The new iPhone 16 range arrives with a slew of various hardware upgrades and internal changes, highlighting that Apple’s intentions might have more to do with fixing the issues that existed in the iPhone 15 series last year. A new report states that the four new models do not offer exciting overhauls but improvements that would be appreciated by customers looking to upgrade down the road.
Overheating, better battery life, and a dedicated camera hardware button were improvements introduced to the iPhone 16 series
A huge miss from Apple was that both the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max featuring the A17 Pro could actually deliver playable framerates when running native AAA games if their performance was not gimped due to a poor cooling solution. When running Genshin Impact, it was found that the smaller iPhone 15 Pro was thermal throttling, resulting in severe stuttering and massive frame drops. Thankfully, Apple claims that it has incorporated an advanced thermal solution in the iPhone 16 models that delivers a 30 percent gaming performance boost.
Next comes the camera, which also happens to be a primary selling point for why people rush to place orders for a shiny new iPhone. Apple decided to add a dedicated camera button to make capturing photos seamless. We are confident that with the passage of time, this particular button will allow additional options in the future, but for now, taking stills will become a breeze. Lastly, customers were eager to experience extended battery life.
As it so happens, Apple’s top-end iPhone 16 Pro Max delivers the longest runtime for any iPhone model, lasting for an impressive 33 hours during video playback, making it four hours longer than the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Bear in mind that all of these upgrades and more can be had at the exact same price as the iPhone 15 series last year, making it a huge plus. Unfortunately, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman mentions in his latest ‘Power On’ newsletter that none of these changes will drive a supercycle, and because it is well-known that these hardware upgrades are not a significant leap, Apple Intelligence has instead become the primary focus.
“None of those changes is significant enough to drive a super cycle — the rush of upgrading that happens every few years — but they should keep users happy. Apple’s brand, product ecosystem and marketing muscle are all so strong that even the bare minimum is usually enough.
Apple knows that the new iPhone hardware doesn’t represent a major leap over last year’s model. So it focused much of its launch event on Apple Intelligence, the company’s new suite of AI tools. Of course, those features were already announced in June and have been available in beta tests for weeks. You also don’t necessarily need to buy an iPhone 16 to get them (they’ll work with the iPhone 15 Pro models as well).”
Sadly, Apple Intelligence will not be available when the iPhone 16 series officially releases on September 20, meaning that the one addition the technology giant has been banking on to drive sales will not even arrive. Hopefully, the remainder of the changes are compelling enough to get people excited about switching to the newer models.
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