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What’s going on guys, my name is Wade with TechDaily, and in this video we are checking out the brand new iPhone 16 Pro Max. It’s bigger, it’s faster, it’s even got a new button this year. There’re definitely a lot to talk about, and I’m going to fill you in on everything you need to know, but first things first, let’s get this new iPhone out of the box and see what else comes inside the package.
Peeling off those familiar stickers and sliding off the lid, the first thing you get front & center is the iPhone itself, of course. Obviously, mine is the “Black Titanium” color, which looks really sleek. And inside the box this year, well, you still get a USB-C cable, which is nice, and it’s that thick, braided nylon cable too; it’s honestly a super premium cable for what it is, so I can’t complain much about that. But this is the only “accessory” included. There’s also this new pill-shaped stack of paperwork—one sheet that tells you about how there’s no physical SIM card on the iPhones, at least here in the U.S., and then a folded-up instruction booklet with some legal info. And that’s it. No Apple stickers anymore, which is kind of surprising; supposedly, if you want the stickers, you can ask an employee at the Apple Store for a set, but I unfortunately forgot to do that myself.
So here it is once again, this is the new iPhone 16 Pro Max, and as we peel back its protective layer, power it on and start tapping through the setup pages, one new thing you’ll come across is a reference to the don’t-call-it-a-button Camera Control button. This is a new physical button on the side of all of the new iPhone 16s this year, and you get kind of a preview of how it works on this setup page here; it honestly is something you really have to practice with and play around with in order to figure it out, but I’ll talk more about that in just a minute.
Now, as far as pricing & color options, the regular 16 Pro and this larger 16 Pro Max are the same $999 and $1099 they’ve been; you can pick 128, 256, 512 gigs, or 1 TB of storage. And the Titanium-themed color options this year include this black titanium, white titanium, natural titanium, and a new Desert Titanium, kind of like a light shade of gold, and I unboxed that color for my regular 16 Pro video, so definitely check that out if you’re interested.
And if you are getting a new iPhone 16 this year, I’d recommend pairing it with one of ESR’s new MagSafe and Qi2 compatible chargers. Their MagSafe Battery Pack adds an extra 5000mah capacity battery to the back of your phone with 15W charging speeds and newly supported Qi2 charging standard. It’s slimmer & more compact than other battery packs, but it even has a kickstand for portrait & landscape viewing. Most importantly, it keeps your iPhone juiced up without overheating the battery pack or your phone thanks to built-in sensors and an AI algorithm that constantly monitor temperatures to keep everything some 18 degrees cooler than the industry standard.
If you have other Apple products, ESR’s 3-in-1 MagSafe Charger can hold your iPhone, AirPods, and Apple Watch. You’ll get the same 15W speeds to your iPhone via the Qi2 standard. It’ll also keep everything cool thanks to ESR’s patented CryoBoost cooling technology, and it maintains those 15W speeds at all times. The Apple-certified Watch Charger around back can get you to 75% in 70 minutes, 4 times faster than non-certified chargers. And most importantly, it’s way more affordable than similar, less capable MagSafe products.
ESR also launched their Car Charger, with the same 15W charging speeds and CryBoost to keep you juiced up & staying cool on-the-go. And with multiple mounting options and a stronger magnetic grip, your phone is going to stay right in place. And ESR also has some great cases too that keep your shiny new phone safe & protected. Check out all of ESR’s chargers, cases & other iPhone 16 accessories at the link in the video description below.
Now, if you couldn’t immediately tell, the first thing that’s actually new with the iPhone 16 Pro Max this year is it’s bigger. At 6.9 inches now, its screen size is two-tenths of an inch larger than any previous Pro Max iPhone, and by the way, the regular 16 Pro is also a touch bigger too. Here’s a dummy Pro Max iPhone from a previous year; you can see that the actual size of the entire phone isn’t drastically different, only a few millimeters larger all around. The extra screen size also comes about thanks to slightly slimmer bezels, or those black borders that frame it. Here we’re talking like just the smallest difference, barely noticeable, but all together, this is a bigger screen on a bigger phone that was already pretty darn big to begin with.
Around back, the Titanium & Glass build is pretty much the same as last year. This black Titanium already has plenty of smudges & fingerprints. But it’s tough-ish, it’s IP68 water & dust resistance, it’s a little heavier in the hand, but otherwise the same premium Apple materials that you’d expect on such a pricey device.
