1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:08,000 The last few years have seen the regular iPhone fall behind its pro sibling. 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,920 In camera, of course, but also power and capability, and it's made it a much less appealing option 3 00:00:13,920 --> 00:00:19,560 in the lineup. So when Apple's announcement showed a greater upgrade for the regular iPhone than the pro 4 00:00:19,560 --> 00:00:26,160 model, I was curious. I mean, new camera control button like the pro, a processor that's not a year old at 5 00:00:26,160 --> 00:00:31,320 launch, the same amount of RAM as the pro, things that will be helpful as Apple Intelligence 6 00:00:31,320 --> 00:00:35,640 rolls out. If you're thinking about upgrading to a new iPhone, it's a great year to get it on 7 00:00:35,640 --> 00:00:40,040 pro. 8 00:00:40,040 --> 00:00:44,600 The main reason for this chip upgrade is Apple Intelligence, which will be trickling out 9 00:00:44,600 --> 00:00:48,080 over a bunch of software updates in the coming months. 10 00:00:48,080 --> 00:00:53,080 But this iPhone is ready because it gets the fully up to date A18 chip. 11 00:00:53,080 --> 00:00:56,480 This is a two-generation jump from the iPhone 15. 12 00:00:56,480 --> 00:01:01,120 My Lightroom export test showed 2 minutes and 45 seconds, though something is weird 13 00:01:01,120 --> 00:01:08,800 with our iPhone 15 because it's remarkably slow. And even when I run the test on an iPhone 14 Pro with the same A16 chip as the 15, it 14 00:01:08,800 --> 00:01:13,200 performed equal to the iPhone 13, which has an A15. 15 00:01:13,200 --> 00:01:17,360 Geekbench numbers, however, showed a more gradual improvement, with the A18's graphics 16 00:01:17,360 --> 00:01:20,920 pushing M1 MacBook Air territory. 17 00:01:20,920 --> 00:01:28,160 I think the biggest news, though, is memory. Thanks to the requirements of Apple Intelligence, the iPhone now has 8GB. 18 00:01:28,160 --> 00:01:33,160 That's the same amount as found on all entry-level Macs sold in the past few years. 19 00:01:33,160 --> 00:01:39,960 Now I do agree that it is a small amount on a PC, but on an iPhone? 20 00:01:39,960 --> 00:01:44,400 The way iOS deals with memory is by purging apps you haven't used in a while. 21 00:01:44,400 --> 00:01:47,800 This means if you're swiping between different apps and browser tabs, they'll have to 22 00:01:47,800 --> 00:01:52,880 reload. I have to confess, I've always hated this, because a lot of the time I'd be midway 23 00:01:52,880 --> 00:01:58,640 through an article or feed in the app or website would not remember where I left off 24 00:01:58,640 --> 00:02:02,640 when it reloaded. Well, there's a lot less of that now. 25 00:02:02,640 --> 00:02:06,320 It's not something I noticed initially, until I really thought about it and then tried 26 00:02:06,320 --> 00:02:11,000 to open up older tabs and apps and yeah, they're still there where I left them. 27 00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:16,120 It also means I'm not waiting for them to load too, even though they do load fast. 28 00:02:16,120 --> 00:02:20,120 The real reason to care though is that iPhones with big memory and chip upgrades are likely 29 00:02:20,120 --> 00:02:24,920 to benefit from longer OS support, and so it means that this iPhone could get 6 years 30 00:02:24,920 --> 00:02:28,520 of updates like the XR and 6S before it. 31 00:02:28,520 --> 00:02:33,200 You know, underneath the case, these colors don't really look like the images you see 32 00:02:33,200 --> 00:02:36,400 online. They're somehow less saturated in real life. 33 00:02:36,400 --> 00:02:40,520 I thought I'd like the teal, but it's just not doing it for me, and the aquamarine is 34 00:02:40,520 --> 00:02:47,480 missing some sort of blue punch too. Phones are important on the iPhone, Ariana Grande elected to forego pro features to get 35 00:02:47,480 --> 00:02:51,400 an iPhone 15 in pink. 36 00:02:51,400 --> 00:02:56,160 I wonder what she thinks of the 16's pink color. 37 00:02:56,160 --> 00:02:59,160 About color, let's talk about the iPhone's camera. 38 00:02:59,160 --> 00:03:04,440 They've renamed the main camera the fusion camera, despite there being no change in specs 39 00:03:04,440 --> 00:03:09,320 that I can see. I thought it was deep fusion for processing. 40 00:03:09,320 --> 00:03:13,840 The ultra wide camera, however, now has autofocus, so it supports macro photography like the 41 00:03:13,840 --> 00:03:18,640 pro iPhone, though every time I try and use the macro feature, I'm so close with my iPhone 42 00:03:18,640 --> 00:03:22,320 I'm blocking the light I need to take a photo. 