The iPhone 16 is Getting a New Button: Here's What It Can Do

[lilkwarrior]

This “button” feels like the next 3D Touch. Amazing feature that Apple just decided to remove from my device, despite it being a selling point for it.

That’s actually a valid and interesting concern.

That said, this is a bit different; this feature aligns with established prosumer button paradigms leveraged in high-end DSLRs and input accessories now finally built into phones that overlap with such use cases.

Especially for content production use cases, efficiencies in one-hand use thanks to more functional and advanced touch-responsive buttons provide is welcomed.

They have been tremendously well-regarded towards why Apple is rumored to be going this direction in the first place. It’s a well regarded but hard/expensive to pull off from a supply chain standpoint Apple fortunately can pull off (similar to them being able to make prosumer panels/monitors, headset, and various laptop/tablets/phone advancements such as their massive Arm transition at a supply chain scale/rate most manufacturers can’t)

Accessibility and configuration of the sensitivity of such buttons will be very interesting.

3D touch was a broader input paradigm enhancement very much ahead of its time and multiple platforms may very well be pressured to revisit its APIs to account for long overdue advancements to keyboards having hall-effect keyboards

 

[WhiteNiteLite]

Are there any Windows Phone 7/8 people left that still remember the shutter button on the bottom right of most of those phones? (Note that this is before Nokia convinced Microsoft to kill off that button on their cheaper phones). Back then, it used to feel so slick to hold down that button to unlock directly to the camera, then half press to focus, and full press to take a picture.

Thankfully Apple's had a soft-button on the lock screen since the iPhone X (and swiping over before that). Still, it was a nifty and unique button at the time when it first came out. I'll definitely enjoy the nostalgia of it if Apple adds this back to the iPhone 16.

 

[ethanmd]

I miss this from my days of using a Sony Z3 compact (also miss the days of actual small phones), so I welcome this.

Half of creative decision making when taking photos is setting the exposure or focus to favour somewhere other than the centre/the overall frame, and having the half-shutter really enables you to do that quickly in a way that multiple taps just can't.

 

[hugowz]

It’s completely not related to the camera but, considering the low position of the button, I would love that a swipe down the button could bring the control center when the camera is not being used. Tired of reaching to the top of the screen every time.