Apple's Problematic Camera Control: iPhone 16 Pro Max Reactions
I can't quite put my finger on it but something isn't clicking with me. And this new iphone button, it's been one week since the iphone landed in stores and I've spent a few days using the new iphone 16 pro max camera features including this new touch sensitive camera control button. It opens up a shortcut menu to different photo settings. Now to properly test the future of iphone controls. I traveled to the past, I went with the family to the New York Renaissance Fair and I took amazing footage. There was so much cool slow mo and I zoomed into jousting battles and I changed depth of field and I switched audio mixes of minstrels playing. Yeah, I went a little crazy with the camera test. I took nearly 1000 photos and videos and I killed my battery. I didn't bring ye old Magsafe battery pack. So after all of that, I have some strong opinions of this camera button and I did not find it very useful and at times it felt like a worse way to take a photo than what we have been doing all along perchance. I am not alone in these thoughts you see this guy here. He's Mark. He's an Apple Super fan. I met at the Fifth Avenue, Apple store last week. He was first in line to pick up his iphone preorder. We have chatted since that day and he told me he was also disappointed in the button design, but more on that later, I like pushing buttons every week on this show. So let's have some honest talk about the new iphone 16 Pro camera and the controls. I'm Bridget Carey and tis one more thing. Let's explain this camera control. It's on the side of all the new iphone 16 models, it clicks and compresses down. So it is like a true shutter button, but it also is touch sensitive to scroll through camera settings and it has some haptic feedback and you feel it when you make selections if you give it this half force press, but it does take a whole lot of luck and concentration to get that level of pressure correct. You might end up with a lot of junk food photos of the ground from pressing it too hard and taking the photo too early. And perhaps the biggest problem is that it is not intuitive to use. I had to find an Apple Support youtube video to really understand how it works, which to me is already a design flaw. But in researching, I learned that if you want to take a video, you have to keep holding the button down with constant pressure, which I never got it to work the way I want it. And regardless of the learning curve, it also is just not as smooth. I have much more precision and control over the normal zoom using my touch screen, using a finger to zoom on the side button just comes out choppy and it just takes longer to change a setting this way with these half presses than by just doing it yourself by touching the screen in the app. Now, here's a good thing about the button. It is a fast way to pull up the camera. As you're pulling out your phone, you just click it and bam the cameras on click again. Bam you got a shot but adjusting mos and settings does not feel natural when I was with my kids, it was slowing me down from just getting these cute moments captured quickly. For example, one setting allows you to change the depth of focus and a shot like what you get in portrait mode. But I think you're better off just taking a portrait mode shot normally and then going back after the photos taken to adjust the depth effects. Now this all left me wondering what did Apple really want out of this button? Who is it for? You can make the argument that is for the professional photographer who likes adjusting settings manually before snapping the picture. But let's think about that for a moment. If you find joy in the connection you make with something more manual and you enjoy the feeling of turning wheels to dial in the right shot. Can you really get that same level of control and connection with a touchbar swipe? If you love driving a car where you can manually switch gears with a stick shift, would it be the same if you switch gears with a touch screen? Let's take another step back from that analogy. This button is not just on the pro iphone model. It's on all iphone 16 models. It's for the average user. And for years, Apple has told us the consumers that the iphone is so great because you could take amazing shots without knowing a thing about photography. And now here's a new button where Apple wants me to learn a thing or two about photography. Ok. Cool Apple. I guess I did learn something. I learned. Photography is not easy when you're in a rush and I still want to do it the old way. Forget about the side button for a second. There were other positive things about the iphone 16 cameras. I really enjoy the five X Zoom on here, which I also enjoyed on the iphone 15 Pro Max. But if you have not had it yet, it's now on both sides of pro models. And it's fantastic if you're far away in a crowd, but you want to get those close up shots of a performance on a stage or say see details of royal joust and catch all the details in her Majesty's gown. This Zoom will make anyone feel victorious. Also