Apple‘s iPhone 16 event is now over, but we’re only just starting to get to grips with everything that was announced by Tim Cook and friends.
There was a lot to unpack – four new iPhones, one new Apple Watch, two new AirPods models, and a bunch of clever Apple Intelligence features. But there were also several notable absentees that had been heavily rumored before the event, and some notable updates to existing devices.
To get you up to speed with all the big announcements here’s our guide to everything Apple revealed, and a few things we learned along the way.
1. The iPhone 16 gets not one but two new buttons
At first glance, the iPhone 16 might look a lot like its predecessor, but Apple has brought a handful of meaningful upgrades to its latest base model.
On the design front, the iPhone 16 inherits the Action button from the iPhone 15 Pro, but the more exciting addition is an all-new Camera Control button, which can be used in a manner akin to Google Lens to help you quickly learn about your surroundings.
The iPhone 16 also gets a new, exclusive A18 chipset, which will power Apple Intelligence features from October onwards, and the phone’s rear camera lenses are now arranged vertically to allow for spatial video capture.
The iPhone 16 ships in ultramarine, teal, pink, white, and black, and will be available to pre-order from Friday, September 9. The new device hits store shelves on Friday, September 20 alongside the iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max.
2. iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max are now even more Pro – and bigger
We were expecting the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max to have a solid suite of upgrades, but what Apple has added to its next-gen smartphones is rather impressive – and a tad overwhelming.
Both phones get larger screens – 6.3 and 6.9 inches respectively – and have a powerful A18 Pro chipset that promises a heck of a lot more gaming power and the ability to deliver high-quality 4K video capture at 120 frames per second, which Apple is touting as a pro feature.
The Action button is more capable, and as with the base iPhone 16 there’s a new haptics-based Camera Control button that can recognize a mix of taps and swipes to trigger different camera and shooting modes.
Plus, for people who want to capture great sound, there are now four mics in the Pro phones with the ability to record Spatial Audio when capturing video.
On top of this, there are four color options – Black Titanium, White Titanium, Natural Titanium, Desert Titanium – and smart features via an upgraded Siri and Apple Intelligence. And somehow Apple has decided not to increase the price of the Pro phones, despite the upgrades. We could be looking at two very powerful contenders for the top spot on our best phones list.
3. The iPhone 16 Plus is… well, it’s just bigger
The iPhone 16 Plus is one-to-one with the iPhone 16 in all but one area: size. With a 6.7-inch display, the Plus is now Apple’s second-largest phone behind the newly enlarged iPhone 16 Pro Max.
Along with the rest of the iPhone 16 lineup, the iPhone 16 Plus comes equipped with the new Action Button and Camera Control capacitive button. Powered by the A18 chipset, the iPhone 16 Plus will receive a suite of Apple Intelligence features as a beta release in October before they officially launch in December.
New AI tools include Visual Intelligence, which uses the vertically-aligned cameras to provide information about your surroundings (more on that below).
Preorders go live on September 13, with prices starting at $899 / £899 / AU$1,599 for the model with 128GB of storage.
Speaking of prices, we can’t believe we’re saying this, but given the upgrades Apple has brought to its iPhones with the iPhone 16 family, Cupertino’s smartphones might actually be good value. That’s because they haven’t risen in price.
That means the iPhone 16 starts at $799 / £799 / AU$1,399, the iPhone 16 Plus starts at $899 / £899 / AU$1,599, the iPhone 16 Pro starts at $999 / £999 / AU$1,799, and the iPhone 16 Pro Max starts at $1,199 / £1,199 / AU$2,149.
Obviously, the prices can get a little eye-watering when you bump up the storage options, with the 1TB iPhone 16 Pro Max topping out at $1,599 / £1,599 / AU$2,849. But go for a more conservative amount of onboard storage and the prices are easier to swallow.
All four new iPhone models will be released on September 20, but iPhone 16 pre-orders start on September 13. And we’ll flag any iPhone 16 deals as and when they pop up, so do keep that page bookmarked.
5. Seeing double? The iPhone 16 gets two new buttons
Alongside the iPhone 15 Pro’s Action button – a programmable shortcut button which replaces the mute switch on older models – Apple has given iPhone 16 models another new button: Camera Control.
You can tap the button once to open the Camera app, tap it again to take a picture, and by sliding your phone along the button you can adjust various camera settings to adjust the composition and appearance of your snaps. It looks like it’ll make taking pictures on the iPhone 16 more convenient, and we’re excited to try it out.
6. iPhone 16 Pro promises ‘studio quality’ recording hardware
Apple really wants creatives to use the iPhone 16 Pro for their music and video needs. It boasts four “studio quality” mics which – in combination with AI trickery – can be used to adjust the sound mix of your shots (focusing on just the key actors, what’s in frame, or a balance of all the sound), or used to help you layer song ideas in notes.
In one example shown during the event, a musician played a guitar riff they had recorded earlier while recording new lyrics over the top; they could then play back both together, or isolate just the riff or lyrics to help them create a new tune.
The iPhone 16 Pro is also able to capture 4K video at 120fps, and once you have your video you can adjust playback speed in the app to create cinematic slow-mo segments after the fact. You can also rely on the new Camera Control button to more easily adjust camera settings on the fly.
7. All iPhone models get new chipsets
The iPhone 16 family has brought with it the new A18 and A18 Pro chipsets, and as usual Apple has made some impressive claims about performance improvements without much in the way of actual benchmarks.
