iPhone 16 Pro hands-on: Small button, big change

Published: Sep 09, 2024 Duration: 00:04:44 Category: Science & Technology

Tags : tech gadgets Technology Science gear engadget consumer tech

Trending searches: engadget

the big difference for the iPhone 16 series is a new button which sounds underwhelming but again as is usually the case at a npop and I find myself way more impressed than I really needed to be especially because I've gotten Hands-On with this thing now that I've been able to touch and caress this faux button I've been able to actually get a feel for how it mimics the feeling of being pressed down and for real for real though it actually feels for real yeah for real so just as a quick tldr the new iPhone 16 and 16 Pro phones will have a new camera control feature which is basically a sensor along the right Edge towards the bottom of the phone uh and pushing down on this will bring up the camera app and allow you to control your camera in a lot of different ways this to be clear is not a real button that moves up and down it's just the sensation is mimicked by a combination of things like the tapsi engine uh to create some haptic feedback so you're supposed to be able to do at least two different types of presses on the camera control button one is a sort of a lighter press and one is a more forceful push these do different things so when you are in the camera app already sort of a light tap in later months or later in the year will help you lock Focus or basically focus on your subject but right now it pulls up this Sub menu in a sort of dial uh that goes through six options so you can either choose from Focus or exposure or modes or tones and then pressing down one more time on each of these selects them as what you're going to control next basically like how toggles and dials on a DSLR camera works I was able to spend a lot of time with this feature going into each of them switching between cameras in the camera mode for example swiping my hand on the sensor to go in and out now I did find the direction in in which the wheel moves for the zoom levels a little counterintuitive but I am also one of those people who when gaming needs to switch up the controller Direction when I'm navigating so I need to tilt up to look down for example so if you're like me you might not like the way this uh direction is set up but if not and I think most people are not then you should be fine now the crucial thing here is that you won't be able to flip the direction of the way the camera control dial Works however you will be able to tweak the sensitivity uh of the four sensor here so that is nice I was also able to just briefly check out some of the new photographic Styles which you can also uh switch at the swipe of a finger with a new camera control by just going into the second to last option called Styles and then within each of these you can also press a new button at the top right to edit them to your heart's content so you can pull up this little square touch Patty sort of interface and then drag a little circle around all four corners to change things at the color temperature or brightness and contrast you can also edit photographic Styles after the fact now which is nice so you don't have to worry about the way things look before a shot too much one thing I didn't notice is that when I held up the phone to use camera control to take a selfie I did find my thumb reached a little higher uh than the camera control button was on an iPhone 16 Pro Max so that positioning feels a little less intuitive but I did manage to quickly adjust and get a picture taken in no time at all there are also a lot of other camera upgrades specifically in the video and the video editing uh features things like uh the new studio mics enabling a different Studio mix for the audio uh parts of your video as well as support for 4K 120p slow-mo a lot to dig into here that I just didn't get the time to do at the Hands-On event I did quickly check out an iPhone 16 Pro Max and an iPhone 15 Pro Max side by side to see just how much larger the display is uh the dimensions here they're just minimally Chang but thanks to shaved down borders and bezels uh the iPhone 16 Pro Max isn't at all larger than the 15 Pro Max and yet the display does feel roomier the entire feeling of the device this seem sleeker because it's more all screen than it ever has been so I really got the sense I was picking up a slightly newer phone at least from the front there's more like I said to dig into like how the a18 bionic chip affects the performance whether the battery life is seriously drastically improved but all these things we might have to wait a little longer to find out more about I'm also very stok for the new voice memo feature but again stay tuned to Engadget for our detailed coverage as we spend more time here at Apple Park as well as with the new Apple devices later this week and month so make sure you come back and subscribe VI [Music]

Share your thoughts