Taking a look around, most everything else on the phone itself is the same too. There’s the volume buttons on the left side below the Action Button that debuted last year. Nothing at the top of the phone; at the bottom, the same USB-C port flanked by speaker and microphone cutouts. On the right side, however, the power button now has a friend. Towards the bottom, way below the power button, is a new recessed physical feature called Camera Control. It is an actual button—even though Apple refuses to call it a button—with additional pressure and touch sensitivity commands too.
Now, the Camera Control obviously is associated solely with the camera app itself; you currently cannot customize this feature at all or change what it does, and it does nothing else except essentially launch the camera app and then add some hardware shortcuts that are associated with various camera settings. So one push of the Camera Control, a-la a button, will launch the camera app itself, from the lockscreen, from the home screen, and from any other app you’re currently in. Camera Control is recessed in such a way that you probably won’t accidentally launch it, but it is kind of in a strange spot; whether you have the phone in portrait or landscape, it’s something you’re going to have to feel for and find and get used to using it depending on how you grip your phone.
Now, when you’re inside the camera app, clicking Camera Control again will snap a picture. I mean, let’s be honest, it is literally a physical camera shutter button, basically. But it’s also pressure-sensitive and has, I guess, swipe controls is the most appropriate description. So if you just sort of lightly press on Camera Control or squeeze it, but don’t actually click it, you’ll be presented with a slider of whatever your last camera setting option was, and if you run your finger across Camera Control, almost like a dial, you’ll slide through whatever setting you’re working with. And to switch between different camera settings & options that are associated with Camera Control, well, you double-squeeze it, but don’t click it down all the way, just a generous double squeeze, and can then swipe through all the settings and functions of the camera that Camera Control utilizes.
In playing around with this for a little while, it really takes some getting used to. The placement of Camera Control itself on the side of the phone is different; it’s new and it takes some phenagling to figure out how you can quickly click it depending on your phone grip. When you’re squeezing and swiping through the camera options, the most useful use case of the Camera Control function is Zoom; sliding the zoom in and out with Camera Control feels very natural. And having easy access to the depth of field, exposure, focal lengths, and new photographic styles & tons is nice, but I don’t know how many people mess with those settings often enough to justify a whole entire new physical feature on the phone itself. This is a really interesting addition to the entire iPhone lineup this year, and I’m curious to see how much use it actually gets.
A couple of features associated with Camera Control, like the new Visual Intelligence tool, aren’t even on the phone yet—more on that in a moment—so there will be some more stuff to come, but in the meantime, this is definitely going to take some getting used to.
Speaking of stuff that’s still to come on the new iPhones, Apple Intelligence, their myriad of AI features they’ve been demoing and talking about non-stop since earlier this summer and sort of the calling card for the iPhone 16s this year, well, it wasn’t ready in time for the launch. Apple Intelligence is coming “later this year” via a software update, which honestly is pretty disappointing since the signs at the Apple Store all reference Apple Intelligence, even though it’s not on these new iPhones yet. Perhaps a month or two from now, we’ll have everything AI, but in the meantime, the lack of, well, everything software-wise that Apple spent the bulk of their iPhone announcement talking about is pretty disappointing, and not something I would have ever expected to see from Apple themselves.
On the bright side, Apple’s latest iOS update, iOS 18, does bring a bunch of new software updates & changes that kind of make the phone feel new. The bulk of iOS 18 that I think people will care about have to do with all the new customization features, like the ability to set your app icons to a specific color and change up control center; I have a dedicated video all about that if you want to learn more. There’s also changes to a number of Apple’s apps like Photos, new ways to message, improvements to mail, safari, a new Passwords app. So fresh out of the box, if you haven’t yet updated to iOS 18 on your current iPhone at least, this new one has some new stuff to make it feel, well, new. But iOS 18 is actually available on most iPhones, even the older ones, so plenty of these features you might’ve already had. Apple Intelligence, however, well, that’s reserved for only the iPhone 15 Pros and then these new iPhone 16s only, so just keep that in mind if AI or Apple Intelligence is something you’re seriously interested.
