Apple announces the iPhone 16 with a faster processor and camera control button

Apple has announced the iPhone 16, the latest edition of its mainline smartphone. The iPhone 16 comes in a variety of slightly refreshed colors that are more vivid compared to previous years. Also refreshed is the updated dual-camera arrangement on its rear, once again set up vertically, as last seen on the iPhone 12 from 2020.

The iPhone 16 has a variety of new hardware refinements, like a new A18 chip with 3nm process that’s 30 percent faster than the iPhone 15’s CPU, an Action Button that debuted on last year’s Pro models, and a new physical camera control button below the power button.

The iPhone 16 will be Apple’s first mainstream phone to utilize Apple Intelligence in beta after an update coming in October. The company first previewed the AI software at WWDC, where it was initially gated to Pro-level iPhone 15 models only. While Apple spent time reviewing many of Apple Intelligence’s upcoming features already shown at WWDC (like custom emoji and the ablit text or emails), it previewed a new Google Lens-like search feature called Visual Intelligence — allowing an iPhone 16 user to search out information based on what the camera sees.

Once again, the standard iPhone will come with a 6.1-inch screen while the larger iPhone 16 Plus gets a 6.7-inch display — the same sizes as the iPhone 15 generation. But the screens for the iPhone 16 pair can reach 2000 nits of peak brightness and go as dim as 1 nit.

The 16 follows the same general design as the 15, with a squared-off frame, rear glass allowing for MagSafe wireless charging, Apple’s Dynamic Island top cutout for housing its front-facing camera and Face ID sensors, and USB-C charging / data port at its base. While the move back to vertically aligned rear lenses may seem like a strange retread to a design element Apple moved on from, the backtrack makes sense for better spatial video support on the Apple Vision Pro.

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