Apple (AAPL) debuted its iPhone 16 smartphone line during its “Glowtime” event at its headquarters in Cupertino, California, on Monday. The phones come in four styles: the iPhone 16, the iPhone 16 Plus, and the premium iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max.

The new phones are the first Apple designed specifically with its Apple Intelligence AI platform in mind, and feature more powerful chips to handle the software. The base iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus now come with the same programmable action button that was on last year’s iPhone 15 Pro line.

Both the base iPhone 16s and iPhone 16 Pros also get new dedicated touch-sensitive camera buttons, which you can click to launch the camera app. You can then click again to take a photo or click and hold to record video.

A light press of the button brings up a new overlay that gives you access to controls like zoom. Third-party apps like Snapchat also make use of the camera button to quickly share your photos.

iPhone 16

Overall, the $799 iPhone 16 and $899 iPhone 16 Plus look similar to last year’s models, except for the way their rear cameras are arranged. They’re now stacked vertically to capture photos in three dimensions for use with the Apple Vision Pro headset.

Inside, the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus get Apple’s new 3-nanometer A18 chip, which features a 2x faster Neural Engine. Apple says the A18’s central processing unit is up to 30 percent faster than the one in the iPhone 15 line, and includes a 5-core GPU, which helps run Apple Intelligence, games and camera features. Apple says the new chip will also improve the iPhone 1’s battery life.

The iPhone 16s will also come equipped with computational photography software to create a 2x telephoto option that simulates optical zoom via the standard wide-angle lens. The ultra-wide lens, meanwhile, gets an upgrade to 48 megapixels.

Apple also says it’s bringing visual intelligence to the camera app, allowing you to take a photo of, say, a restaurant to get reviews of the place, or take a photo of a flyer for a concert and add the information directly to your calendar. If you see a bike in real life that you want to buy, you can take a photo of it and then get a quick Google link to buy it.

This sounds similar to Google’s existing Circle to Search feature for Android phones. I’ll have to see if it works as well as Google’s offering when I get my hands on it.

iPhone 16 Pro

The $999 iPhone 16 Pro and $1,199 iPhone 16 Pro Max get larger displays this time around, with the Pro’s screen jumping from 6.1 inches to 6.3 inches and the Pro Max’s screen growing from 6.7 inches to 6.9 inches. The larger displays come thanks to thinner bezels, which give the phone a more solid sheet of glass appearance on the front.

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Both Pro phones come equipped with Apple’s new A18 Pro chip, which delivers improved performance over the A18 in the iPhone 16s. The processor’s CPU is 15% faster than the A17 Pro while consuming 20% ​​less power.

The Pro and Pro Max also get more powerful 48-megapixel fusion cameras and 48-megapixel ultra-wide cameras. The Pro gets a new 5x optical zoom to match the Pro Max’s capabilities. The iPhone 15 Pro only offered 3x zoom.

Like the iPhone 16s, the Pros get the same camera controls via a new dedicated camera button, and later this year Apple will add a two-step shutter that locks onto your subject via a software update. You can also now record video in 4K at 120 frames per second for some slick slo-mo videos. You can also adjust the frames per second after you’ve recorded your video via the Photos app.

On the audio front, the Pros get four built-in microphones and spatial audio recording. An Audio Mix feature lets you define how you want the audio to sound in your videos to create professional-sounding films.

To illustrate the iPhone 16 Pro’s video capabilities, the company showed off how the features were put to use while filming The Weeknd’s latest music video.

Apple Intelligence

As for Apple Intelligence, Apple says the software will be available as a free software update, with the first features rolling out in beta in the US next month. Chinese, French, Japanese and Spanish language versions of Apple Intelligence will be available next year.

Apple hasn’t announced any new features for Apple Intelligence, but it did take the time to remind consumers of capabilities the company announced during its WWDC event in June.

The company touted its Private Cloud Compute, which runs server-based AI functions without storing your data. Apple says its AI-powered writing tools will be deeply integrated into iOS, ranging from first-party apps like Mail to third-party programs like Slack and Goodreads. The company also says Apple Intelligence will let you easily search for specific photos and moments in videos.

Summary tools are available on iOS, including for texts, work messages, and email. Mail also gets priority emails, alerting you to what Apple Intelligence considers to be your most important messages.

Siri is also getting an upgrade, making it easier to chat with the voice assistant or type to ask questions. Apple says Siri will get even more powerful upgrades in the future.

But the fact that Apple Intelligence won’t be coming right away with the new iPhones could be a problem for Apple. Wall Street is counting on the feature to help fuel a new iPhone sales cycle. Any delay in the release of Apple Intelligence could dampen those hopes.

Apple’s iPhone is the company’s flagship product and serves as a starting point for customers to explore Apple’s extensive ecosystem of products and services, ranging from AirPods to Apple TV+.

But iPhone sales have been slowing lately. The company posted $39.2 billion in iPhone revenue in the third quarter, compared to $39.6 billion in the same period last year. That’s partly due to the company’s performance in Greater China, where revenue fell about $1 billion year over year in the most recent quarter.

That said, the iPhone is still Apple’s biggest moneymaker. In 2023, the smartphone accounted for $200.5 billion of the company’s total revenue of $383.2 billion.

Email Daniel Howley at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.

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