The iPhone 16 Event: The Biggest Takeaways from This Week’s Apple Keynote

The 10th generation of the Apple Watch finally brings notable hardware changes fans have been waiting for. It features the largest display ever on an Apple Watch, even bigger than the Ultra 2. The screen is now also a wide-angle OLED, making the watch easier to read at an angle and in bright light. It also features a faster refresh rate in low-power mode, allowing watch faces to show seconds ticking away. Size-wise, the series 10 is coincidentally 10% thinner than the previous Series 9 and 10% lighter. Apple has improved charging, too, so that the watch can go from 0 to 80% in 30 minutes. Lastly, the baseline aluminum and new titanium versions embrace a shiny, polished aesthetic in various colors, including black.

Apple focused its most significant changes this year on the baseline Apple watch. Still, the Ultra received a new “satin black” color option and a new titanium Milanese Loop strap option in black and silver colors to match the watch. The new color will cost $799 and is available for pre-order today. It’ll ship on September 20th.

Released this past September, Apple’s new entry-level AirPods have the same open-air design (no silicone ear tips) and sound exactly like the AirPods 4 with active noise-cancellation — both have the same H2 chip and internal acoustic architecture. They share some of the same higher-end features, such as Personalized Volume and support for spatial audio, too. This is the first time they’ve been discounted.

Apple’s premium AirPods Pro Max didn’t get the overhaul many had hoped for. Instead, a USB-C charging port now replaces the aging lightning connector. The previous color options have also been replaced by five new colorways: starlight, orange, purple, blue and midnight. And that’s it. These changes are so minor that Apple’s not even calling this new iteration the AirPod Pro Max 2; they’re still just the AirPods Max. They’ll also still sell at the same premium price of $549 when shipping begins on September 20th.

The latest baseline iPhone received a variety of significant hardware leaps. As you can tell from the press photo, new colors are brighter and bolder than in years past. You can also see that two new buttons are present, including the programmable action button first launched in the iPhone Pro line as well as a new physical camera control button that sits flush right below the power button. The camera control button can trigger the camera’s shutter control in addition to providing faster access to other camera settings thanks to the ability to sense hard presses, soft presses and finger swipes. But the button is clearly intended to be a physical prompt for Apple’s upcoming AI-powered intelligence features too. The idea is that users can point the phone at certain objects and click the camera control button to see relevant data about whatever they are viewing. Speaking of cameras, they’ve been upgraded to include a 48 megapixel main shooter as well as a new ultra-wide lens with auto focus that’s capable of macro shooting. A 12MP 2x telephoto is also available via software innovations applied to the main camera unit. The positions of the two cameras on the 16 have changed slightly to be more vertical, presumably to help the device better shoot spatial videos originally showcased with the launch of the Vision Pro. The iPhone 16’s processor has also jumped from an A16 to an A18, making it 30% faster than last year’s model and ready for Apple’s onslaught of AI-powered software tricks. The battery is bigger as well, offering what Apple states is “a big boost in battery life.” Two versions will be available in 6.1 and 6.7-inch screen sizes.

The most significant change exclusive to Apple’s new iPhone Pro lineup is larger screen sizes. The new Pro line features 6.3″ and 6.9″ screens, up from the previous generation’s 6.1″ and 6.7″ options. The phones are slightly taller and wider as a result, though not by much thanks to a reduced bezel size around the display. They also boast the “best iPhone battery life ever”, according to Apple. A new goldish-looking color option dubbed Desert Titanium joins the black, white, and silver colors launched before. The cameras are improved with tweaks creatives and professional media users will value. The primary 48MP Fusion camera features a second-gen quad-pixel sensor with zero shutter lag in ProRaw and HEIF photo modes. The smaller-sized iPhone Pro also gains the tetraprism zoom lens design for the 5x telephoto camera that was previously reserved for the iPhone Pro Max. Like the new iPhone 16, a new camera control button on the device will unlock a variety of new photo capture interactions and controls, including a two-stage shutter that can lock exposure and focus, which will come via a software update later this year. Though few will likely use these capabilities, new shooting modes, including 4k120 in ProRes that can be directly captured to an external storage device thanks to faster USB-C transfer speeds, the ability to adjust video playback feed post-capture, and frame-by-frame color grading are all icing on the professional camera capability cake here. Even the mics have been updated to “studio quality” and offer a variety of new ways to record and isolate audio, including capturing spatial audio. Prices start at $999 for iPhone 16 Pro and $1,199 for iPhone 16 Pro Max. Pre-orders will begin Monday and ship next week on September 20th. A18 Pro