It’s Glowtime

Last Monday, Apple had its usual September event, where they announced the new iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods lineups.

To honor the release of all their major operating systems today, let’s dive a little deeper into these. However, instead of just mentioning everything that was announced, let's take a look at it from the lens of both AI and photography.

AI

During this year’s WWDC developer’s conference, Apple first unveiled their plans regarding AI, brilliantly calling it “Apple Intelligence.” You can check out my take on that announcement here.

This time around, we were all wondering if Apple would introduce any iPhone 16-specific AI features, and truthfully, there wasn't much. They spent quite a bit of time going over the things they had already announced back in June, this time from a new consumer-focused angle.

Visual Intelligence

The one thing they did mention was a new competing feature to Google Lens called “Visual Intelligence,” which Craig Federighi unveiled. It allows users to use the new Camera Control (more on that below) to quickly point at something and ask the AI what it is.

However, the new camera updates certainly did not disappoint.

Photography

As a photographer, every year I pay close attention to Apple's camera announcements. I've been using the iPhone cameras for quite a few years now, so it's always exciting to see what they unveil.

Camera Control

The highlight feature for these new iPhones is a new button on the right side that serves as a camera shutter. They call this feature “Camera Control”, and it will be included in the entire iPhone 16 lineup. According to Apple, this button can quickly launch the camera app to take a photo or video, and it allows users to slide their finger to control various camera options, such as zoom or exposure.

This is something I've been wanting for YEARS. It will certainly make the iPhone feel a bit more like a dedicated camera, and having those camera options so easily accessible will come in handy.

Further, it looks like it will support other apps like Halide, so the possibilities here are endless.

Photographic Styles

Another interesting update came in the form of an updated suite of Photographic Styles. Most notably, we can now edit the results after shooting, something we couldn't do before.

When Photographic Styles were first introduced, not being able to edit them in post was a dealbreaker for me, so I'm curious to see how my workflow changes now that we can edit the results to our liking.

iPhone 16 and 16 Plus Camera Updates

In the iPhone 16, the main camera feature is a new 48-megapixel “Fusion” lens that “enables a 2x optical-quality telephoto option” in the main lens. The ultra-wide lens also finally gets autofocus, which will help in a variety of situations, such as low-light scenes.

Finally, both new iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus come with the ability to take spacial photos and videos for the Apple Vision Pro headset.

Although incremental, these are all welcome features.

iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max Camera Updates

Now for the even more fun part! The iPhone 16 Pro lineup packs some serious new features.

A new 48-megapixel “Fusion” lens also makes its way to the Pro lineup, and now the ultra-wide lens also gains a 48-megapixel option, both with the ability to shoot ProRAW. These join the telephoto lens, which remains with only 12 megapixels.

Speaking of file types and specs, the new pro phones will now be able to shoot 4K120 fps ProRes log video for more beautiful slow-mo videos. We now also gain the ability to edit the frame rate in the Photos app, as well as support for the new JPEG XL file format.

Finally, we get an array of four new studio-quality mics that are sure to improve the overall video recording quality.

Overall, these are some impressive features, especially if you're coming from an even older generation of iPhones.

Parting Thoughts

While some of these updates are more incremental in nature, I seriously cannot wait to get my hands on these new cameras.

The new iPhone 16 lineup represents the first iPhones built specifically for Apple Intelligence, so time will tell how these features are received. But for now, I invite you to look through the new announcements in Apple's website to dive a bit deeper.

In all, I have a feeling Apple is just getting started.