I upgraded to the iPhone 16 Plus–and I have thoughts

Every fall Apple releases four new iPhones, but until last year I only had eyes for the Pro. Not the standard, not the mini or the Plus (depending on the year), and not the Pro Max. Just the Pro—a wonderful combination of high-end features and a compact body.

But in 2023 that changed, mainly because my colleagues already had access to Pro and Pro Max review samples and it just made more sense editorially for me to ask for the Plus. I made this decision with bad grace and low expectations, thinking the phone would be the worst of both worlds: too chunky to slip in a pocket comfortably while lacking in specs and features. But I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed using the 15 Plus, and volunteered to try the 16 Plus this year—particularly as my colleague reckoned this was the best choice.

But what is it like upgrading from an iPhone 15 Plus to a 16 Plus? Here’s what I learned from the process.

The 16 Plus looks nicer. It just does

That sounds odd, right? Considering that Apple has largely kept the same design this year. But I far prefer my new phone’s looks because of a few minor aesthetic tweaks.

The colors, for one thing, are much more vibrant. I plumped for pink both times, but where the 2023 pink was a washed-out rose blush that looks almost white in photos, the 2024 pink is incredible. I discuss my thoughts on the importance of a good pink in a separate article.

David Price / Foundry

David Price / Foundry

David Price / Foundry

I also prefer the camera module on the rear, which thanks to the vertical configuration is less obtrusive, and the fact that the Action button means the case has no cutout on the lefthand edge. It’s just a cleaner, more satisfying look.

The Action button is better, but not by much

Here’s one of the downsides of using the 15 Plus last year: I’m out of touch when it comes to the Action button, one of 2023’s flagship Pro features. I’m using it for the first time now. Apologies if the following hot take has gone cold.

Here’s my view. Having an Action button instead of a mute switch is clearly better, because it looks nicer (see above), is easier to use, doesn’t get clogged with dust, is presumably less prone to failure, and can be programmed to perform functions other than mute/unmute if you’d prefer. But the last one is the main benefit even though I don’t really see why you’d want to use any of the other core functions.

Having easy access to a mute control is useful, and while using the 16 Plus I’ve never been willing to sacrifice that for a different control. I need the flashlight less often, and it’s already easily accessible via the Lock Screen; the latter point also applies double to the camera, which is accessible via the Lock Screen or the new Camera Control. Shazam is a proper niche function I can imagine myself using, what, a couple of times a year? For Magnifier, that figure probably rises to five or six times. And let’s face it, most people aren’t diving into Shortcuts to create their own actions.

The only alternative use I can see for the Action button is Translate. If I go on holiday somewhere where I don’t speak the language, I will switch the button to that function and use my iPhone as a handy sci-fi translator. But for the rest of the year, it’s staying as a glorified mute switch.

The camera is much better for close-ups, but that’s about it

The camera is a crucial element of a smartphone’s armory, so I’ve been intensively testing out the 16 Plus’s photographic chops… and to be honest, 90 percent of the time, it’s not noticeably different. The main camera has been rebranded as “Fusion” which, you know, sounds good, the Ultra Wide aperture has improved from f/2.4 to f/2.2, and Photographic Styles have been updated. But none of that resulted, at least in my subjective experience, in better photos.

Except for the new macro photography feature. Close-ups are much better and it’s not even close (no pun intended).

If you spend a lot of your time taking photos of tiny painted models to post on the internet, this could be a huge benefit to upgrading.

I really don’t like Camera Control. Not now, and probably not ever

So the camera itself isn’t all that different, but the way you access it is. There’s a new button called Camera Control on the righthand edge and this lets you open the Camera app with one click, and take a photo with a second click.

My problem with this is twofold. First, as mentioned previously, it isn’t especially needed: the Camera app is already easy to open by swiping right from the Lock Screen. Second, the button is placed in an awkward part of the chassis where my ring finger presses it unintentionally when I pick up the phone in my left hand, and where my right index finger can’t easily reach it when holding it two-handed in landscape orientation. It’s just a bit too far along the edge to be comfortable. (This may be an issue exclusive to the Plus model with its longer edges. I haven’t tried out the standard iPhone 16.)

David Price / Foundry

David Price / Foundry

David Price / Foundry

That’s before we get to the advanced controls. If you do a “light press” on the Camera Control, it lets you adjust the exposure, depth of field effect, zoom, style, and so on. Doing two light presses lets you switch between these. But these actions are so counterintuitive, so fiddly to get right, that I have no interest in using them… which means I’m unlikely to ever get better. The good news is you can turn it off.

Wind noise reduction doesn’t seem to do much

All four of the 16-series phones have a new feature Apple calls wind noise reduction, “which uses powerful machine learning algorithms to reduce unwanted noise for better audio quality.” I recorded myself talking into my phone like an idiot on a windy, rainy day with both the 15 Plus and the 16 Plus, but when I watched back the videos I didn’t notice any difference: in both cases, the wind was barely noticeable but the noise from passing cars very much was.

Take a look at the specs sheet and you’ll notice that (at least in theory) we’re jumping forward two generations of processors this year: from the A16 Bionic on the 15 Plus to the A18 on the 16 Plus. Apple is cagey about the precise specs of its proprietary chips, but my speed benchmarking backed up the idea that this is a major step forward. The 16 Plus was about 25 percent faster than the 15 Plus across the Geekbench 5 and Geekbench 6 CPU tests, and an astonishing 45 percent faster in the GB5 Compute test.

While that’s an impressive improvement on paper, however, the real-world effect is scarcely noticeable. There simply aren’t any iPhone tasks right now that need that much theoretical speed, and you are likely to find, as I do, that the 16 Plus does not feel any faster in practice.

It does give you an extra year or two of future-proofing, however. Apps will grow more demanding to take advantage of the greater processing power appearing on the market. And of course, there’s Apple Intelligence. Speaking of…

Connor Jewiss / Foundry

Connor Jewiss / Foundry

Connor Jewiss / Foundry

And we’re still waiting for Apple Intelligence

It feels odd to be coming to this last because Apple Intelligence is the tentpole feature, the upgrade around which Apple built the entire iPhone 16 launch. But it’s not here yet, and probably won’t be for several more weeks. It’s hard to know what to make of this.

Most obviously, you can hardly expect customers to be as keen to upgrade if the main feature doesn’t arrive until almost two months after launch. But more insidiously, you’re asking people to buy their iPhone on the strength of a feature that nobody outside Apple Park has tested, and which may not (perhaps we should say “almost certainly won’t”) immediately live up to the hype. Apple has had to build its own AI platform largely from scratch and we cannot expect it to function as well as ChatGPT and other established rivals from day one. AI needs time and training data, and Apple hasn’t had much of either; it could take years for Apple Intelligence to hit its stride.

Apple’s hardcore fans are sometimes accused–not entirely without reason–of buying the latest iPhone on launch day whether or not it’s a worthwhile upgrade. But at least, in the past, those fans had a rough idea of what to expect. This time Apple is getting them to crack open their wallets before anyone has sighted the main feature, and this seems risky for everyone.

Conclusion: Worth an upgrade?

If you’ve got an iPhone 15 Plus, I wouldn’t recommend that you upgrade to the iPhone 16 Plus. It doesn’t feel any faster, the camera is only better in one specific use case, and I don’t rate Camera Control at all. The colors are nicer, but that doesn’t justify spending this much money.

If you must upgrade, at least wait until Apple Intelligence launches at the end of October. Then we can see if the main event is worth the price of admission.

Author: David Price, Editor, Macworld