The iPhone 16 Pro feels like a mixed bag. It did not ship with Apple Intelligence, the company’s major update with its AI offering.
Instead, it will arrive in South Africa with localised English support in December, following its initial US English launch “sometime” in October through the iOS 18.1 update.
The next batch of localised English markets to receive Apple Intelligence alongside South Africa is Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK
I must be honest; I was looking forward to testing Apple’s AI offering, considering it is the biggest smartphone trend of 2024, with Android getting a head start.
Samsung has a solid offering on its S Series and Z Foldables, as well as Oppo’s more staggered rollout, Honor’s support on some of its devices, and more recently, on the Xiaomi 14T, which launched in South Africa this week.
Market research firm, the International Data Corporation (IDC), predicts that GenAI smartphone shipments for 2024 will grow by 363.6% year-on-year to reach 234.2 million units.
This figure represents 19% of the overall smartphone market in 2024, it said.
However, as much as I cannot wait to test Apple Intelligence, I was not prepared to run the public beta software on the device, given how frequently the betas itself receive updates.
What’s new on the iPhone 16 Pro?
In the absence of AI, the most significant upgrade is the camera with a 5x optical zoom and a new physical camera control button.
Of course, you’re getting an expected upgrade with the new A18 Pro chip, better overall cameras, a claimed improvement on the battery, and faster wireless charging speeds.
Our iPhone 16 Pro test unit from the iStore came in natural titanium, which I prefer over the new desert titanium that has a goldish tone.
Major physical changes compared to my personal 6.1-inch 15 Pro are the larger 6.3-inch display, narrow bezels, and a 12g weight difference.
The 16 Pro is now 199g, compared to the previous 187g. A cover and screen protector were supplied with our test unit, and overall, the phone feels a lot heavier.
Even though both phones have the same levels of brightness, 2000 nits peak when outdoors, the 16 Pro is a lot brighter with identical settings.
Let’s get into the camera control
Now, for the camera itself, and camera control. There’s been mixed reactions to the camera control.
All four models on the iPhone 16 line-up received this button to launch the camera instantly and control additional settings like exposure, depth, zoom, cameras, style, and tone.
Now here’s where the mixed reaction comes from. Firstly, it is very tricky to learn how to use it. I use a Macbook and have a trackpad and was told by the iStore that the double tap works the same way as a trackpad.
With that context, I understood it better and have no issue navigating, but the accidental taps when you’re trying to do one thing, but it does another, means you end up taking twice as long to shoot.
As major as this update is to Apple, I don’t see the masses using it the way it was intended. I use it the most to launch the camera, and access tone settings.
The good thing is you can edit it to launch a QR code scanner, Instagram, or the Magnifier, instead, plus choose a single or double click. It would be even better with more app options.
Tone lets you control how much HDR processing you want on your photos. A simple test using it on -1, 0, and 1 shows you what a major difference it makes to your pics.
If you ever felt that your iPhone overdid it with HDR, you can adjust it in real time. There are other loads of filters to change the colours on pics, but I find it unrealistic.
The camera’s 5x optical zoom setting is a huge update. As a journalist who sits in on multiple presentations a month, I can tell the difference in quality when taking pics of slides on the screen – white text appears crisp on dark backgrounds, whereas it used to be blurry before – well it still is on my 15 Pro, which has 3x optical zoom.
I must say, though, that the macro shots were not giving the desired result. I needed to photograph an intricate pair of earrings and the 16 Pro struggled to focus on its 48MP macro lens.
I had to hold the camera further back to get the shot I wanted. The 16 Pro supports spatial audio capture for its new “Audio Mix” setting.
If you shoot videos on an iPhone, this is a massive improvement without going into a third-party editing app. It can isolate background sounds like if you’re shooting at an event, making it more ‘professional’. The options include in-frame, studio, and cinematic.
Daily usage and battery life
Accessing the browser with loads of tabs opened or switching between multiple apps is a smooth, snappy experience, but sometimes, very randomly, the photos app crashes when I try to edit photos.
It’s been frustrating, to say the least, there is one photo that I simply cannot edit, the app just crashes immediately, so I gave up on editing it. I hope a future iOS update will fix that.
Battery life, when compared to my 15 Pro only seemed marginally better. I do push the phone hard, and when I attend media events, I use it to record interviews, shoot multimedia content, check emails.
On those days, I will need a power bank by the afternoon, but on a normal, uneventful day, it will last till the night. Because of the higher MagSafe wireless charging support of 25W with a 30W adaptor, I charged it this way overnight.
I did not notice overheating of any sort, but it has made me warm up to the idea of wireless charging.
Final thoughts
The iPhone 16 Pro is a smartphone that is currently being sold with a promise of future AI software updates, and because I didn’t get to test it, I cannot speak for how useful it may be on a daily, or if it will be buggy.
If you’re holding out for Apple’s AI, but want to wait for reviews first, then I suggest you wait a bit more.
The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max will also support Apple Intelligence, so if this is your sole reason to upgrade, it is something to note.
Originally published here.