Smartphone cameras may have been pushed aside by AI hype in the past two years, but they're still one of the biggest reasons to upgrade – and as TechRadar's former cameras editor, I'm particularly excited about the iPhone 16 Pro.
Granted, some of that enthusiasm may be because my daily driver is a creaking iPhone 11 Pro, which has now reached classic car status in smartphone terms. But lately, I've felt the allure of shooting with something more discrete and pocketable than my Fujifilm X-T5 – and rather than a Ricoh GR IIIx, it's the iPhone 16 Pro that's caught my eye.
We're still very much in rumors territory for Apple's next flagship phone ahead of its launch on September 9. But after closely following the speculation this year, it looks to me like the iPhone 16 Pro could be the ideal pocket camera to complement my beefier Fujifilm X-series body and lenses.
So why am I thinking of finally upgrading this year, rather than waiting for the iPhone 17 Pro or the rumored iPhone 17 Air next year? Here are the top five photographic reasons why I'm preparing to take the plunge on the smaller Pro model, based on the latest rumors...
1. Apple's best ever ultra-wide camera
- The rumor: iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max tipped to get 48MP ultra-wide camera
This could be the most useful iPhone 16 Pro camera upgrade for me, if the rumors are true. According to respected tech analyst Jeff Pu, Apple is planning to add a new 48MP ultra-wide camera onto both of its iPhone 16 Pro models – and won't be keeping it exclusive to the Pro Max.
That would be a pretty big deal. The iPhone's ultra-wide camera has traditionally been its weakest link. My iPhone 11 Pro came with Apple's first ultra-wide and it's distinctly average, thanks to its slow f/2.4 aperture and fixed-focus lens. It's certainly improved over recent generations, but the iPhone 15 Pro still only has a 12MP sensor and an f/2.2 aperture.
The benefit of a new 48MP sensor would be that the iPhone 16 Pro's ultra-wide could use the same pixel-binning technique as its main camera to boost image quality in challenging light. If it can produce 24MP files (made from a combo of a 12MP and 48MP image) with some of the quality I've seen from the iPhone 15 Pro's main camera, the ultra-wide would become a far more usable option.
2. A mature 5x telephoto camera
- The rumor: iPhone 16 Pro to inherit the 5x telephoto camera from the 15 Pro Max
Last year, I decided to resist the temptation of the iPhone 15 Pro Max's new 5x telephoto lens in order to stick to my golden Apple rule – always wait for any new feature to reach second-generation maturity.
Okay, it was also because I didn't particularly want to lug around a 6.7-inch smartphone, which was my only option because Apple made its tetraprism technology exclusive to the Max model. Not so this year, according to the latest iPhone 16 Pro camera rumors – the 6.3-inch iPhone 16 Pro is highly likely to get the same 120mm equivalent camera as its bigger brother.
I don't think having a 120mm camera is necessarily better than a 72mm equivalent, which is what the iPhone 15 Pro offers. In fact, leafing through my Lightroom catalogue, I mostly shoot in the 35mm-70mm range on my Fujifilm X-T5. But then again, I use my phone for different kinds of shots – and the flexibility of being able switch from 14mm to a refined 120mm telephoto, all on my phone, is very alluring.
Apple's impressive stabilization and image processing managed to eke out some solid, sharp results from the iPhone 15 Pro Max's 5x telephoto camera – after a year of software refinements, I'm expecting that to have improved again this year.
3. The rumored Capture button
- The rumor: Apple to introduce a new 'Capture' button across the whole iPhone 16 series
One of my biggest issues with smartphone cameras is their ergonomics – they simply aren't as fun to shoot with as the best mirrorless cameras. While you can improve this to an extent with cases like the Shiftcam ProGrip, recent rumors suggest Apple is also planning to introduce a more camera-like experience to the entire iPhone 16 series with a new Capture button.
There are mixed reports on whether this new button will be capacitive or mechanical, but all of them agree that it'll be focused on shooting photos and videos with a two-step action that lets you first lock focus and exposure, then take a shot. A report from The Information in January suggested that you'll also be able to swipe across the surface of this button to zoom in and out of your scene.
In other words, Apple could make the iPhone 16 series feel more like the best compact cameras, only with a lot more computational power. As we've seen with the Action button, which can also become your camera shutter, this can make a real difference for genres like street photography that rely on speed.
Physical shutter buttons, the return of horizontal snapping – sign me up.
4. AI photography future-proofing
- The rumor: iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max to get new A18 Pro chip for Apple Intelligence features and graphically-intense apps
I mostly edit photos using Lightroom Classic or the Lightroom app on iOS, and the latter got its equivalent of Google's 'Magic Eraser' tool back in May. But now Apple is entering the AI-powered photo editing game with tools like Clean Up, I want to make sure my next iPhone is future-proofed (to an extent) for similar iOS innovations – and it sounds like that'll be the case with the iPhone 16 Pro.
The latest iPhone 16 spec predictions suggest that, while every model in the series will get 8GB RAM, the Pro models will get a new A18 Pro chip (compared to the standard A18 chip on the iPhone 16). Exactly what that'll be capable of remains unclear, but the latest rumors point to it having a more powerful graphics processor – which would be particularly useful for gaming and, yes, computational photography.
The reason this matters for Apple's own Apple Intelligence tools, like Clean Up, is because it prefers to run them on-device rather than, like Adobe, via the cloud. I may still largely stick with Lightroom for editing, but if I'm offline then Apple Intelligence features could become helpful photographic backups for quick edits.
There's already talk that next year's iPhone 17 Pro Max might get exclusive Apple Intelligence upgrades, so I'm under no illusion that the 16 Pro will able to handle all of Apple's best AI features in the future. But it's certainly more future-proofed than the poor iPhone 15, which is already locked out of the AI party due to its 6GB of memory.
That extra processing power could also help improve non-AI features like Apple's Cinematic Mode for video, which has slowly been improving over the years (despite its depth-map errors).
5. New camera lens coating
- The rumor: iPhone 16 Pro series to get new lens coating to reduce artifacts
A truism for traditional cameras is that lenses will make a bigger difference to your photography than new camera bodies – so that's why I'm also pleased to hear rumors that Apple could be addressing a long-standing lens issue on the iPhone 16 Pro series.
According to a well-known Apple tipster, a new camera lens coating (using a technique called atomic layer deposition, or ALD) is being used on iPhone 16 Pro models to help reduce artifacts like flares and halos, which are pretty common in iPhone photos.
I don't pretend to understand the specifics of that particular manufacturing process, but if that's true it would be a helpful quality-of-life upgrade for the iPhone 16 Pro's cameras. In theory, it should also help reduce ghosting in fast-moving objects.
Final thoughts
If the iPhone 16 Pro gets most of these rumored features, I'll almost certainly be upgrading and hitting those iPhone 16 preorders on September 13 (when they're rumored to be starting).
Even if its main camera stays the same with a 48MP Quad Bayer sensor and f/1.8 aperture, a new 48MP ultra-wide and 5x telephoto would be huge hardware upgrades – and I also like the sound of the Capture button. Combine that with the power and future-proofing of the rumored A18 Pro chip, and the iPhone 16 Pro is shaping up to be quite a pocket camera.
Apple may be lagging behind Google when it comes to AI-powered features like Add Me and Reimagine, but as something of a photography traditionalist that doesn't bother me too much. iOS has always had the best camera apps, so most gaps can be filled with third-party software – and there's also the prospect of dabbling with spatial photos and video, which I'd argue is more exciting than AI-generated photography.
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