iPhone 16 Pro I predict the Camera control button will be gone in less than 3 years

[code-m]

You heard it from me first.

Truly a gimmick.

Highly doubt it, if anything the camera control button will be added to replace the volume buttons with a press for mute and slide up or down to adjust the volume and with a double press it the action button can be replaced. Now add this same button to replace the power button and you can have TouchID plus swipe up or down for Siri/AI or bring up a contextual menu for Apple Wallet. This button is the future and its present limitation is done on purpose by Apple to get people comfortable with the idea of a swiping button to control other elements. It also improves IPX rating and less prone to failure due to moving parts.

I suspect Apple can add side-to-side gestures for other settings to this button. People here have no foresight and limited to just what it is now capable off.

 

[Ctrlos]

YES! You'd think this would be a simple adding of a control function because you would think that technically the iPhone can do manual focus.

When taking up close pictures through say wire fences, it is very difficult to get the subject behind the fence in focus. The "AI" might think the wire is what the user wants to focus on and instead the user wants something else to be in focus.

Ironically Final Cut camera does have manual focus and a very good one at that. Why they don’t have it for photography, their number one selling point I don’t know.

 

[Ctrlos]

you can touch the target you want to focus before you take the picture, no? or do you mean something different?

I want to fix the focus a certain distance from the lens, just like I can with a DSLR lens. Even $200 Android phones have a ‘Pro’ mode with manual focus. Apple sell $1200 allegedly-Pro phones that lack such a basic feature.

Currently you have to find an object the distance you want, lock the focus on that and then take the picture you want. It’s embaraSing.

 

[brofkand]

Adding all these buttons is against the ethos of iPhone and multitouch.

 

[msackey]

you can touch the target you want to focus before you take the picture, no? or do you mean something different?

That way of focusing is not always accurate. Try doing this behind a mosquito netting, such as commonly placed in front of windows. You can easily get frustrated, or at least I do.

 

[blairh]

Disabled it today. What a letdown. No idea how anyone finds it in a comfortable spot to use (in either orientation) on a 16 PM unless you have huge hands.

 

[toobravetosave]

am i crazy or did we not used to be able to use a volume button to trigger the camera?

 

[trifid]

am i crazy or did we not used to be able to use a volume button to trigger the camera?

Haha you are right, I just tested it, the volume buttons on my iPhone 16 Pro trigger the shutter and feel actually better, not as much force needed as the new button 🤯

 

[olly-h]

I think it's fiddly-ish, but potential is very much there.

Once it's fully featured with the focus/exposure lock, I feel it'll make more sense. I definitely feel like it's better for more 'considered' images like landscapes and any shot you can take your time framing, but for 'on the go' volume up shutter for me (hard to lose that muscle memory - which is kind of the biggest issue for most, I think.)

Part of me thinks this is Apple getting us ready for 'something else' and this is the first step towards whatever that might be (expanded functionality beyond camera related stuff?)

 

[dumastudetto]

Standby for Apple MediaPort, a proprietary new headphone jack that delivers rich lossless music using an optic connector as thin as a thread.

 

[toobravetosave]

I think it's fiddly-ish, but potential is very much there.

Once it's fully featured with the focus/exposure lock, I feel it'll make more sense. I definitely feel like it's better for more 'considered' images like landscapes and any shot you can take your time framing, but for 'on the go' volume up shutter for me (hard to lose that muscle memory - which is kind of the biggest issue for most, I think.)

Part of me thinks this is Apple getting us ready for 'something else' and this is the first step towards whatever that might be (expanded functionality beyond camera related stuff?)

it’s the apple intelligence button of the future like the bixby button for samsung

 

[macman01101]

I say less than 3.

I say less than 1. I don’t think it will be on the iPhone Slim.