43 00:03:22,320 --> 00:03:26,120 The headline feature is the new camera control button. 44 00:03:26,120 --> 00:03:30,600 As a avid button pusher, I'm glad to see a new button introduced to the iPhone, but 45 00:03:30,600 --> 00:03:36,040 the execution on this one leaves something to be desired. 46 00:03:36,120 --> 00:03:42,400 First, I'm not sure about the position. It's on the correct side of the phone, but for landscape photos like this, it's very 47 00:03:42,400 --> 00:03:45,760 far in. My finger wants to rest naturally here. 48 00:03:45,760 --> 00:03:50,160 Now, it's likely they placed it up here for vertical photos, especially selfies. 49 00:03:50,160 --> 00:03:53,840 It works ideally for when you're stretching your ARM out to get everyone in the shot, 50 00:03:53,840 --> 00:04:00,400 and can only hold the phone with one hand. Now you can take a horizontal photo and hold the phone without blocking the front camera. 51 00:04:00,400 --> 00:04:04,640 I fear that Apple's engineers were too insecure to have the button simply act as a camera 52 00:04:04,640 --> 00:04:08,800 app launcher and shutter button, so they had to add a layer of interactivity to it. 53 00:04:08,800 --> 00:04:13,120 If you lightly press on the button, it brings down a camera control from the screen's bezel, 54 00:04:13,120 --> 00:04:19,960 allowing you to dial in exposure, depth, zoom, cameras, which is zoom, but less granular, 55 00:04:19,960 --> 00:04:23,000 styles and tone, more on those later. 56 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:27,000 It's a strange assortment of options, but strangers still adjusting them. 57 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:31,600 Remember the trackpad in that HP laptop I was complaining about in our last video? 58 00:04:31,600 --> 00:04:39,560 This kind of feels like that. While the haptics feel nice, swiping and adjusting them feels bad, though not everyone agrees 59 00:04:39,560 --> 00:04:45,880 with me. I find it to feel slow when I'm trying to be fast and imprecise when I'm trying to 60 00:04:45,880 --> 00:04:49,480 be slow. 61 00:04:49,480 --> 00:04:53,200 There have been times where I'll bring the camera control down, try and make an adjustment, 62 00:04:53,200 --> 00:04:56,920 and it keeps disappearing. It's really annoying to use. 63 00:04:56,920 --> 00:05:02,000 Light pressing the shutter button is a mainstay on traditional cameras to activate the autofocus 64 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:08,800 and exposure reading before taking a photo. Because no adjustments are being made, they have a really light actuation. 65 00:05:08,800 --> 00:05:15,760 The iPhone camera control on the other hand requires a lot of force just to take the photo. 66 00:05:15,760 --> 00:05:19,880 In dark environments where you need the camera to be still for longer exposures, I worry 67 00:05:19,880 --> 00:05:23,440 that holding the phone with one hand will introduce camera shake that will impact the 68 00:05:23,440 --> 00:05:29,320 clarity of the photo. Looking at this button, it appears a lot like the Touch ID button found on less expensive 69 00:05:29,320 --> 00:05:33,600 iPads, and honestly that's the button feature I'd be waiting for. 70 00:05:33,600 --> 00:05:37,560 But that functionality would be more ideally placed on the traditional side button. 71 00:05:37,560 --> 00:05:42,640 If you have an iPhone 15 and feel like you're missing out on the camera control, don't. 72 00:05:42,640 --> 00:05:46,680 Yes, there are times where it will be handy, but you'll be surprised how infrequent that 73 00:05:46,680 --> 00:05:52,560 is. The next new feature they added to the camera is photographic styles. 74 00:05:52,560 --> 00:05:55,840 Wait, wasn't that added to the iPhone 13? 75 00:05:55,880 --> 00:06:00,120 Yes, but this is the latest generation of photographic styles. 76 00:06:00,120 --> 00:06:05,360 So there. The idea with photographic styles is that you can tune the iPhone's camera processing 77 00:06:05,360 --> 00:06:12,320 to better suit your tastes. So if you find that they over sharpen and run too cool, you can dial that back. 78 00:06:12,320 --> 00:06:17,080 On the iPhone 13, any photos you took with photographic styles would get burned into 79 00:06:17,080 --> 00:06:20,680 the photo destructively. Not anymore. 80 00:06:20,680 --> 00:06:25,120 Because your photo style can be changed in the photos app after the photo has been taken. 