turning the button off, what's the point of it? I thought it would be cool but it's kinda dumb. I assume I'm just holding it wrong? 😶‍🌫️

I'm with this completely as well, only for me it's my left ring finger as I hold it in my left hand a lot... it's a main gripping point for me while picking it up, holding it and talking on the phone (standard size for me, I don't do the Max size).

I tried hard to make the button useful and get more used to it, but just couldn't (gave it a solid 13 days). I forced myself to only use it - and use it more than I would normally use the camera. Does it open the camera a bit faster? Sure. But 1-click mode makes it too easy to open accidentally, and 2-click mode makes it a slower to open, negating some of that speed benefit. I think part of it is the way the button is seated ever so slightly "in" the frame.

But beyond that, it's simply way too finicky to work as well as that video showed for most people. Even a "button master" is going to have the occasional misclick or slide in there as fast as that person was supposedly using it. And while I understand why they positioned it where it is, it simply doesn't add much (if any) ergonomic benefit over using the screen like we've all spent 15+ years getting used to.
 
tried it in Apple store. The button is too close to the middle to be reachable for landscape photography, and there's no way for the button to act as half press-to-focus as in real cameras' shutter button. As is, it's duplicating the touchscreen functions and not making it easier to take pictures.
 
At least we know Dynamic Island will definitely go away eventually
that's what I thought about the notch before and they replaced it with a bigger cutout that's more in your face (dynamic island). One of the current designers must really like that cut out screen look.
 
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I tried it. And it’s very gimmick. (From a person with photography experience) The best use case for me is quickly changing exposure. (still taking photos with the touch button because it’s quicker) I find it better to adjust the light press to lighter (in accessibility) so I won’t accidentally take a picture during light press. And I wish the position is a little more downward.
 
I hope Apple will keep evolving camera control and not abandon it. Initial implementation of new features usually needs adjustments.
The thing is they’re trying to do too much in one single button. What works on a normal camera is that buttons do one thing. You can map different functions to a button, but that button just does that one thing. Then you have another button that does another thing. You know which button does what thing.
 
Most unnecessary feature ever added to an iPhone

"Another year we have nothing new to add to our iPhone. I know, let's add another button"
You clearly have not used modern DSLRs or frequently for content creation or capturing moments.

It’s absolutely a time saver maximizing the camera options in addition to handy contextual actions for devs to implement in apps
 
The thing is they’re trying to do too much in one single button. What works on a normal camera is that buttons do one thing. You can map different functions to a button, but that button just does that one thing. Then you have another button that does another thing. You know which button does what thing.
That’s absolutely not true with modern DSLRs and a button that can do more than one thing in a portable device absolutely is handy. Haptics and force touch adds invaluable depth to human-computer-interactions on-the-go
 
I wanted to give this an honest chance. When I got my 16 Pro I quickly realized it was much easier to use this "upside down" with my left thumb than with my right index/middle finger. Then I quickly realized it was much easier to use it only as a shutter and deactivate the light presses. Then I quickly realized it was much easier to use it only as a launcher and use the onscreen shutter instead. Then I quickly realized I was accidentally launching the camera too often and switched to a double press for launch. Then I quickly realized a double press of this button was no better than, and in some cases worse than, other ways of launching the camera. Then I quickly realized this was even worse than the Touch Bar and maybe the biggest flop of an iPhone feature ever. Even 3D Touch was better than this. It's really bad and I don't know how Apple thought this was a good idea to not only release, but make it sound like a panacea for iPhone photographers. It's really that bad, and I was wishing to prove the haters wrong, but I just couldn't.

edit: the best thing I can say about it is they allow you to tailor as much use as you want into it, or completely turn it off... in that sense it's fine they released it as an option for those who like it, and I just hope they make it more useful down the road through software.
I hate to say it, but I'm pretty sure Apple added this button because if they didn't it would be too glaringly obvious that the 16 Pro wasn't much of an upgrade, especially when lacking Apple intelligence at launch. Trying to drum up sales by shoving gimmacky features down our throats doesn't bode well for the future of Apple.
 
If only it was that flawless. It lags when using camera control and a black square pops up when using it in landscape.
 
LOL? Is there something funny or amusing?

It's about one's view and approach with respect to what photography is about and creating photographs. Many people simply take photographs. I make them.

Are you a photographer?
In thinking about this, I'd go as far as to say most people simply take pictures, while the others like yourself, use your mastery of the camera's capabilities and your artistic eye in framing, etc., to make photographs.
 
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