iPhone 16 Pro is the biggest Pro upgrade in years. Here’s why I’m so hyped

The iPhone 16 Pro packs a slew of upgrades that everyday users will appreciate. Apart from the new powerful and efficient A18 Pro processor, Apple has fixed (at least on paper) some outstanding issues with the new Pro lineup. This makes it one of the biggest Pro iPhone upgrades in years.

Also: Everything Apple announced at iPhone 16 event: AirPods, Apple Watch Series 10, AI, more

Apple’s last two standout features on the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro were Dynamic Island and Action Button. While Apple has been introducing a hero feature each year, it made the iPhone 14 Pro unergonomic with added weight and a flat edge design. 

It was fixed to an extent, using Titanium on the iPhone 15 Pro. However, two issues have plagued the Pro iPhones for years that were finally addressed with the 16 Pro. 

Better battery life and an essential camera upgrade

The biggest issues with the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro were less-than-average battery life and lens flare, and Apple seems to have focused on those issues with the iPhone 16 Pro series. Apple says the iPhone 16 Pro series has the “best battery life on any iPhone.” It’s a tall claim, especially given that the battery life on my iPhone 15 Pro has been average at best. 

I’m a heavy phone user, requiring a charge twice daily. The last time an iPhone offered an all-day battery life (and a bit more) was the iPhone 13 Pro Max. It remains the phone battery life benchmark for me to date. If the iPhone 16 Pro Max can reach anywhere near that experience, it’d be fantastic. 

Also: iPhone 16 Pro vs. iPhone 14 Pro: Is it worth an upgrade?

The new 3nm A18 Pro processor features the same two performance cores and four efficiency cores structure. However, Apple claims to deliver 15% CPU performance and 20% gains in graphics performance while being more efficient than the A17 Pro. I still have doubts about how it’d perform in day-to-day life, but I have high hopes.

The iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro lineup also fixes another iPhone-centric issue: lens flare. Apple didn’t talk about it on the event stage, but the new iPhones are equipped with an anti-reflective lens coating, which aims to mitigate this effect when the camera is pointed towards a direct source of light. It has been a prolonged issue that has affected the overall quality of my campfire and Diwali photos, but I’ll be putting the anti-reflective lens coating to the test.

Creator-centric features are a welcome addition

The iPhone 16 Pro series is the closest professional camera system on a phone that you can get. It has an upgraded camera system with a new 48MP fusion camera, an updated 48MP ultrawide camera, and the same 5x optical zoom capable 12MP telephoto camera on both devices. You can now also click 48MP macro shots and shoot 4K Dolby Vision videos at up to 120fps (including slow-mo videos).  

Apple claims to offer color grading in real-time with the new Photographic Styles feature. I’ve used different photographic styles on the previous two iPhones but this is an updated version where you can locally adjust color, highlights, and shadows in real time. 

Also: I want to be excited about the iPhone 16’s new camera button, but can’t (for now)

The iPhone 16 Pro also adds a new Camera Control button that is more than just a shutter control button. As a traveler, I love this feature already. You can launch the camera with a tap, click a photo, shoot a video, and adjust parameters such as zoom, exposure, depth of field in the Portrait mode, and more with swipes. It cleans up the viewfinder to give you more space for framing your shots.

The Camera Control button also includes a “visual intelligence” feature that allows you to learn about objects and places you see by simply snapping a photo of it. It’s like a mix of Google Lens and Circle to Search, and will go live with the Apple Intelligence beta in October in the U.S.

Physical improvements on the iPhone 16 Pro 

I’ve accidentally dropped my iPhone 15 Pro a couple of times — and it did not end well. While the back wasn’t scratched in my one-year caseless test, the Titanium started peeling off around the edges. The iPhone 16 Pro offers Grade 5 Titanium on its build for better durability. Moreover, the Ceramic Shield display is claimed to be 2x tougher than before — making the new iPhones tougher quite a bit more resilient.

I’m also looking forward to using the bigger 6.3-inch display on the iPhone 16 Pro. I like big screens but settled for the 6.1-inch iPhone 15 Pro because Apple’s Pro Max iPhones are wider than the competition, which makes them unwieldy. The 6.3-inch display is the perfect form factor. 

Also: Every iPhone 16 model compared: Which new iPhone should you buy?

It’s more tempting now because Apple isn’t limiting its best camera system to the Pro Max model. Unlike last year, both the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro feature the same camera system. The bigger size has also allowed Apple to pack in more battery capacity.

Apple Intelligence will be at the heart of the iPhone 16 Pro’s feature set when it comes out, despite the fact that it will also be available on the iPhone 15 Pro. The hardware on the 16 Pro is quite a step up, however, making it a solid upgrade this year.