If I had to come up with a list of the most useful things that my iPhone can do, high on that list would be the ability to remind me to do something in the future. I often find myself in a situation in which I realize that at, say, 4pm on Tuesday, I’m going to need to call someone or do something or check on something. So I simply tell my iPhone “Hey Siri, remind me at 4pm on Tuesday to do _____.” When that time comes around, I most likely will have completely forgotten about the need to do that task, but then my iPhone sends me a notification, and I’m back on track.
Because this feature is so useful for me, it was devastating when I realized, soon after getting my new iPhone 16 Pro Mac, that I wasn’t receiving those notifications anymore. I opened my Reminders app and saw that there was a notification that was missed (so it was in red), but the iPhone never beeped or vibrated or displayed an alert or otherwise gave me the notification that I needed. What was going on? I tried creating a new notification from within the Today view of the Reminders app, telling it to notify me at 4:25 (and many other times) to do something, but then 4:25 would come and go without me getting any notification at all.
I tried to do countless things to solve this problem but none of them fixed it. I even opened up my Settings app, then went to Notifications, and then looked for the Reminders app in the long list of apps to see if I could change some setting. But I didn’t see Reminders in that list—which seemed odd to me. Had it been removed in iOS 17? After confirming with my podcast co-host, Brett Burney, that he was seeing the Reminders app under Notifications in his Settings app, I realized that my goal was to get Reminders to show up there on my iPhone.
The fix, it turned out, was to create a new reminder. But not from within the Today view, as I had been trying in the past. I went to the top level of the Reminders app. From there, I tapped the New Reminder button at the bottom left. Once I created a reminder, I saw something new: a request from the Reminders app to send me notifications. I tapped Allow. Finally, this solved my problem.
Moreover, it also meant that Reminders was, once again, showing up in my list. under Notifications in the Settings app:
I’m not exactly sure how this problem occurred in the first place. It may have had something to do with the fact that I set up this new iPhone from scratch while my prior iPhone was still running for a few days. I don’t know. But if you ever find that you are not getting notification alerts from the Reminders app, and if you also find that your Reminders app is not listed under Notifications in the Settings app, the steps I outlined above might be just what you need.
Apple has released the first movie ever shot using 180º immersive video, and that milestone is the first topic that Brett Burney and I discuss in this week’s episode of the In the News podcast. We also share tips that you can use today to film immersive video using an iPhone so that you will have some interesting memories in the future when devices like the Apple Vision Pro become more commonplace. We next discuss additional techniques for getting the most from the camera on the iPhone such as adjusting Photographic Styles on the new iPhone 16 models, slow motion video, the new Camera Control, and more. We also discuss how the Apple Watch has increasingly become a way to monitor your health, enhanced tickets in the Apple Wallet, Apple Pay, and more.
In our In the Know segment, we share tips for tracking significant items that you purchased.
When technological advancements give us new ways to tell stories, it is always exciting to see what smart storytellers do with the new medium. The introduction of synchronized recorded sound to movies, starting with The Jazz Singer in 1927, led not only to hearing actors speak but also to special effects and incredible soundtracks. The addition of color to movies brought not just the obvious depth that comes from using a full palate but also choices on how to tint the film to make the movie, and sometimes even the movie watcher, feel colder or warmer. For some advances, such as HD and then 4K, it often seems like there is no good reason to ever go back to the older technology. For other advances, like 3D movies that use polarized glasses, the effect can be impressive in some contexts but obnoxious and unnecessary in other contexts. A few nights ago, Apple released the first scripted film captured in Apple Immersive Video, a short film called Submerged. Written and directed by Oscar winner Edward Berger, Submerged tells the story of a crew on a submarine during World War II when, well, let’s just say that something bad happens. But the real story here is that it is an immersive, crystal clear, 180º experience. It isn’t really fair to say that you “watch” this movie; instead, you become a part of this movie. It takes place around you. Yes, you will often decide to look at one of the characters as the director may have intended, but you can look anywhere, and when you do so, you see additional details that become a part of the experience. Plus, being so close to the action results in emotions that I don’t think I’ve ever felt before when watching a movie. Much like the other changes in mediums over the last century, you need to try it yourself to really understand it. But make no mistake: this is a major and important advance in movie storytelling. I think that an immersive movie makes the most sense in contexts in which it makes sense for you to be close to the action, but I have no doubt that people more creative than I am will come up with lots of amazing ways to use this technology to tell stories in new ways. I look forward to seeing additional titles released in the coming years as Apple Vision itself gets smaller, lighter, less expensive, etc. Kudos to the entire team behind Submerged for being the first to do this, and they did it well. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Lance Ulanoff of TechRadar also did a great write-up on Submerged and even included some Q and A with Edward Berger, the writer/director.
Jason Snell of Six Colors points out that when you are watching a part of this immersive movie in which you are close to the actors, the feeling is “much more of a live theater performance than a film,” and I agree. I can definitely see future immersive movies that have more in common with the stage than the movie screen.