new this year in the pro models is the ability to do a four K resolution slow motion capture in 120 frames per second. So your video is buttery smooth. It eats up a lot of storage, but it's worth it when you're capturing things that look hard core. Yeah, my battery died from taking all the four K Lomo footage before the fair was even over, but I have no regrets. That brings me to another unique feature of the iphone 16 lineup. It is called audio mix. Now, after you finish taking a video, you can tinker with the audio formats. It might help you reduce background noise to focus on a person speaking on camera, but this isn't total magic. It won't just remove all the background sound. I had a lovely encounter with a harpist. Her name is Kathleen Finnegan and she played something special for us, but the tools did not help me get rid of the loud passersby behind us. These tools are better for lifting up voices than instruments. When she was talking with my daughter, I could use it to make their conversation more clear then you know what you're playing? Very good. Do you want to keep going? So that is a bit helpful. If you're recording people in crowded environments, I'll have to test it more to better understand it all because now you might just say I'm playing it by ear. I have been asking myself who did Apple make this camera button for on the iphone 16? But perhaps that's the wrong question. Maybe it's not a who? It's a what? Because right now it seems like this button is for Apple to make more money on iphone cases. If you buy a case from the Apple Store, you will find cases that are made with a special conductive material to be compatible with the touch sensitivity of that camera control. You can find it on the apple silicone case. It's in the beats case. That's also an Apple company and this Otter box sold at Apple stores has it, which is my go to case right now with this pop of pink, other companies have sent me samples that just cut out a slot for the touch button. This Mujo leather case has a small cut out. Now, I found it more annoying to press the button, but maybe you would like it if you want something to keep you from accidental interactions with the camera control. Now, when I pop it in the muffed vegan case, you can see it has a larger cut out window to make it easier to access the button and swipe across it or check out this cover from Adam Studios. It just snaps on the back to expose the whole border I mean, look at those naked titanium sides. I can't help but wonder if more customers are going to seek out cases sold at Apple stores to have a smoother button interaction. But there are reasons to go with another case maker. Maybe you care about the material it's made of or you care about how tough it is. A week ago, I picked up my phone on launch day at the iconic Fifth Avenue, Apple Store in New York City. It was quite a spectacle with Tim Cook meeting fans and other Apple executives were on the scene. These events always bring an excited energy from fans and Apple transformed the entire glass cube with borders that glow just like the future Siri that will glow around the edge of the iphone when Apple Intelligence arrives in October. Now I got to know Mark. He was the first in line to pick up his preorder for the iphone 16 Pro Max. He waited since 730 the night before I called up Mark a few days after he got the iphone to ask what he thought of it now that some time has passed. And I asked if you would send me a video of his thoughts to share with you. Hi, Bridget. I've been using the new iphone 16 Pro ever since the launch date for two days now. And here are my quick first impressions on it. It's a great phone. Obviously, it's a Pro phone. It's supposed to be great and it is, I got no complaints to the performance. It runs smoothly. It's fast. It's fluid, 100 20 Hertz display, all of that stuff. It's great. In fact, it reminds me a lot about the 15 Pro series from last year because spoiler alert, they're both very similar to each other. But what's interesting about the 16 series this year is that camera control button, which is supposed to be a killer feature. It's a decent button if you just want to wake up your phone as fast as you want. But with everything that has been marketed for, it's not really that straightforward as you might think it is. I'm just personally not feeling it. We're just gonna have to wait and see till later next month when I OS 18.1 comes out with Apple Intelligence getting that Google lens alternative in it, which I am excited for personally. Peace out y'all. I realize sometimes you have to live more with the feature to see the benefits but sometimes simpler is better now. I don't mean like 16th century simple, but if it is too complicated for people to like it, then the camera button might be something that doesn't stick around for future iphone models and winds up in the Apple history books. Let me know more about your experience in the first week of using the iphone 16. And until next time, my Lords and ladies of the internet fare the most. Well, and I shall return Friday for one more thing.