That said, the larger iPhones do They tend to have the best battery life. Apple claims the iPhone 16 Pro Max offers the best battery life ever in an iPhone, though we’ll have to verify that claim. If battery life is your number one priority, go for the larger models: the iPhone 16 Plus and iPhone 16 Pro Max.
All of these iPhones have the Action button, which replaces the mute switch and is now configurable, so you can replicate the mute switch’s functionality or perform another action, like turning on a flashlight or activating a shortcut. All of them also have the new camera control button (yes, it’s a button). You can use it to open the camera and take a photo, but a light press brings up different camera modes, and you can swipe left or right across the surface of the button to cycle through various modes, zoom levels, and more. Finally, you can use this button to activate Visual Intelligence, which is like Apple’s version of Google Lens: Point your iPhone at something in the real world to learn more about it.
Photography: Julian Chokkattu
All iPhone 16 models can now take advantage of a cool video feature called Audio Mix. This lets you change the way your videos sound when you’re editing them by choosing a sound profile. These include In-Frame, which focuses the audio on whoever’s in the frame; Studio, which makes it sound like you’re in a studio, removing all the background noise; and Cinematic, which makes sure whoever’s in the center of the frame is heard clearly, with a bit of ambient noise mixed in. This feature will work best on iPhone 16 Pro models, since they have improved microphones.
Redesigned Photographic Styles are also available across the range. They’re almost like filters, but improved: rather than changing the look of the entire image, these “styles” can maintain skin tones so they don’t look weird, and can adjust other parts of the photo, such as shadows and highlights. Apple also gives you more control over how your skin tone looks, rather than opting for a more uniform approach like Google does with its Pixel phones.
Apple Intelligence is the headline feature, and the only way to try out the new AI capabilities is to use a phone that supports it – the iPhone 16 range, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max. I covered these features in more detail in our iOS 18 guide, but to summarise, they include a revamped Siri experience, the ability to generate emoji (and Genmoji!), and typing assistance features like text correction and pitch shifting for messages.