Updated August 24 with more information about another big design change: the new cameras expected in the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16.
When Apple unveils the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max this fall — and you can read more about when they’ll be revealed here — the phones will come in new colors. One of them will be a completely different color than the current iPhone 15 Pro lineup. That’s not the only change that’s catching our attention, with a new report suggesting design changes are coming to the cameras front and center, too.
Apple introduced the titanium iPhone 15 Pro to the iPhone lineup, and the iPhone 16 Pro will come with a titanium body. … [+]
Among the new camera capabilities is an additional hardware button designed for video and photo shooting, which we’ll discuss in more detail below. “Among these additions is the introduction of an all-new shutter button, which is expected to debut across the iPhone 16 lineup. Apple has been testing this button on both the base iPhone 16 model as well as the larger iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max,” Apple Insider He says.
Note that this report says that all iPhone 16 models will have this feature, which was not confirmed in previous expectations, with commentators like Mark Gurman at Bloomberg saying it might only be limited to the Pro models.
It would require a design change, especially for US-market iPhones with mmWave connectivity, to get the faster 5G network, because the new button will be located exactly where the mmWave pad used to be. This will now be switched to the other side of the phone.
“Design-wise, the shutter button is unique because it matches the frame. It doesn’t protrude in the same way that the power or volume buttons do,” the report says, unsurprisingly suggesting that Apple wants to keep the phone as sleek and attractive as ever.
While the obvious functions are to take a photo or start a video, it’s not all about these capabilities.
It will also reportedly be pressure sensitive. It appears to feature what’s called “force sensing technology,” meaning it will be able to recognize different degrees of pressure being applied. This is thought to mean that a light touch will bring the image into focus, while a heavy pressure will take the image.
Since it’s a wide button, it’s also believed that by sliding your finger right or left along it, it will provide a neat new way to zoom in and out in the shot as well.
The iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus will still have dual cameras, according to a separate, expanded report in Apple Insider Which covers many aspects of what is coming.
The 48MP main camera will remain unchanged, and the 12MP ultrawide will have a faster aperture, from f/2.4 to a wider f/2.2. It’s also believed that regular iPhones will have macro photography capability as well.
But the biggest changes will come to the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max. As reported elsewhere, the equivalent of 5x zoom in the telephoto lens will be on both Pro sizes (it’s currently exclusive to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, for space reasons, I’m told). The main camera will remain the same as on the current Pro models, at 48MP.
The most eye-catching news is the arrival of a second 48MP sensor. The ultrawide camera on the Pro and Pro Max will move to this sensor and will offer the same capability as the main camera, namely the ability to shoot at full resolution as well as combine adjacent pixel locations to create better 12MP images.
Along with all these updates is the widely anticipated shutter button mentioned above, which the report says will come to all iPhone 16 models. Another benefit of being a capacitive button: it can’t be accidentally triggered in your pocket.
Coming back to the new colors that the iPhone Pro phones will be available in, the famous leaker Majin Buu described the four colors that these phones will be available in, and he recently got into controversy after he posted an alleged invitation to attend the event where the iPhone phones are scheduled to be announced. The invitation was fake (as I talked about here), and Majin Buu quickly clarified the matter.
I think they’re on more solid ground here, when they say the colors will be white, black, gold, and space gray, but Apple won’t call them that. The topic was posted on XThe currently available colors for the Pro model are natural titanium, blue titanium, white titanium, and black titanium. The most careful fact-checkers will surely notice that Apple is keen to promote the fact that the iPhone 15 Pro has titanium in its build.
The new lineup seems to be similar, with the gray color likely being a new version of the natural titanium. And what about the gold color? According to the leak, it will be called Desert Titanium. Majin Buu says, In a separate post“The color of desert titanium is a kind of dark gold, similar to ancient purple, and is relatively subtle and deep.”
The deep purple was one of the colors in the iPhone 14 Pro lineup and was dark enough to be muted. The new color is believed to be a warm brown, though the actual color may be different. Predictions about the exact shades Apple will use are rarely entirely accurate.
But the name, if true, gives us a clue and suggests something lighter and more sparkly than the rest of the collection.
This fits in with a series of other rumors and fake renders of the recently released iPhone 16 Pro series. As always, just because multiple commentators are predicting the same details doesn’t make it true, although the weight of the numbers sometimes makes it more likely.
The new report also lines up with other reports that say the blue iPhone in the current Pro lineup will be dropped, replaced by the new color.
Majin Buu It was recently published again.The newspaper published a picture of what could be the new color, saying: “This picture could resemble the new iPhone 16 Pro color Desert Titanium, what do you think?” They also hedged their bets a bit by continuing, “The picture is based on rumors, and it is not certain that the official color will reflect that 100%.”
There’s another detail, in the previous post, Majin Buu showed the iPhone 16 Pro’s camera rings in four colors. The rings appear shiny, perhaps suggesting that the polished titanium of the 15 Pro series could be replaced with something more shiny.
By this time next month, the iPhones will be available for sale, so we’ll know more soon.
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