At Apple's Glowtime event, the company unveiled its next duo of top-end phones, the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max. The phones are largely similar to their predecessors, but they boast better hardware, improved cameras and, of course, Apple Intelligence -- including an extra button dedicated to using AI with your camera.
The premium phones are bigger, with the iPhone 16 Pro coming in with a 6.3-inch display and the iPhone 16 Pro Max with a 6.9-inch display, making the latter the largest iPhone ever made. The premium phones still come in the titanium finish introduced last year, but aren't much heavier despite their expanded display real estate.
The iPhone 16 Pro starts with 128GB of storage at $999 while the iPhone 16 Pro Max starts with 256GB of storage at $1,199, both of which are available to preorder on September 13 and will release on September 20. Both iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max only have titanium frames and come in four colors: black, white, a silver-ish Natural hue and the light brown Desert color.
Apple Intelligence (cutely abbreviated AI) is the suite of artificial intelligence tools the company is debuting on the iPhone 16 series. Features include changing the tone of messages, improved Siri, augmenting searching through photos and videos and new camera controls (more on that below). Though Apple Intelligence is also coming to the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, Apple is positioning its new AI as an incentive for most older iPhone owners to upgrade.
The iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max also have something that's new to its more affordable iPhone 16 and 16 Plus: a dedicated button (both clicky and capacitive) for Visual Intelligence (located under what had been the antenna slot below the lock button the right side of the phones). This is a camera-focused aspect of Apple Intelligence: just press the button and the phone will suggest insights, which seems much like Google Lens. There are other capabilities, like lightly touching (not pressing) the button opens up camera options like zoom and aperture for depth -- just sliding your finger back and forth can do things like zoom in and out.
Tapping (but not firmly pressing) the camera button allows zoom and other photo controls.
Apple/Screenshot by James Martin/CNETThe iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max pack the Apple A18 Pro chipset as Apple continues its policy of only bringing the most advanced silicon to the two most premium iPhones. The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus both get the A18 chipset, upgrading the base models with new silicon so that both can use Apple Intelligence.
The iPhone 16 Pro comes in multiple storage configurations, starting at 128GB and going up to 256GB, 512GB and 1TB. The iPhone 16 Pro Max starts at 256GB and is available in 512GB and 1TB local options. There is no expandable storage, forcing users to rely on cloud storage.
Unlike their predecessors, the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max are no longer the only phones of their generation to have an action button, which was added to the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus. This acts as a custom shortcut to opening apps, and can be set to offer different shortcuts depending on the time of day.
But the top ends of the iPhone 16 series do retain a handful of premium-only features, like the telephoto lenses. This year, both the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max have the 5x optical zoom that only the larger iPhone 15 Pro Max had, which is a win for smaller phone lovers. Now only the larger battery separates the iPhone 16 Pro from the Pro Max.
The iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max also have a 48 megapixel main camera, which has a new sensor that enables a 2x macro zoom as well as, in an Apple first, 4K video at 120 frames per second. They can take spatial video at 1080p at 30 frames per second, which can then be viewed on the Apple Vision Pro headset. The phones also pack a 48 megapixel ultra wide camera to round out its rear shooter trio.
The varying pro audio recording settings during video capture.
Apple/Screenshot by James Martin/CNETThe phones have four audio microphones spread around the phone, and can record in spatial audio, too, to enhance the spatial videos taken with the phones to be viewed on the Apple Vision Pro. There are pro audio recording settings too: a trio of options including in-frame, studio and cinematic that change how loud voices and background audio appear in the final recording.
Voice Memos has upgraded capabilities, too, allowing users to listen to audio -- say, a song -- and speak or sing over it. Then, the phone's advanced processing removes the background music to preserve the user's voice.
With the new capacitive camera button means new cases, and Apple has a couple that will enable capacitive tapping and sliding to change photo settings. That will be a new consideration for iPhone owners who love third-party cases.
The iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max retain the USB-C connector introduced in last year's top-end iPhones, and MagSafe charging has been upgraded from 15 watts up to 25 watts if using a 30-watt charger or higher capacity.
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