iPhone 16 Lineup to Introduce Wave of Camera Improvements

[Ctrlos]

I actually remain unconvinced that the capture button is for photography now. If the dummy models are correct the capture button is symmetrical to the power button.

Now hold your phone in landscape as you would for taking a picture. For most people this is the same way you’d hold it for gaming. With each index finger and thumb in a C-shape. Try and reach the power button and it’s out of reach without blocking the screen or inducing some pretty terrible hand cramps.

In other words either Apple have made a colossal ergonomic mistake or it’s not for landscape photography. Sony’s shutter button on the Xperia handsets is right on the edge of the phone and easily reachable with an index finger.

 

[turbineseaplane]

at some point I have recognize I am not a photographer and I actually don't need the new iPhone

I honestly still get great shots out of my old iPhone SE1s
Got a couple on my walk this morning in fact

Suitable for blowing up and printing for the wall? No
Great for capturing where I was and what I was doing and sharing it with others? Absolutely!

That's really what I do with my iPhone photos anyhow

 

[midkay]

Boy, I really hope they fit a new main sensor (the newer IMX903) in the Pro models. Please don't use the same 48MP sensor for a third year in a row. Yeah, it's very good, but it can certainly get better.

 

[CloneBB]

To be honest, I have been quite unhappy with the 14PM and the 15PM cameras (and the bad battery life) – these have been my two main issues. Let's see if 16PM is any better.

Is the issue that when you take “selfies” things still look small?

 

[citysnaps]

I actually remain unconvinced that the capture button is for photography now. If the dummy models are correct the capture button is symmetrical to the power button.

Now hold your phone in landscape as you would for taking a picture. For most people this is the same way you’d hold it for gaming. With each index finger and thumb in a C-shape. Try and reach the power button and it’s out of reach without blocking the screen or inducing some pretty terrible hand cramps.

In other words either Apple have made a colossal ergonomic mistake or it’s not for landscape photography. Sony’s shutter button on the Xperia handsets is right on the edge of the phone and easily reachable with an index finger.

Power your phone on before framing a photo?

 

[Victor Mortimer]

Why not purchase a superior phone that meets your needs/requirements? And find happiness.

If I was that unhappy I certainly would. In an instant. But... being stoked with my 15PM, and pleased with their outstanding cameras (pretty much the only camera I use today), I'll stay with iPhones going forward.

There isn't one.

There is NO phone out there that actually meets my requirements. The closest was the 6s+, but that won't run current iOS, didn't have an easily swappable battery, and still had to be jailbroken to get normal software installation. I still have one as my backup phone - because the substitute for quickly swapping a charged battery into my primary phone is swapping my SIM card into the 6s+. Oh, and that means when I get a newer phone than what I have I'm going to have to go to Canada to get it, because eSIMs are stupid.

As much as I wanted to like Android when it came out, it was crap, and has remained crap. Every time I have to touch an Android phone I want to throw it through a wall.

At least government action will eventually fix the biggest remaining issues, forcing easily swappable batteries and normal software installation on Apple.

 

[appleArtic]

The ‌iPhone 16 Pro‌ and ‌iPhone 16 Pro‌ Max will continue to feature a 48-megapixel main camera with an f/1.78 aperture

Same sensor 3 years in a row??

 

[jwdsail]

The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max will support 3K video at 120 frames per second with Dolby Vision.

3K?

Typo?

 

[Artsketch]

$60 is way too much for a Camera App (to me)

That is capable to handle only low resolution 12 MP.

 

[slippery-pete]

I absolutely GUARANTEE you the general public would prefer being able to quickly change their battery or plug in wired headphones than have slightly better pictures from their phones.

The general public is good with a quick selfie or snapshot. They want small pics that they can quickly send to their friends. They do not care at all about trying to pretend their phone is a professional camera.

Sorry, the younger, TikTok/Youtube generation care way more about the quality of of photos and video versus a swappable battery or wired headphone jack. Even for the middle aged group, the need for a swappable battery isn't something they are clamoring for.

We will agree to disagree.

 

[teknikal90]

I honestly still get great shots out of my old iPhone SE1s
Got a couple on my walk this morning in fact

Suitable for blowing up and printing for the wall? No
Great for capturing where I was and what I was doing and sharing it with others? Absolutely!

That's really what I do with my iPhone photos anyhow

View attachment 2408429View attachment 2408431

I do personally feel like after the 12 pro/13 pro the improvements are barely perceptible unless you pixel peep. the big noticeable difference to a civilian photographer is dynamic range and they nailed that with smartHDR 3 onwards.

 

[TL24]

To be honest, I have been quite unhappy with the 14PM and the 15PM cameras (and the bad battery life) – these have been my two main issues. Let's see if 16PM is any better.

The 15 Pro camera is way better than the 14 Pro, there’s room for improvement for sure but the 15 Pro cameras have been great.

 

[citysnaps]

There isn't one.

