Apple iPhone 16 lineup presented with new AI, camera functions and new camera button

[22:26 Mon,9.September 2024 by Rob]

As expected, Apple has just unveiled the new iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max at its ‘Glow’ event alongside the new Apple Watch Series 10, new Air Pods 4 and Max (now with USB-C). The latter are equipped with exciting new camera functions - especially for smartphone filmmakers.

A18 (Pro) chip

At the heart of the new iPhone 16 generation is Apple&s A18 CPU, which is (once again) manufactured using the 3 nanometre process. Like its predecessor, the A18 Pro chip has 4 efficiency and 2 performance cores, a 6-core GPU and a 16-core neural engine. The memory bandwidth of the new A18 Pro chip has been widened by almost 20%, which according to Apple results in up to 15% faster CPU and up to 20% faster GPU performance compared to its predecessor.

Thanks to hardware-accelerated ray tracing, the Pro models now also offer up to 2x faster ray tracing performance.

As Apple has completely changed the arrangement of the CPU on the board, more space has been created for a larger battery on all models. Together with more efficient power management, the iPhone 16 Pro Max offers up to four hours longer battery life, according to Apple. In total, up to 33 hours of video playback are now possible on the iPhone 16 Pro Max and up to 27 hours on the iPhone 16 Pro.

Titanium and aluminium housing

Apple had already introduced titanium as a new casing material for the Pro models with the previous generation, which resulted in a significant weight saving compared to stainless steel. The Pro models in the 16 iPhone line-up are also made of titanium, while aluminium is used for the standard models.

The dimensions and weights of the Pro models are as follows:

iPhone 16 Pro: 6.3’ all-screen OLED display (15.9 cm diagonal), 199 g
iPhone 16 Pro Max: 6.9’ all-screen OLED display (17.4 cm diagonal), 227 g

The dimensions and weights of the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus are as follows

iPhone 16:6.1’ all-screen OLED display (15.5 cm diagonal), 170 g
iPhone 16 Plus:6.7’ all-screen OLED display, (17 cm diagonal), 199 g

New camera functions

Perhaps the most far-reaching innovation in the camera functions is the new camera button on the iPhone 16 models. This new, elongated button on the side of the iPhone consists of a pressure and slide-sensitive surface with which numerous camera functions can be controlled using just 1 physical button.

A click on the button calls up the camera, another click activates the shutter release. A longer click switches between foro and video, a light click calls up camera parameters and a button swipe switches through different parameters. If this works in practice as presented today, it should enable very fast and precise camera operation.

The three camera set-up for the Pro models is as follows:

- 48 MP Fusion: 24 mm, ƒ/1.78 aperture, optical image stabilisation with 2nd generation sensor shift, 100 % Focus Pixel, support for super high-resolution photos (24 MP and 48 MP)

- also enables 12 MP 2x telephoto: 52 mm, ƒ/1.6 aperture, optical image stabilisation with sensor shift, 100 % focus pixel

- 48 MP ultra wide-angle: 13 mm, ƒ/2.2 aperture and 120° field of view, hybrid focus pixel, super high-resolution photos (48 MP)

- 12 MP 5x telephoto: 120 mm, ƒ/2.8 aperture and 20° field of view, 100 % Focus Pixel, lens with 7 elements, optical image stabilisation with 3D sensor shift and autofocus, tetraprism design

- 5x optical zoom in, 2x optical zoom out, 10x optical zoom range

- Up to 25x digital zoom

The video functions of the Pro models now include 4K 120p LOG recording on external media via USB-C. We assume that 4K 60p LOG recordings are now also possible internally in Apple&s own camera app (with the iPhone 15 Pro, the very good Blackmagic Cam Ap had to be used for this)

The dual-camera system of the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Max offers the following features:

- 48 MP Fusion: 26 mm, ƒ/1.6 aperture, optical image stabilisation with sensor shift, 100% Focus Pixel, support for super high-resolution photos (24 MP and 48 MP)

- Also enables 12 MP 2x telephoto: 52 mm, ƒ/1.6 aperture, optical image stabilisation with sensor shift, 100 % focus pixel

- 2x optical zoom in, 2x optical zoom out, 4x optical zoom range
Up to 10x digital zoom

Apple Intelligence

A not insignificant point at the presentation of the new iPhone 16 models was, of course, Apple&s future mobile AI vision centred around ‘Apple Intelligence’. Accordingly, the iPhone 16 models have been developed for Apple Intelligence and utilise the power of Apple chips and generative models developed by Apple to understand and generate speech and images, perform actions in various apps and use personal context to complete everyday tasks more easily and quickly.

The guaranteed confidentiality and security of user data through Private Cloud Compute was also central to the presentation of Apple Intelligence. Here, Apple offers the option of flexibly adapting computing capacities between processing on the device and larger, server-based models that are executed on special servers with Apple chips.

Practical examples of Apple Intelligence were used to show how users are given new opportunities to improve their writing by providing them with system-wide writing tools with which they can rewrite, proofread and summarise texts. It was also demonstrated how Apple Intelligence summarises notifications and brings urgent messages to the top of the inbox in Mail. In the Notes and Phone apps, users can record, transcribe and summarise audio.

If, for example, a recording is started in the phone app during a call, the participants are automatically notified and Apple Intelligence generates a summary at the end of the call, which the participants can use to recall important points.

Siri is also to receive a boost and become more natural, more flexible and even more deeply integrated into the system functions. Siri will now be able to understand speech even better, follow users even when they get confused and take into account the context from one request to the next. Users can type Siri requests at any time and switch smoothly between text and voice when using Siri to complete everyday tasks more quickly.

Interesting for iPhone newcomers: Siri is supposed to answer thousands of questions about the features of the iPhone and other Apple devices thanks to its comprehensive product knowledge. Siri recognises what is shown on the display and can understand user content and carry out actions in connection with this, as well as in and between third-party apps. In addition, you should be able to easily access ChatGPT from OpenAI when using iOS 18 features such as Siri and writing tools.

However, the new AI functions have not yet been implemented. The first functions will be released as a beta and initially in the USA - Europe is set to follow next year - Germany has not been mentioned in next year&s European rollout.

Prices and availability

The new iPhone 16 models go on sale on 20 September.

The iPhone 16 costs from 949 euros
The iPhone 16 Plus costs from 1,099 euros
The iPhone 16 Pro costs from 1,199 euros
The iPhone 16 Pro Max costs from 1,449 euros

(This slashCam News will be updated continuously ...)

more infos at bei www.apple.com

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