81 00:06:25,120 --> 00:06:30,960 Nice. It's just like the iPhone's Instagram style photo filters introduced over a decade ago. 82 00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:35,720 Actually, the latest gen photographic styles is a strange combination of the first gen and 83 00:06:35,720 --> 00:06:41,240 those filters. Swipe to the left of standard and you're playing mostly with color undertones. 84 00:06:41,240 --> 00:06:45,000 Swipe to the right and they really look like modern interpretations of the previous iPhone 85 00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:48,600 filters and they have a dramatic effect on the way color is rendered. 86 00:06:48,600 --> 00:06:52,840 This white background can go from purple in the luminous style to yellow in the quiet 87 00:06:52,840 --> 00:06:59,440 style. As an indecisive person, I always get antsy when trying to decide how to tune a photo, 88 00:06:59,440 --> 00:07:03,360 which is why I never picked a photographic style on previous iPhones. 89 00:07:03,360 --> 00:07:09,080 They get burned in. Now that they're available after the fact, I feel more comfortable. 90 00:07:09,080 --> 00:07:13,240 And Apple even has a little tutorial to help you dial in your preferred style before you 91 00:07:13,240 --> 00:07:17,800 begin too. When I did it the first time, I took on the Amber Hue mainly because it makes me look 92 00:07:17,800 --> 00:07:21,680 less pale, but I actually prefer cooler, more natural photos. 93 00:07:21,680 --> 00:07:25,400 Sure enough, when I finally got that dialed in, I prefer the results of my photographic 94 00:07:25,400 --> 00:07:31,600 style. As much as I wish the regular iPhones would take RAW photos like mainstream Android equivalents, 95 00:07:31,600 --> 00:07:35,080 I know that for most people RAW is a waste of storage space. 96 00:07:35,080 --> 00:07:38,360 This is a happy medium. 97 00:07:38,360 --> 00:07:41,520 There are still many day-to-day improvements to the iPhone worth noting. 98 00:07:41,520 --> 00:07:45,560 The 16M Plus have larger batteries than the last, which for me meant I was able to run 99 00:07:45,560 --> 00:07:50,400 for one and a half days and six hours of on-screen time, and the on-board speakers are notably 100 00:07:50,400 --> 00:07:55,880 loud and clear. The regular iPhone does still have irritating limitations, though. 101 00:07:55,880 --> 00:07:59,640 Lots of people complain about the iPhone's maximum 60Hz refresh rate. 102 00:07:59,640 --> 00:08:04,800 Yes, the animations are buttery smooth at that frame, but similarly priced Android phones 103 00:08:04,800 --> 00:08:10,080 have been getting a high refresh rate screens for years, at least give us 90Hz. 104 00:08:10,080 --> 00:08:15,400 Also this USB-C port is great, but despite the fast chip, it only supports USB 2 speeds. 105 00:08:15,760 --> 00:08:19,920 It's 2024. That's like putting a serial port on an Intel MacBook. 106 00:08:19,920 --> 00:08:27,960 Finally, this iPhone has been weirdly glitchy. One of them, which was apps and things just refusing to deal with touch inputs, got fixed 107 00:08:27,960 --> 00:08:34,040 in a recent update. But I still get a weird visual glitch if the phone tries to turn the screen off itself. 108 00:08:34,040 --> 00:08:37,200 It flickers pink like crazy, sometimes. 109 00:08:37,200 --> 00:08:43,520 At $800, the iPhone 16 is just as expensive as ever, here in Canada it's over $1100. 110 00:08:43,520 --> 00:08:49,200 But at least the price hasn't gone up. If you have an older iPhone and are contemplating upgrading, this is the generation to pull 111 00:08:49,200 --> 00:08:53,920 the trigger on. At these prices, most people can and should keep their phone for at least four years. 112 00:08:53,920 --> 00:08:58,040 In fact, I found this funny tweet recommending you take the case off and watch the announcement 113 00:08:58,040 --> 00:09:01,760 of the phone you have. Wow, new phone. Works on me. 114 00:09:01,760 --> 00:09:08,920 I also recommend replacing the battery, too. If it's not lasting a full day, it really does feel like a new phone when you do that. 115 00:09:08,920 --> 00:09:12,760 If you have an iPhone 12 or 13, I recommend doing that. 116 00:09:12,760 --> 00:09:17,720 If you're upgrading from an iPhone XR or 11, though, this will feel great. 117 00:09:17,720 --> 00:09:24,160 Thanks for pressing the buttons of this Mac Address. I'm curious in the comments below how many of you are upgrading from an iPhone XR or 118 00:09:24,160 --> 00:09:30,600 11 or even earlier to one of these. And if you want to watch another video we did, you should watch the one where I talk 119 00:09:30,600 --> 00:09:33,960 about the history of Wi-Fi and how instrumental Apple was to it.