- Update: Our iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max hands-on review is live!
It's official, the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max are coming alongside two non-Pro — iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus. Like the standard models, these are phones that are built with Apple Intelligence at their core. But there's a lot more on offer from both these phones.
These new phones are set to come packing a brand new design with larger 6.3-inch and 6.9-inch displays — making them the largest iPhones Apple has ever made. Not just that Apple has added larger batteries, promising the best battery life of any iPhone, and has the ultra-powerful A18 Pro chip
Apple's added the super-impressive Camera Control button, and AI-powered. Visual Intelligence that helps you learn more about the world around you.
iPhone 16 Pro & iPhone 16 Pro Max Highlights
- The largest displays of any iPhone with 6.3-inch and 6.9-inch displays
- New ultra-thin bezels that look good and help maximize screen space
- The new Camera Control button that lets you open and control the camera — and Visual Intelligence
- Apple's new Visual intelligence which lets you use AI and the camera to learn more about the world around you
- A new chassis features a graphite-clad aluminum substructure, which improves both phones' thermal efficiency by 20% to help boost on-device AI and gaming performance
- Both phones will have larger batteries, which Apple promises will offer the best ever iPhone battery life
- A new A18 Pro chipset with more power, better efficiency and faster USB-C data transfer speeds. Apple says these will be particularly effective for running Apple Intelligence's on-device AI
- 48MP Fusion Camera comes with a 2x digital telephoto zoom, and will be paired with a brand 48MP ultrawide camera that had a larger quad-pixel sensor. This camera will be able to record video in 4K and 120fps which powers a new Cinematic slow motion recording mode
- 5x tetraprism is coming to iPhone 16 Pro this year, but it appears the Pro max won't be getting any significant telephoto upgrades.
- Prices start at $999 for an iPhone 15 Pro and $1,199 for the iPhone 16 Pro Max — with up to $1,000 trade-in offers available.
- iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro Max will be available in Black Titanium, White Titanium, Natural Titanium and the all-new Desert Titanium.
- Both phones will go on sale on September 20.
iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max price & release date
Apple has confirmed that the iPhone 16 will start at $999, which gets you a model with 128GB of storage. Meanwhile the iPhone 16 Pro Max starts at $1,199 for a model with 256GB of storage. Those are the exact same prices as last year, meaning you won't be paying more because you got to the party a year late.
Pre-orders for the phones open on September 13, ahead of general release on September 20. Color options include Black Titanium, White Titanium, Natural Titanium and the all-new Desert Titanium — which is a bronze-looking color.
Apple has promised that buyers will be able to earn up to $1,000 of credit on a carrier deal if they trade in an older iPhone model. This amount drops to between $180 and $650 for non-carrier deals.
iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max design
Both iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max come with brand new designs this year, which manifests itself in the form of larger screens. Both phones have grown by 0.2-inches, meaning we're getting a 6.3-inch iPhone 16 Pro and a 6.9-inch iPhone 16 Pro Max — the largest iPhone Apple has ever released.
On top of that both phones feature slimmer bezels than ever before, which helps maximize that screen space and generally look a lot nicer than what you might be used to from previous generations. ProMotion is also coming along for the ride, so you have that silky-smooth adaptive refresh rate running your display.
Naturally the outer edges of the phone are made from grade 5 titanium once again, bonded to an internal chassis made of aluminum. But that chassis features a graphite-clad aluminum substructure that Apple says will improve thermal efficiency by 20%. Which is pretty important, considering some of the problems people experienced with the iPhone 15 Pro Max and the fact Apple Intelligence makes on-device performance more important than ever.
Down the side of the phone, on the bottom right, you'll find the Camera Control button. A new taptic-enhanced button that lets you perform all sorts of camera features.
The battery has also been given a boost, though Apple hasn't said by how much. Only that the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max will have the best battery life Apple has ever offered
iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max A18 Pro chipset
While all 4 iPhone 16 models will have an A18 chip of some kind, that doesn't mean they're equal. The iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max will come packing an A18 Pro chipset, which is designed to offer even better performance and efficiency.
The A18 Pro is all about speed, and helps power some of the biggest features on the iPhone 16 Pro series — from camera shutter speed to data transfer and Apple Intelligence.
The chip itself is supposed to be 15% faster than the A17 Pro while using 20% less power. Apple has also promised 2x faster ray tracing compared to last year, 2x faster video encoding and 17% more system memory bandwidth that will prove invaluable for on-device AI features.
iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max cameras
This year sees the iPhone 16 Pro finally get the telephoto upgrade it deserves, with the inclusion of the 5x tetraprism lens that debuted last year on iPhone 15 Pro Max. While the iPhone 16 Pro Max doesn't appear to be getting any noticeable hardware upgrades on this particular lens, it means that Pro users will be able to enjoy a little more optical magnification on their photos.
Both phones come with two other camera lenses: An upgraded 48MP Fusion Camera and an all-new 48MP ultrawide lens. Both have been built to be faster and more efficient, thanks to the power of the A18 Pro, and come packing more efficiency quad-pixel sensors. Those sensors promise zero shutter lag, as well as 2x faster performance and auto-focus.
Apple Vision Pro owners will also happy to know that they'll be able to take spatial photos on the iPhone 16 Pro — in addition to spatial video.
iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max: New features
Like the rest of the iPhone 16 series, iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max will have a lot of focus on Apple Intelligence. All the features that were announced at WWDC 2024 will be available on both phones, including the ability to generate images in Image Playground, produce custom GenMoji, summarized emails and notifications so you get the most important information and so on.
But the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max will be coming with the exclusive Visual Intelligence feature. This is an AI vision feature that lets you pair Apple Intelligence with your phone's camera to help learn more about the world around you. Better still it's connected to the new Camera Control button that could make it significantly easier to activate than rival AI Vision and search-based platforms.
Sadly Visual Intelligence isn't going to be available right away, and will be arriving on all iPhone 16 models at some point later this year. However Apple Intelligence will be entering public beta at some time in October.
The new Camera Control button does more than that, though. The touch-sensitive button can be used to quickly open up the Camera app and snap a picture (or video) at the push of a button. All with taptic feedback and a clicking feeling that's been designed to feel like a mechanical camera shutter.
But that's not all. The button is also capable of detecting pressure, and if you lightly tap it while the camera is open you'll be met with a new ultra-clean interface — which should let you focus on what's in frame. Tapping it again opens up a minimalist settings menu that can be navigated by scrolling gestures. Those scrolling gestures can also control things like zoom and other camera controls more easily than a touchscreen would.
But those features are also available on iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus. What about the Pro-exclusive features? Well there are a bunch of those to, and naturally they're all camera related.
Thanks to the power of the A18 Pro chipset, the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max can record video at 4K and 120 frames per second — with Dolby Vision HDR to boot. Naturally recording ProRes video at this level requires you to plug into an external hard drive, as was the case with the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max.
However 4K 120fps quality also works in video and Slo-mo modes, giving you even more ways to choose how you use your iPhone to capture video. It's a Cinematic slow motion mode, so to speak.
iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max also feature Audio Mix, a feature that utilizes machine learning to separate background noise from human speech. Not to mention more true-to-life audio recording from the microphone and a new Spatial Audio recording feature for those times you're watching back with either AirPods Pro or Apple Vision Pro.
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