Apple has launched the iPhone 16 in India. The new iPhone not only has a new chip—the A18—and supports Apple Intelligence, it is also getting a design refresh and improved cameras enhanced by the addition of a Camera control button. It is priced mostly in line with what the iPhone 15 did at launch, too, which makes us feel a bit sad about last year’s model.
It is abundantly clear that Apple Intelligence is the future of the company. And the iPhone 15 doesn’t support it. So, unless you can live without it, the iPhone 15 will go down in history as the iPhone with the smallest shelf life ever. It will continue to sell at lower prices, but it’s baffling to see Apple kill an iPhone this early. On the flip side, this means we can expect more regular—and potentially steeper—discounts on it through third-party ecommerce websites like Flipkart and Amazon.
Whatever be the case, now’s the best time to compare and see how the two—iPhone 16 and iPhone 15—stack up against each other.
- Design: The iPhone 16 has a new design. For one, Apple is using more vibrant colours on it, as opposed to the iPhone 15, which was all muted. You can get it in a choice of ultramarine, teal, pink, white, and black. The dual cameras are now vertically aligned instead of the zigzag layout on the iPhone 15. There are two new buttons. The mute switch has been replaced by the Action button which was a Pro exclusive feature last year. It’s a customisable button that lets you assign a quick shortcut for an app or functionality you use often, say for instance, to open the camera or turn on the flashlight. The other button is new to iPhones overall. It’s called the Camera control. As the name suggests, it’s a shutter button that lets you take photos and videos, the difference is that it is capacitive and lets you do more than just shoot. For instance, you can swipe across it to move between photos.
- Build: The iPhone 16 has a glass back and aluminium frame, just like the iPhone 15. The physical dimensions are largely the same with the exception that the 16 is 1 g lighter. IP68 dust and water resistance is available.
- Display: The iPhone 16 has the same 6.1-inch 2556×1179-pixel Super Retina XDR OLED display with a 60Hz refresh rate as the iPhone 15. The panel can top 1,600nits in HDR and up to 2,000nits in sunny outdoors, same as the 15. Apple mentions that the 16 can go as low as 1nits, something that’s seemingly not the case with the iPhone 15.
- Processor: The iPhone 15 has the new 3nm (Gen2) Apple A18 chip with a 16-core neural engine and 5-core GPU. There is improved cooling inside. The iPhone 14 rocks the A16 Bionic
- Memory: The iPhone 16 has 8GB by RAM by default which brings support for Apple Intelligence. Storage options are same as before—128GB/256GB/512GB. The iPhone 15 has only 6GB RAM and doesn’t support Apple Intelligence.
- Software: The iPhone 15 will ship with iOS 18 at launch with iOS 18.1 with Apple Intelligence set to arrive only in October.
- Camera: The iPhone 16 has a 48-megapixel f/1.6 wide and 12-megapixel f/2.2 ultrawide with macro. There is added support for Spatial photos and videos that you will be able to see in 3D on the Vision Pro headset. There are new photography styles. But the most interesting bit is that main “fusion” lens has an anti-reflective coating to minimise flare. We can’t wait to test this out. Another big feature is audio mix which lets you record cinematic-style audio in videos making them sound better and per your liking. The front 12-megapixel camera is an exact do-over from the iPhone 15.
- Battery: The iPhone 16’s battery lasts up to 2 hours longer than iPhone 15’s on continuous playback, Apple claims. The exact capacity will be known once we have the 16 in hand. Charging speeds appear to be unchanged.
- Price: The iPhone 16 comes in a choice of 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB at a price of Rs 79,900, Rs 89,900, and Rs 1,09,900. The iPhone 15 has received a price cut after the launch of the iPhone 16. The iPhone 15 128GB variant which was previously selling for Rs 79,600 is now available for Rs 69,900 (down Rs 9,700). The 256GB and 512GB models have also received a price cut and are now selling for Rs 79,900 and Rs 99,900 down Rs 9,700 from their earlier prices of Rs 89,600, Rs 1,09,600 respectively.