 

[code-m]

Haha you are right, I just tested it, the volume buttons on my iPhone 16 Pro trigger the shutter and feel actually better, not as much force needed as the new button 🤯

You are used to muscle memory of the past, give it a few months or years and the volume up button for shutter control will seem foolish in retrospect. Hindsight is 20/20 friends.

We have all been here with the same argument when the home button got dropped. Please love to complain.

 

[ibookemo]

Yeah I must say the camera button is quite poor. I actually find that if it take a photo using it, the phone moves as I press it so I get a slightly blurry pic.

Also I accidentally change settings quite a lot with it.

I’ve already disabled the light press in the accessibility options and I think I will disable the button completely if possible.

A terrible button, Apple messed up badly.

I actually love the new camera filters on the other hand so that helps balance things out a bit.

 

[Hobbes42]

Yeah I must say the camera button is quite poor. I actually find that if it take a photo using it, the phone moves as I press it so I get a slightly blurry pic.

Also I accidentally change settings quite a lot with it.

I’ve already disabled the light press in the accessibility options and I think I will disable the button completely if possible.

A terrible button, Apple messed up badly.

I actually love the new camera filters on the other hand so that helps balance things out a bit.

I find it pretty sad that the main “feature” of the 16 is this fiddly button.

What a meager “upgrade”. Apple needs to splash some cold water on their face, take some mushrooms, hike in the wilderness and figure out what they’re on this earth to do.

This rut they’re in currently is very disappointing, I think.

 

[ibookemo]

I find it pretty sad that the main “feature” of the 16 is this fiddly button.

What a meager “upgrade”. Apple needs to splash some cold water on their face, take some mushrooms, hike in the wilderness and figure out what they’re on this earth to do.

This rut they’re in currently is very disappointing, I think.

Agreed. It’s a bit sad, used to be such an exciting company and now it’s just like Microsoft.

 

[ubinko]

I didn't like the camera control at first (mainly because the default light press function was zoom - this is too fiddly to get the zoom I want), but with a few settings adjustments I really like it now.

My settings:

- In settings/Accessibility/Camera Control I set the Light-Press to Lighter
- More importantly, I set the light press function of the camera control to Cameras - now it just selects between each of the four native focal lengths of the three different lenses. This is way nicer and I can quickly and easily now change to the zoom level I want (with the added bonus of no loss of resolution).

 

[FattiesGoneWild]

I say it will be gone next year for the all new redesign and capacitive touch buttons!

 

[lornranger]

No it won't. In fact, your mechanical buttons (power, volume, action) will be replaced by capacitive buttons. And iPhones will have long ass capacitive bar on the left and right side of the frame!

 

[iPhone2019]

Did anybody ask for this button? What about things people ask for, like bigger camera sensors, tandem OLED, or 16GB of RAM? iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max do not even have the year-old X75 modem. Instead, they have a refreshed X70 modem. The hardware on the iPhone is quickly falling behind. No wonder they can keep the same price every year.

 

[contacos]

My conspiracy theory is that they added this button to sell more AppleCare+ claims by people dropping their iPhone trying to use this button.

Personally I only use it to open the camera but there are already 84504850438503 ways to do this so 🤨

 

[CooKieMoNs7eR]

As soon as I played around with it a bit I realized I'll never use it lol, hopefully 3rd party apps will be able to take advantage of it in the future I can see it being used for something else.

 

[LoveToMacRumors]

I wonder if the camera control feature is aimed at teenagers, adults or seniors.

 

[MacBookPro88]

As soon as I played around with it a bit I realized I'll never use it lol, hopefully 3rd party apps will be able to take advantage of it in the future I can see it being used for something else.

Same. I played with it for a while in the store. What a waste of a button. I'll never use it and pretend its not there.

 

[Taco1933]

I like it. I don't use it to change settings, but it's nice if you're trying to take a quick picture. Not that it was particularly difficult to do before. I just tended to fumble with it a bit. Now it's always in the same spot. And that opened up the soft buttons on the Lock Screen for other uses. For my purposes, there's no downside to it.