When Apple Intelligence finally comes to fruition, all the new features & capabilities will be powered by the new, faster processor and upgraded internals inside these phones. This year’s 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max get Apple’s latest, most powerful A18 Pro chip and 8GB of RAM. This is, of course, the fastest, most capable, the bestest iPhone to ever iPhone; we know that. I’m not sure you’ll see that big of a performance boost over last year just during your average daily use, but there’s some great new gaming titles that’ll play well on this super-powerful iPhone, and all that extra power is going to be critical for Apple Intelligence whenever it finally arrives. Regardless, it is nice to see that Apple is still pushing the bounding with performance, and the new iPhone 16 Pro’s seem to be the fastest phones overall with performance scores that rival even the processors on some of their Macs.
One thing that Apple briefly mentioned in their keynote without much context was that the new iPhone 16’s had the “best battery life ever”—they didn’t put any numbers to that claim, initially, and on Apple’s website, the new iPhone 16s and 16 Pros have an hour or two of extra life in certain circumstances based on Apple’s advertised measurements. This 16 Pro Max in particular, with its bigger size body and bigger size battery, reigns supreme by a few hours of use, but I think this is something that’s really going to require some testing to determine its validity.
As for charging speeds though, the 16 Pros can now charge from 0 to 50% in 30 minutes over USB-C and also support faster 25W wireless MagSafe speeds and 15W Qi2 wireless charging speeds. So if you do find yourself burning through your battery before the day’s end, you’ll at least be juicing up a bit quicker across the board.
Now, it feels odd to not have much else to say about the display, but this year’s Pro Max doesn’t really have any different or better of a viewing experience compared to last year. The slightly larger 6.9-inch screen is the same LTPO Super Retina XDR OLED panel as last year, with the same 2868 by 1320 resolution, the same 120hz refresh rate, and the same 2000 nits of max brightness. The only thing Apple mentioned that was different was that the screen can actually get down to just 1 nit of brightness, which is…cool I guess if you’re in a pitch-black room and need to dim down the display as low as possible to not blind yourself. But that truly was the only change or “upgrade” over last year. That’s not the end of the world though; the display on the Pro Max is great; I think this is a stellar viewing experience overall, and really the screen upgrades should’ve actually come to the regular iPhone 16s, but they didn’t there either; that phone is still rocking a 60hz screen if you can believe that.
Finally, if it wasn’t already obvious with the new Camera Control feature, this year’s iPhones are once again focused on camera upgrades. And the Pro Max is no exception. Hardware-wise, while the surface-level specs don’t seem that different, Apple did make some changes to the 48mp main lens, the 12mp periscope telephoto lens, and upgraded the ultrawide lens completely to a 48mp shooter as well. The selfie camera doesn’t seem like it was changed in any way. And inside the camera app, while most of what you see will be familiar to you, there’s a couple of things to highlight. Apple talked a lot about Photographic Styles, a way in which you can quickly customize your pictures before or after you take the shot to give them a different look. It’s not exactly a filter per se, but it sorta kinda is. You can set your photos to a cool tone, vibrant, natural, give them a certain color tint. It’s interesting, albeit probably not something everyone will use all the time. Apple also added 4K 120fps slow-mo, which they demoed in their keynote as well. And thanks to the more powerful processor and improvements to the camera software and image processing, the iPhones this year will, of course, look better or at least different with how they capture their images & videos. I’ll have plenty of camera comparison tests coming soon; the initial reviews honestly are a bit mixed, but Apple, of course, says this is the best camera ever on an iPhone, and I think if you lean towards the pro side of things, there’s probably a lot of great new stuff to take advantage of.
So what all is new with the new iPhone 16 Pro Max? Well, it’s bigger for sure; it barely fit in my pocket before, but now I think I’m going to need some custom pants. It’s faster and more powerful and totally ready to take on Apple Intelligence if and when those features make it to this phone sometime in the hopefully not too distant future. The cameras are better, like they always try to be year after year; the battery life is supposedly better; you can charge the phone faster. And there’s the whole Camera Control deal, which…TBD on if that catches on or if I ever end up using it.
Honestly, there is a lot that’s new with the iPhone 16s this year and a lot more still to come with future software updates. Is this enough to get you to upgrade this year? Well, you tell me. Let me know what you think of the new iPhone 16’s this year in the comments down below; I’d love to hear your thoughts, of course. But hopefully, you guys did enjoy this video. Be sure to follow TechDaily on Twitter and subscribe to the TechDaily YouTube channel if you haven’t already, and I’ll see you guys later.