iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max hands-on: don’t call it a shutter button

I just spent a few minutes with the new iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max, which feature bigger displays with thinner bezels, revamped cameras, and Apple's new Camera Control button, which is pretty fascinating.

Let's start with Camera Control, which is a physical button - it depresses into the case ever so slightly, with additional haptic feedback from Apple's Taptic Engine to make it feel like a chunkier click. It's not just a shutter button, although you can use it like one and click away to fire off photos from the 48MP main camera with zero shutter lag. I was not able to slow it down in my short demo time, but we'll see how that goes in real life.

The reason it's not just a shutter button is that it's also a multifunctional capacitive control surface. The physical button itself is ultrasensitive, so pressing it ever so lightly brings up swipe-to-zoom controls, and double-pressing it lightly brings up additional controls you can swipe between, like lens selection, exposure, and the new photo styles available on the Pro. It took me a second to determine how hard to press, but it wasn't hard to figure out. Apple says that as part of a software update later this year, the button will get a two-stage shutter function that will allow you to lock focus and exposure.

It was pretty seamless to switch between the various photo styles with swipes, but it was hard to see how much they were actually doing in the perfect lighting conditions of Apple's demo area. But I am very curious about them.

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I ran into Apple's Phil Schiller, and we chatted briefly about the Camera Control button. I wanted to know about the balance of using the button as a classic camera control versus the beginning of the camera itself becoming an input method for Apple Intelligence, and he told me that it was really both, which is fascinating.

The iPhone 16 Pro has a 48MP "Fusion camera," a new 48MP ultrawide camera, and a 12MP 5x telephoto camera - which, on the regular iPhone 16 Pro, has the tetraprism design that was exclusive to the iPhone 15 Pro Max. The iPhone 16 Pro will also be able to capture 4K video at 120fps, and you can adjust playback speed after capture in the Photos app.

Apple is also touting improved audio hardware on the iPhone 16 Pro, including four "studio quality" mics, which, of course, were impossible to try out in the busy hands-on area.

The phones themselves are slightly taller and wider than the 15 Pro models, making room for larger screens: a 6.3-inch panel on the 16 Pro and a massive 6.9-inch display on the 16 Pro Max, emphasis on Max. It's made possible partly by new thinner bezels, too. They don't feel all that much bigger in the hand without a case, but again, it's hard to gauge in a quick hands-on.

Inside, both feature the A18 Pro chip, with a 16-core neural engine that Apple claims has 15 percent faster performance than the iPhone 15 Pro. It also has improved graphics performance thanks to a six-core GPU that's 20 percent faster than the iPhone 15 Pro's A17 Pro. We're still waiting to hear exactly which Apple Intelligence features will arrive with these phones at launch, but expect familiar things like notification summaries and writing assistance to start.

The iPhone 16 Pro starts at $999 with 128GB of storage, while the iPhone 16 Pro Max starts at $1,199 with 256GB of storage. You can preorder the new Pro phones on Friday, September 13th, and they'll be available on September 20th. If you were hoping for some more vibrant colors on the Pro phones, well, you'll have to keep waiting. The best Apple has done this year is a darker gold called "desert titanium." The other color options are familiar restrained neutrals.

We're trying to learn all we can about these phones while we're here; let me know what you want to know in the comments, and we'll dig up as much info as we can.

Photography by Nilay Patel / The Verge