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I've had my 16PM for a few days now. Both the phone and the camera control button are excellent. I'll use that control a lot when I'm making photos.
 
it's useful and I use automatically. I really don't get all the negatives. You can shut it off, and it's unobtrusive.

Maybe you all want something else? Speak up.
I don't get the hate on this button, either. It's great for those of us who take pictures frequently. My wife and I love it. It's intuitive and easy to use. Looking forward to further use of this in other apps.
 
Not a single review I've seen tries using camera control upside down with the left thumb. Can any early buyers try and speak to this??
I embarrassingly never thought to try it with the button facing down, clicking with my left thumb until I read your comment. It works great! Much more comfortable for me as well; I feel like I can control the slider better with my thumb. Thanks for the tip!
 
Not a single review I've seen tries using camera control upside down with the left thumb. Can any early buyers try and speak to this??
In case this is still unanswered.

Works just as expected when used that way. It rotates the text and works as you’d expect.

IMG_0931.png

It’s not meant to be upside down that’s why
Where do you get this idea?

It is shown the way it is show as most people at right handed and it was placed for that. But us lefties can use it too. Just have to use the thumb.
 
I kind of have mixed feelings about the camera control on my iPhone 16 Pro so far. I ended up changing my settings from single to double click because I kept accidentally trigering the camera everytime I picked up my phone.
 
I really like the button, but Apple trying to cater to portrait and landscape users makes it a little annoying to reach. For the 17 just forget about the portrait users, move the button a bit lower and it will be more comfortable to use in landscape.
 
If it was placed higher up like where the side button is at, it could've also served as a sort of scroll wheel. Instead of swiping up and down on the screen, right-handed users could swipe up and down with their thumb for one-handed use.
I’m confused. Do you need two hands your swipe?
 
As a long time iPhone user and a hobbyist photographer I find this button very weird.

As much as I like to make sense out of it, I can't. It is too finicky. I remember Apple for making things convinient and intuitive. But since I saw the phone on the stores it made no sense to me. I have been using the phone for couple hours now, this still makes no sense to me.

If a veteran iPhone user / photographer needs to watch couple videos to actually use it, you can be sure that 99% of people are gonna use this button just to open camera faster.

Not to mention, stupid placement of the button and unpleasant groove on the cases.
 
As a long time iPhone user and a hobbyist photographer I find this button very weird.

As much as I like to make sense out of it, I can't. It is too finicky. I remember Apple for making things convinient and intuitive. But since I saw the phone on the stores it made no sense to me. I have been using the phone for couple hours now, this still makes no sense to me.

If a veteran iPhone user / photographer needs to watch couple videos to actually use it, you can be sure that 99% of people are gonna use this button just to open camera faster.

Not to mention, stupid placement of the button and unpleasant groove on the cases.
Change is always confusing.

The basics of the button aren’t complex. You click the button and the camera opens. Click it again and you’ll get a photo. In 18.1 click it halfway and you’ll focus and fully clicking will get a photo.

That’s all a normal user needs to know and care about.

If you’re a power user. Then it really shines. You can get a lot of extras from the button that are configurable. Third party apps can also act differently with it.

Those all require learning, but all professional tools do.
 
Had the chance to touch an iPhone 16 Pro yesterday. I'd just disable from accessibility menu. Why? Because,
* It's not a real control to anything, but kind of a shortcut button, a pseudo-control to be honest
* You can't even change the focus point (focal plane), nor the shutter speed, ISO, etc.
* I never use any zoom other than exact camera focal length (13mm, 24mm & 120mm for iPhone 16 Pro) to get best IQ
* iPhones usually nail the best exposure even at difficult scenes, so you'd rarely need to adjust it. Plus values will likely cause blown-out highlights and the other way will have no advantage but more noise and less pronounced texture.
* It's nice to have fast access to camera and a dedicated shutter button, yet else is distracting IMO.

Yea I agree, I tried it out and it’s slow and cumbersome, so much easier to just use the screen as we are used to. This is one thing I don’t think Steve would have approved of, I thought the point was to get rid of physical buttons.

Just a gimmick since they had nothing else to sell the 16’s with this year.
 
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Turns out that ... yes, it can as of 18.1 beta 5.

He is right see picture:
IMG_6569.jpeg


I embarrassingly never thought to try it with the button facing down, clicking with my left thumb until I read your comment. It works great! Much more comfortable for me as well; I feel like I can control the slider better with my thumb. Thanks for the tip!

As a right handed individual this actually came to me as one of the few things to try. Many times I have been in a situation where I need the phone with the lenses on my right hand side.

Like you said it works really well too but it’s definitely different as you loose support on the bottom left side as your finger will be hovering over the capture button instead of fixed on the frame. But the thumb works excellent over the sensor.

Also for those wanting to get have better control of the capture button try using the tip of the finger instead of the pad. You will see a much improved touch precision and technically have more button “space” before reaching the edge.

>but also, finer adjustment (small changes and precise): tip or pad of finger and just slide the pad by shifting the finger angle (bad explanation but just play around the pad positioning and angle.

>bigger adjustment ranges quickly (larger momentum inertia and reach the extremes quickly): quick swipes over the sensor using the tip of the finger.

Everyone is complaining but it’s great having the button!
 
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No, just photographs. And phone calls.

What other things interest you?

Cake, I want a phone that helps me make cake, maybe the lidar sensor plus AI can scan my pantry and tell me what to use. Then maybe it could measure things out for me using the same tech, in the future, I’d like the phone to be able to shapeshift and do these things for me. Or perhaps it just takes on the form of a robot and does the cooking and cleaning, not sure how I’d carry a heavy robot around when I needed to snap a pic though.

Looks like we’ll just have to use voice commands, like “hey Siri, run over there to that rock, climb up on it and get some pictures of that sunset for me, make sure to find an interesting composition and don’t mess up!”. At that point I’d rather just carry around an old fashioned camera thing 🎥.
 
Change is always confusing.

The basics of the button aren’t complex. You click the button and the camera opens. Click it again and you’ll get a photo. In 18.1 click it halfway and you’ll focus and fully clicking will get a photo.

That’s all a normal user needs to know and care about.

If you’re a power user. Then it really shines. You can get a lot of extras from the button that are configurable. Third party apps can also act differently with it.

Those all require learning, but all professional tools do.
Well I am very open to changes. I am not saying it is blatantly unuseful but I expected some " apple sauce" from it. I know it will be useful if I use it. But it is too finicky for me to learn and actually use it.
 
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