There is NO phone out there that actually meets my requirements. The closest was the 6s+, but that won't run current iOS, didn't have an easily swappable battery, and still had to be jailbroken to get normal software installation.

As much as I wanted to like Android when it came out, it was crap, and has remained crap. Every time I have to touch an Android phone I want to throw it through a wall.

At least government action will eventually fix the biggest remaining issues, forcing easily swappable batteries and normal software installation on Apple.

I don't need a swappable battery, especially if it makes my phone thicker, or having less battery capacity as a compromise.

For times where I think I *might* run out of battery when out and about (it hasn't happened yet), I carry a small USB-C battery pack that can quickly charge my phone. Haven't needed it yet, because before going out to make photos, I make sure my phone is fully charged.

I have *zero* complaints with my 15PM. It's also an outstanding camera.

 

[ultrafiel80]

For those that don't know, JPEG XL is pretty cool. It unfortunately doesn't have a lot of current support yet, although Apple started supporting it in last year's OS and Safari updates. Google used to support it in beta versions of Chrome, but dropped it to instead focus on AVIF.

I hope this plays out better than general HEIC support, but I do think JPEG XL will start to phase out HEIC. A nice feature of JPEG XL is that it can transcode JPEG losslessly making a much smaller file without quality loss. We'll see how it goes...

 

[Artsketch]

I absolutely GUARANTEE you the general public would prefer being able to quickly change their battery

Apple too, I'm quite sure that Tim Cook would also like to sell iPhones in the European Union in 2027.

 

[Rychiar]

5x telephoto on the pro max should be upgraded to 48megapixel too...why leave that out..lame.

Can’t have them catching up to the competition all in one year 🙄

 

[citysnaps]

The 15 Pro camera is way better than the 14 Pro, there’s room for improvement for sure but the 15 Pro cameras have been great.

Totally agree. Especially in low light and image quality in general. I shoot RAW all the time and have never been disappointed.

It's rather astonishing how far iPhone cameras have improved over the last four years.

 

[jwdsail]

Few people are still using the iPhone primarily as a phone (dialing numbers and talking to people all day). When you think about it, it’s funny that the name hasn’t changed yet, to something like iSlate.

I don’t want a button for every function, but have experienced the need to snap a quick photo and missed the shot due to fumbling with activating the camera while in a hurry too many of times to count.

I guess I'm the odd-ball?

Primary use - phone. Main business line in fact

Secondary use(s) - 3-way tie - camera, email, and notes

other.. messaging w/ clients who refuse to talk on the phone or email, pdf library to have manuals on hand, calendar, weather, grocery list, pdf files for recipes, music and or video when I can't sleep...

 

[Kylo83]

It’s getting to confusing what option to shoot on, just let us always use max 48mp it always seems to disable on me. And I hope a new sensor

 

[uacd]

What software processing is that? I shoot in RAW and process in Lightroom, and have no complaints.

Not everyone wants or needs RAW just to disable sharpening, noise reduction and all the machine learning pipeline that often is unnecessary

 

[Victor Mortimer]

I honestly still get great shots out of my old iPhone SE1s
Got a couple on my walk this morning in fact

Suitable for blowing up and printing for the wall? No
Great for capturing where I was and what I was doing and sharing it with others? Absolutely!

That's really what I do with my iPhone photos anyhow

View attachment 2408429View attachment 2408431

I took that one a decade ago with an iPhone 4.

I remain unconvinced that camera bulges are worth it.

 

[Artsketch]

The 15 Pro camera is way better than the 14 Pro, there’s room for improvement for sure but the 15 Pro cameras have been great.

Maybe, but I took thousands of photos with the 14 Pro in museums in 48 MP ProRAW and couldn't capture the same crisp details with the 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max, and I tried several devices because I thought the first 15 Pro was defective.

 

[BelgianChoklit]

The thing I dislike about the telephoto and ultra wide lenses are that they're of much lesser quality than the main lens, which stops me from using them so often.

 

[citysnaps]

Not everyone wants or needs RAW just to disable sharpening, noise reduction and all the machine learning pipeline that often is unnecessary

When I've shot in jpg/HEIC I've never noticed photos being over sharpened.

 

[uacd]

My comment will age like fine wine:
in 3 years they will ditch quad bayer fake megapixels system and put real 1 inch sensor (probably 48mp too) and tout it as a brand new feature.

Honestly, there isn’t much of camera upgrade in 16 and I will definitely wait for 17. I have seen quite controversial opinions on iPhone 14 and 15 cameras and even seen the examples. Really I cannot understand what was the actual improvement in adding quad bayer system if the noise floor was raised 4 times and night performance relies purely on computations. Also most of the colors that this sensor generates are painted by CPU, not captured by sensor itself due to bayer filter limitations.

It all sounds too complicated but, on paper iPhone 13 photos can often outperform iPhone 15 ones. Megapixels still matter nothing and at the end of the day, I doubt anyone on the web needs more than 8 of them.

The only advantage of new 48mp cameras is cropping ability, but again that much of artificial sharpening can sometimes ruin cropped shots