Apple introduces iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus
Built for Apple Intelligence with the all-new A18 chip, both models feature Camera Control, powerful upgrades to the advanced camera system, the Action button to quickly access useful features, and a big boost in battery life
CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA Apple today announced iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus, built for Apple Intelligence, the easy-to-use personal intelligence system that understands personal context to deliver intelligence that is helpful and relevant while protecting user privacy. The iPhone 16 lineup also introduces Camera Control, which brings new ways to capture memories, and will help users quickly access visual intelligence to learn about objects or places around them faster than ever before. The powerful camera system features a 48MP Fusion camera with a 2x Telephoto option, giving users two cameras in one, while a new Ultra Wide camera enables macro photography. Next-generation Photographic Styles help users personalise their images, and spatial photo and video capture allows users to relive life’s precious memories with remarkable depth on Apple Vision Pro. The new A18 chip delivers a huge leap in performance and efficiency, enabling demanding AAA games, as well as a big boost in battery life.
iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus will be available in five bold colours: black, white, pink, teal, and ultramarine. Pre-orders begin Friday, September 13, with availability beginning Friday, September 20.
“iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus mark the beginning of a new era for iPhone with Apple Intelligence delivering powerful, personal, and private experiences to our users,” said Kaiann Drance, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide iPhone Product Marketing. “With new ways to discover the world around you and capture memories using Camera Control; a 48MP Fusion camera that gives you two optical-quality cameras in one; a big boost in battery life; and powerful, efficient performance thanks to the A18 chip, this is the perfect time for customers to upgrade or make the switch to iPhone.”
Built for Apple Intelligence
Apple Intelligence on the iPhone 16 lineup harnesses the power of Apple silicon and Apple-built generative models to understand and create language and images, take action across apps, and draw from personal context to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks. Apple Intelligence maintains the privacy and security of user data with Private Cloud Compute. This groundbreaking approach provides the ability to flex and scale computational capacity between on-device processing and larger, server-based models that run on dedicated Apple silicon servers — an extraordinary step forward for privacy in artificial intelligence. Apple Intelligence will be available as a free software update, with the first set of features rolling out next month in U.S. English for most regions around the world.
Apple Intelligence unlocks new ways for users to enhance their writing. With systemwide Writing Tools built into iOS 18, users can rewrite, proofread, and summarize text nearly everywhere they write, including Mail, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps. In the Notes and Phone apps, users can also record, transcribe, and summarize audio. When a recording is initiated while on a call in the Phone app, participants are automatically notified, and once the call ends, Apple Intelligence generates a summary to recall key points.
Apple Intelligence helps users prioritize with summarised notifications, along with Priority Messages in Mail, a feature that understands the content of emails and surfaces time-sensitive messages. Across a user’s inbox, summaries convey the most important information of each email instead of previewing the first few lines.
Siri becomes more deeply integrated into the system experience and gets a brand-new design with an elegant glowing light that wraps around the edge of the screen when active. With richer language-understanding capabilities, communicating with Siri is more natural and flexible. Siri follows along when users stumble over their words, and maintains context from one request to the next. Users can type to Siri at any time, and switch fluidly between text and voice as they accelerate everyday tasks. Siri also now has extensive product knowledge to answer thousands of questions about features on iPhone and other Apple devices.
Additional Apple Intelligence features will roll out later this year and in the months following, including Image Playground, which allows users to create playful images in moments. Emoji will be taken to an entirely new level with the ability to create original Genmoji by simply typing a description, or by selecting a photo of a friend or family member. Siri will be able to draw on a user’s personal context to deliver intelligence that is tailored to them. It will also gain onscreen awareness to understand and take action with users’ content, as well as take hundreds of new actions in and across Apple and third-party apps. And while using iOS 18 features like Siri and Writing Tools, users will also be able to easily access ChatGPT from OpenAI.
A Beautiful New Design with Industry-Leading Durability
iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus are beautiful and built to last. iPhone holds its value longer than any other smartphone thanks to its industry-leading durability, including the strong back glass, a water- and dust-resistant design, regular software updates, and the latest-generation Ceramic Shield with an advanced formulation that is 50 percent tougher than the first generation and 2x tougher than glass on any other smartphone.1 The internal design of iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus has been reengineered to allow for an even larger battery and to better dissipate heat, while making battery service easier. With the new internal design and advanced power management of iOS 18, the batteries are optimised to offer a big boost in battery life. Available in 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch display sizes, the Super Retina XDR display with OLED technology and the Dynamic Island offers an exceptional viewing experience.2
The Action button comes to iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus, allowing users to easily access a variety of functions with just a press. Users can quickly open the camera, flashlight, or controls; switch between Ring and Silent; recognize music with Shazam; activate Voice Memos, Focus, Translate, and accessibility features like Magnifier; or use Shortcuts for more options. The Action button can also access in-app functionality, like helping a user unlock and lock their car with FordPass.3
Introducing Camera Control
Camera Control — a result of thoughtful hardware and software integration — elevates the camera experience on the iPhone 16 lineup. It is packed with innovation, including a tactile switch that powers the click experience, a high-precision force sensor that enables the light press gesture, and a capacitive sensor that allows for touch interactions. Camera Control can quickly launch the camera, take a photo, and start video recording so users don’t miss the moment. A new camera preview helps users frame the shot and adjust other control options — such as zoom, exposure, or depth of field — to compose a stunning photo or video by sliding their finger on the Camera Control. Additionally, developers will be able to bring Camera Control to third-party apps such as Snapchat.
Later this year, Camera Control will unlock visual intelligence to help users learn about objects and places faster than ever before. Users can click and hold Camera Control to pull up the hours or ratings for a restaurant they pass, add an event from a flyer to their calendar, quickly identify a dog by breed, and more. Camera Control will also serve as a gateway into third-party tools with specific domain expertise, like when users want to search on Google to find where they can buy an item, or to benefit from ChatGPT’s problem-solving skills. Users are in control of when third-party tools are used and what information is shared.
New Camera Experiences
The powerful new camera system helps users capture both everyday moments and cherished memories like never before. The 48MP Fusion camera enables a 2x optical-quality Telephoto option, which is like having two cameras in one, so users can get closer to the subject to easily frame a photo. In addition to wider-angle shots, the new 12MP Ultra Wide camera with autofocus enables macro photography. The Ultra Wide camera also gathers up to 2.6x more light for higher image quality. Additionally, iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus now take spatial photos and videos to help users relive memories with remarkable depth on Apple Vision Pro.
Next-generation Photographic Styles help users express their creativity and customize their photos by locally adjusting color, highlights, and shadows in real time. Styles also have a deeper understanding of skin undertones, so users can personalize how they appear in photos. Unlike filters, which often use a one-size-fits-all approach by adding a color to an entire scene, adjustments are applied to specific colors of a selected style. A wider set of styles offers more creative options for editing a photo’s aesthetic, and styles can be rendered during live preview, applied after a photo is taken, or even reversed later.
Video can now be captured in Spatial Audio for immersive listening with AirPods, Apple Vision Pro, or a surround sound system. Both iPhone models introduce creative new ways to edit video sound with Audio Mix — allowing users to adjust their sound after capture to focus on the voice of the person on camera, make it sound like the video was recorded inside a professional studio, or position vocal tracks in the front and environmental noises in surround sound. With wind noise reduction, powerful machine learning (ML) algorithms reduce unwanted noise for better audio quality.