iPhone 16 series: 16 Apple iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max things you must know before buying

The iPhone 16 series has officially arrived in the Indian market. As expected, there are four models—iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, and 16 Pro Max. They replace last year’s iPhone 15, 15 Plus, 15 Pro, and 15 Pro Max. Apple Intelligence is a big headlining feature, but these new iPhones are more than AI. The iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max have bigger screens and powerful new camera system. The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus have a vibrant new look and a faster, more efficient A18 chip.

Here are 16 things you must know about the iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max before buying:

1. Brighter than sunshine: Easily the most fetching aspect of the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus is Apple’s choice of colours. They’re just more colourful, more vibrant to look at. And there’s an option for even the most discerning user base. You can get them in a choice of ultramarine, teal, pink, white and black. The vertically aligned dual cameras is a nice tough. It’s not the first time that Apple has done it but it has come after a while—and we can stress this enough, it finally refreshes the overall design a bit.  
2. Desert rose: The iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max are sticking to the script of last year’s models. There is one difference though. Apple has added a new colour option to the mix. It’s called desert titanium. The other options are natural titanium, black titanium, and white titanium.
3. Ready, action: The Action button, which is a quick shortcut key introduced on the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max, is breaking its pro-exclusivity this year. It is available across the whole iPhone 16 series lineup.
4. Loose control: Joining the Action button is an all-new Camera control button that—as the name implies—is a quick shutter button that lets you shoot photos and videos on the fly. It is also available across the entire lineup.
5. Seek and you shall find: The Camera control can trigger another interesting ability in the iPhone 16 series. It’s called visual intelligence. It’s essentially Apple’s take on Google Lens. When enabled, you can point the camera at something your iPhone will tell you what it is. The feature is coming later though and not available at launch.
6. Oh, so smart: The other intelligent features, Apple Intelligence, will bring a host of smart AI capabilities across the iPhone 16 series, the big focus being personal context and privacy. Siri, too, will become smarter or at least that is what Apple will have you believe. Anyhow, Apple Intelligence isn’t coming to these devices at launch. It will arrive starting October through an iOS 18.1 update.
7. Hey, RAM: One of the things that allows Apple is to offer Apple Intelligence across the whole lineup this year is RAM, rather, more RAM. The iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, and 16 Pro Max, all come with 8GB of RAM. It’s a bit perplexing how 8GB could be enough. Google’s new Pixel 9 series devices come with double the RAM just for AI. Wonder how Apple is pulling it off.
8. Power player: The iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max are powered by Apple’s new 3nm A18 Pro chip. The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus get the A18, a dialled down version of the same chip with a 5-core GPU.
9. Game on: Apple is touting desktop-grade gaming on the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max thanks to the new 6-core GPU inside the A18 Pro. The fact that Apple is courting developers to make games look better on iPhones was accentuated by the release announcement of Tencent’s Honor of Kings at the iPhone 16 series launch event. Big-ticket AAA games like Assassin’s Creed Mirage are already available on iPhone.
10. One for the long road: The iPhone 16 Pro Max is being billed as the longest lasting iPhones ever made. It is rated for up to 33 hours of continuous video playback on a single charge. The entire iPhone 16 series in general has better battery life than its predecessor, so says Apple.
11. Slow but steady: Charging speeds appear to be unchanged. Regardless, Apple’s Qi2 MagSafe charging is a big convenience among these devices. Android has tried to copy it, but a definite answer eludes us to this day.
12. Pro shooter: Apple has brought parity among the cameras inside the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max. You get a 48-megapixel wide, 48-megapixel ultrawide, and 12-megapixel 5x telephoto in both. The front camera is a 12-megapixel. The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus have the same cameras too—48-megapixel wide and 12-megapixel ultrawide.
13. Freeze the moment: The iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max can record in 4K at up to 120fps. The entire iPhone 16 series can take spatial photos and videos compatible with the Apple Vision Pro headset.
14. Flare, no more: The most interesting bit though is that the main “fusion” lens across the iPhone 16 series has an anti-reflective coating to minimise flare. Ghosting has been a recurring problem for iPhones so it would be interesting to see if Apple has fixed it this year.
15. Connecting people: The iPhone 16 series has advanced connectivity features including 5G, WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.3, Thread support, as well as dual SIM and NFC. The iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max have USB 3 for faster data transfers while the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus have USB 2.
16. Killer 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 16 Plus which is available in the same memory configurations, is priced at Rs 89,900 (128GB), Rs 99,900 (256GB), Rs 1,11,900 (512GB), respectively. The iPhone 16 Pro comes in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB for Rs 1,19,900, Rs 1,29,900, Rs 1,49,900, and Rs 1,69,900. The iPhone 16 Pro Max starts at Rs 1,44,900 for 256GB while the 512GB and 1TB variants are priced at Rs 1,64,900 and Rs 1,84,900. They will go on sale starting from September 20, 2024.