The iPhone 16's Capture button isn't so mysterious anymore, and it might disappoint you

iPhone 15
The iPhone 15 (Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

One of the most intriguing rumored changes coming to the iPhone 16 is the addition of a new ‘Capture button’. We’ve heard mention of a new button with that name a number of times, but until now no one knew exactly what it might do.

Given the name, it was always likely that it related to the camera, and according to Mark Gurman – a leaker with a great track record for Apple information – writing for Bloomberg, it does; but more specifically the Capture button is apparently “a new dedicated button for taking video.” 

So in other words, tapping it would probably launch the camera in video mode, or maybe even start instantly recording a video. This would obviously be useful for anyone who records a lot of videos, or for when you don’t want to miss a fleeting moment, but we’d wager that plenty of people hardly use the video camera, so for them this would be a near-useless button.

Given that Apple added a customizable Action button to the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, it seems that an obvious and far more useful thing to do would be to make this a second customizable button, so people have two buttons that they can use for whatever they want.

So that’s a bit disappointing – or not, if you’d use it for video regardless – but this is still just a rumor for now, and Gurman could be wrong.

The iPad Pro could be getting a revamp

In any case, this isn’t the only new Apple information from Gurman, as in the same article he also detailed several upcoming iPads, albeit largely just reiterating claims he’s made before.

Gurman says that the iPad Pro 2024 is getting “revamped”, and while he doesn’t say what that revamp will entail, we’ve heard elsewhere that it might come in a larger size and have an OLED screen.

He also says a larger screen is planned for the iPad Air 6 (which we’ve previously heard could be 12.9 inches), and claims that both the iPad mini 7 and the iPad 11 will have a faster chipset than their predecessors, as you’d expect.

As for when we’ll find out how accurate any of these claims are, rumors suggest that at least some of these new iPad models will land in March, while the iPhone 16 line will almost certainly launch in September.

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James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.

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