Nevertheless, the company claims the A18 found in the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus has a 30% faster CPU and 40% faster GPU than the A16 Bionic chipset it replaces. As for the A18 Pro found in the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, Apple is claiming 15% CPU performance gains and a 20% GPU boost.
The A18 Pro also doubles video encoding speeds; welcome news to those making use of the iPhone’s ProRES recording abilities.What is concretely impressive is that these are the world’s first commercially available 3nm smartphone chipsets, something we heard relatively little about until the event itself.
8. Apple Intelligence is coming soon. Honest
Apple Intelligence finally has a release window, and while it won’t be available for the iPhone 16 lineup’s launch on September 20, we won’t have long to wait.
Apple says the new AI features will arrive in October as part of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1, although only in US English to start with. Initially, Apple Intelligence will launch in beta with writing tools, summaries, and Siri’s redesign, to name a few of its tricks.
More localized English languages will be added in December, and we expect to see more Apple Intelligence features such as Genmoji and Visual Intelligence trickle onto our Apple devices over the next few months. The version of Siri we’ve all been waiting for won’t arrive until 2025, however, so you’ll need to wait to ask the voice assistant about what’s on your device’s screen.
9. Visual Intelligence is like Google Lens for iPhone
We were all hoping for a new Apple Intelligence feature exclusive to the iPhone 16 lineup, and Apple well and truly delivered. Press the new Camera Control button on the iPhone 16, 16 Plus, Pro, or Pro Max to activate Visual Intelligence and search for whatever you see using AI.
This new Apple Intelligence feature might sound similar to Google Lens, but it’s on an iPhone now and it looks seriously cool. Visual Intelligence arrives on the iPhone 16 later this year, so for now you’ll need to use the Camera Control button to, well, capture photos.
10. The Apple Watch 10 has a bigger screen and thinner body
The Apple Watch Series 10 has arrived with its biggest-ever screen, thinnest-ever body, and fastest-ever charging.
With a new display that’s bigger than the Apple Watch Ultra’s 49mm beast (although we didn’t get an exact size for the Series 10’s new display) the wide-angle OLED offers 30% more screen space in comparison to the old Apple Watch Series 6.
Want more? A new S10 chipset offers the Translate app and machine learning-powered health smarts, including a new Breathing Disturbances feature for sleep apnea detection. And then there’s the speaker…
11. …and the Watch 10 has unlocked its speaker for music playback
Yes, the Apple Watch Series 10’s speaker can finally play music. That’s right, this oddity of the Apple Watch has been fixed so that you no longer need to connect a pair of AirPods to your Apple Watch to enjoy music you’ve downloaded to the wearable.
We expect the audio quality won’t be the most stellar – think of this as a back-up rather than your go-to music listening experience – but it will certainly be better than nothing on the occasions you forget your iPhone, or your AirPods run out of charge while you’re out on the go.
12. There’s no Apple Watch Ultra 3 – but the 2 does get some upgrades
Even though we didn’t see an Apple Watch Ultra 3 make an appearance this year, Apple did offer a small update to the Ultra series overall. As well as the previously Ultra-exclusive Depth and Oceanic+ apps being available on the Apple Watch Series 10, the Ultra 2 now comes in a new, slick color – Satin Black.
The cool new look is complete with a new band style, Milanese titanium, which is meant to evoke the style of classic dive watches – and as such is corrosion-resistant for all your deep-sea needs.
13. Apple Watch 10 and Watch Ultra 2 both get a sleep-apnea detection feature
The Apple Watch 10 and Watch Ultra 2 are getting a potentially life-changing sleep apnea detection feature. Using the device’s accelerometer, the wearables will detect sleep disturbances that could indicate that the wearer temporarily stopped breathing, and analyze these findings every 30 days to identify signs of sleep apnea.
Given that up to 80% of people who suffer from the potentially life-shortening disorder may not even be aware they have it, this could be a valuable first line of defense in helping detect it.
14. Apple AirPods 4 are here – and yes, you are seeing double
You know when you wait ages for a bus and then… that. Apple has launched not one but two new sets of AirPods 4 at Glowtime, both with upgraded acoustic architecture in Apple’s original open-ear design.
The chief difference between the two? Active noise cancellation, Adaptive Audio and conversation awareness, which are reserved for the pricier pair. However, you do get personalised Spatial Audio and gesture detection in both, thanks to Apple’s H2 chip.
15. The AirPods Pro 3 didn’t show up, but the Pro 2 gets some upgrades
While we’re a little sad that the AirPods Pro 3 weren’t revealed, the AirPods Pro 2 are at least going to get three new features aimed at protecting your hearing health.
There’s improved noise cancellation for particularly loud sounds, a hearing test so you can chart its change over time, and – most interestingly – the ability to turn your buds into Hearing Aids.
These features will come to the iPhone Health app with an iOS 18 update some time later in 2024, only for AirPods 2 owners, but presumably the future AirPods Pro 3 will get them too.
16. The AirPods Max 2 didn’t materialize either. Shame
Despite rumors that we’d be seeing the new AirPods Max 2 launched at the event, we instead saw some minor upgrades to the existing AirPods Max.
Unsurprisingly, given its been mandated by EU regulators, that Lightning port is gone, replaced by the USB-C ports used across the rest of the AirPods range. And the Max have received a glow up with new colorways Midnight, Orange, Starlight, Blue and Purple. Seems like we’ll be waiting a little while longer for features like lossless audio and weatherproofing.
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marc.mclaren@futurenet.com (Marc McLaren)
