Hands on: iPhone 16 Pro Max review – small changes add up to an AI and camera revolution

Hands-on iPhone 16 Pro Max review: Two-minute preview

At a glance, the iPhone 16 Pro Max doesn't look or feel much different from the iPhone 15 Pro Max, and perhaps that's to be expected. The competitive game of smartphones is now one of incremental changes. The question is, can the small or even invisible changes add up to something big?

Based on my brief hands-on time with the iPhone 16 Pro Max, I'd say the answer is yes.

Design-wise, it looks like a doppelgänger for the iPhone 15 Pro Max at first glance – but it isn't. As soon as I picked up the new Pro Max in the sleek Black Titanium finish I was struck by the screen; it's still Super Retina XDR, but somehow, it feels much larger. It is indeed larger, if only a little – where the iPhone 15 Pro Max offered a 6.7-inch display, this one is 6.9 inches – but the difference is palpable. This is Apple's largest iPhone display ever.

Thankfully, Apple did not achieve this by simply making the whole device larger (it is a bit larger, but the weight difference is negligible). The other trick Apple employed to get that extra screen real estate was shrinking the bezel surrounding the display; I suspect that someday the bezel will disappear altogether.

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A bigger screen does make everything seem bigger, brighter, and better. But that's not the only immediately noticeable physical difference between this year and last. 

The iPhone 16 Pro Max, along with the three other iPhone 16 models, has a new Camera Control button. This button is a bigger deal than I imagined, and I'm almost embarrassed to say that I already like it quite a bit.

Covered in sapphire, the roughly half-inch long button sits on the phone's left side, a couple of inches down from the power/sleep/Siri button. It's recessed (which is important, I'll explain why in a bit) and is both a physical button and a haptic one. 

A hard press gives instant access to the iPhone 16 Pro Max camera. That's a nice trick, although you could program the Action Button to do this too. However, when I pressed lightly on the button I felt a slight haptic vibration, and I could then swipe up and down on the button to quickly switch between the phone's cameras. If I lightly pressed the button twice I gained access to deeper image controls. 

These different ways of using the Camera Control button, however, were not immediately obvious. I was pressing too hard, and then not hard enough. It took me about 20 seconds to figure it out, which in fairness isn't too steep of a learning curve.

I could use the Camera Control button to switch zoom, depth of field, and image styles. Oh, and you're not blindly guessing which settings the button is controlling. Every time I used it, a little black cutout appeared on the screen right next to the button to show me every setting and option. 

Yes, if you hold the phone in landscape mode it begins to feel like you're using a traditional camera – with one caveat. The feature that would let me light-press to lock focus and then full-press to shoot is not yet enabled. I could, though, fully press to take a photo.

I even saw how Snapchat is already using the Camera Control button to enable users to send photos to friends with the press of the button.

Camera Control seems like a slight misnomer. The button will also be used to enable Visual Intelligence, which lets you point the phone at an object and press the button to get a description of it. It's like Circle to Search without the circle or, I guess, Google.

As I noted above, the button is recessed, and I found that it's quite hard to trigger it accidentally. That's a good thing.

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The other big changes are in the software and the silicon. Inside the iPhone 16 Pro Max is the new A18 Pro. This is the apex Apple silicon mobile chip, a 3nm CPU that has more power for the Pro phones. It should also provide enough power to game to your heart's content. The iPhone 15 Pro Max was a pretty decent little gaming console, so I would expect no less from this bigger and better-equipped beast. I'll know more when I fully test the phone.

You won't need to play a game to experience this power, though. Like the A18 found in the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus, the A18 Pro has all the juice you need for Apple Intelligence.

In my brief time with the iPhone 16 Pro Max, I wasn't able to try out the full Apple Intelligence experience. When the iPhone starts shipping from September 20 it won't have any Apple intelligence, but an iOS update is due to roll out next month, and then Apple will slowly seed the rest of Apple Intelligence into these iOS 18-running iPhone 16 handsets (and the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max) over the coming months.

I was, however, able to briefly try a few Apple Intelligence features on the demo iPhone 16 Pro Max phones running a later version of iOS 18 that Apple provided at the event.

I brought up some photos and navigated to the new Clean Up tool. I found photos that Apple had taken, and some that others in the demo room added to the phone. In one, I used my finger to paint over offending objects and watched as they disappeared. I didn't make it easy for the phone, and sometimes there was only a partial deletion. When I used a canned photo with a distinct person in the background, Clean Up automatically found and highlighted them. I tapped the screen, and they disappeared; it was as if they were never there.

I tried the writing tools, which I still think are sort of hidden, in Notes. There were many offers to change the text to be more professional, more concise, or give it a total rewrite. This is not a feature I'm likely to use, but I suspect some will think it a godsend.

Siri has an all-new look, and the iPhone 16 Pro Max screen glows when you summon it. The effect is beautiful on the big-screen phone. It was a loud room, so Siri only caught part of my request. I think I asked Siri to show me a photo of where I am, but it only heard "where I am" and quickly brought up my location.

While I took a few pictures, I can't say anything definitive about the cameras. What I will say is that there is good news in terms of upgrades. We now have two 48MP cameras, one on the main Fusion camera and another on the new ultra-wide. There's also still the 12MP 5x tetraprism zoom lens. The main camera is reportedly faster than ever, with virtually no shutter lag. Between that and the updated image pipeline, I expect photography on this big phone to be better than ever.

I have not tried out the new Cinematic Slow Motion, which looks incredibly cool, nor did I get a chance to try the new studio-grade mics. I did see the latter in action, and was impressed by how the In-frame setting could cut away any sound not coming from whatever was in the frame. I also thought the studio quality, which left in the background noises but emphasized the main subjects' sounds, was quite good.

The new 4K 120fps-capable camera looks like it will transform how people shoot action videos. I like that there's a new speed control that will allow for easier stepping up and down of playback speed (half or quarter speed).

My takeaway from all these new photo and video tools is that this may be the ultimate pro videographer phone option. Apple, by the way, shot its entire 'Glowtime' video presentation on an iPhone, and it's no wonder. The iPhone 16 Pro Max is a powerful device with some serious skills.

Apple is promising better battery life on all the iPhone 16 models, but the gains may be especially good on the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Its much larger battery, coupled with the efficient A18 Pro and improved battery management, might add hours to the battery life, although I won't know for sure until I test it.

Finally, there's the look of this phone. As I mentioned above, I got to handle the Black Titanium model. It is a gorgeous device, and I really can't understand why you would want any other color. But, if you're so inclined, it's also available in White Titanium, Natural Titanium, and new Desert Titanium (think sand but shinier).

Is this the best iPhone Apple has ever made? Possibly. It'll certainly claim a spot near the top of our best iPhone list, and maybe even our list of the best smartphones. I'll offer my definitive take when I finish my full review.

Hands-on iPhone 16 Pro Max review: Price and availability

• Starts at $1,199 / £1,199 / AU$2,149
• Pre-orders open on September 13, shipping from September 20

The iPhone 16 Pro Max was announced at Apple's 'It's Glowtime' event on Monday, September 9. iPhone 16 preorders will begin on Friday, September 9, and the new phone will hit store shelves on, and ship from, Friday, September 20.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max starts at $1,199 / £1,199 / AU$2,149 for the model with 256GB of storage, with that price rising to $1,599 / £1,599 / AU$2,849 for the model with 1TB of storage. For context, those are the same starting and maximum prices as the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Full iPhone 16 Pro Max pricing is as follows:

Hands-on iPhone 16 Pro Max review: Specs

Here's a roundup of the iPhone 16 Pro Max's key specs.