If you have any of the four new iPhone 16 models, you can change the Photographic Style used to take a photo. Yes, this is similar to a filter, but don’t let that deter you. You can substantially change and improve the look of an image by changing the Photographic Style that is applied. In a recent episode of The Talk Show, host John Gruber talks about this Photographic Style feature in detail with photographer Tyler Stalman. As Stalman points out in that episode and on Threads, even if you do nothing else, try taking one of your photos and then make three changes: (1) change to style to Amber, (2) change Tone to -50 to -60, and (3) change Color to 20. (Leave Palette at the full 100.) For about 95% of the sh1ots on which I made this change, the image came out looking better, and sometimes much better.
After taking several weeks to gather his thoughts, Jason Snell of Six Colors wrote a good review of the iPhone 16 Pro.
Jason Cross of Macworld reviews the Apple Watch Series 10 and recommends upgrading if your current Apple Watch is more than three years old.
I did not realize that one of the new features of iOS 18 is support for event tickets in the Wallet app with a “richer” experience. Ticketmaster announced in a blog post that it is about to start taking advantage of this new feature so that your ticket can provide you with even more information about an event.
David Phelan of The Independent interviewed numerous Apple executives to discuss the various improvements that have allowed the Apple Watch to assist with monitoring your health.
In an article for Digital Trends, Nirave Gondhia shares a few examples of how his Apple Watch saved his life such as (1) alerting paramedics to the medications he was taking (and thus preventing an adverse drug interaction), (2) calling emergency services when he fell, and (3) helping his doctors to adjust the dosage of a beta blocker based on when his heart rate was dropping too low.
For many years now, Apple Pay support at Home Depot has been on-again-off-again. Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports that Home Depot is now rolling out support to all of its stores and registers.
And finally, in a new video, Apple shows how you can use 4K 120fps Dolby Vision on the iPhone 16 Pro to capture cinematic slow motion:
The ability to send and receive messages via satellite can be a lifesaver, but to take advantage of the service, you need to understand a few important things about how it works, so Brett and I address this new feature at the top of this week’s episode of the In the News podcast. We also discuss some hidden features in iOS 18.0, the recent iOS 18.0.1 update, and the upcoming iOS 18.1 update. Next, we talk about the new iPhone 16 models, especially the new Camera Control feature. We also discuss watching YouTube on an Apple Vision Pro, the new AirPods 4, the latest Apple Watch models, and more.
In our Where Y’at? segment, we discuss finding a Ferrari using AirPods and what to do if the Find My app stops sharing your location.
In our In the Know segment, we discuss some useful tips for working with the Photos app on an iPhone running iOS 18. Brett explains how to hide screenshots from the main view, and I discuss how to customize and reorder the collections so that you can more quickly find what you want in Photos.
As a resident of New Orleans, a city that unfortunately has had ample experience with hurricanes, I know what it is like to live through a natural disaster. But as Hurricane Helene is reminding us all, you don’t have to live below sea level near the Gulf of Mexico to experience devastating effects from a hurricane. Fortunately, the iPhone can be a big help in these circumstances. Three years ago after Hurricane Ida, I wrote about how the iPhone was incredibly valuable and shared some advice for using the Messages app to communicate with family and friends when cellular service is overloaded and many cell towers are down. For folks who have been suffering from a lack of cellphone and WiFi service after Hurricane Helene—Kevin Collier of NBC News reports that some areas have had fewer than 10% of cell sites fully functioning—there is a new option: messages via satellite. As Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac reports, there have been numerous reports of people using this feature, and as one person in Asheville, North Carolina, noted: “This is literally saving lives @Apple.” To send a message via satellite, you need to have an iPhone 14 (all models) or later and you need to be running iOS 18. And as Apple explains, you need to be outside with a clear view of the sky and horizon, and the person you are contacting has to be using either an iPhone running iOS 18 (to receive and reply to your message via iMessages) or an iPhone running iOS 17.6 or later or a non-Apple device (to receive and reply to your message via SMS). When Apple first announced the feature, I was thinking of it being most useful when you do an off-the-grid activity like hiking in the mountains. But after a disaster, when the power is out and cell towers are not working well or at all, I now see that this feature can be just as useful in an urban environment. I would have loved to have had access to a feature like this after Hurricane Ida. and I’m so glad that I will have it in the future. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Yesterday, Apple released iOS 18.0.1 for the iPhone and iPadOS 18.0.1 for the iPad. Chance Miller of 9to5Mac discusses what is new. I know that many owners of an iPad Pro with an M4 chip (the newest model) have been unable to use iOS 18 since it came out over two weeks ago, and this update should finally fix that. There are other updates too, like watchOS 11.0.1 and visionOS 2.0.1.
The Audio Mix feature on iPhone 16 models is really neat, as I noted in my review of the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Tim Hardwick of MacRumors explains how to use the feature.
I still haven’t decided what I think about the new Photographic Styles feature of Photos, but Filipe Espósito of 9to5Mac explains why this is his favorite feature of the iPhone 16.
I love the Camera Control button on the iPhone 16. John Gruber of Daring Fireball recommends a recent episode of the Design Tangents podcast, a podcast hosted by Evan Orensten and Josh Rubin (founders of the Cool Hunting website), in which they interview Johnnie Manzari and Rich Dinh of Apple to discuss the Camera Control. I haven’t listened to this one yet, but it looks like it could be good.
Federico Viticci of MacStories explains why after five years of using “Pro” models of the iPhone, this time he instead purchased the iPhone 16 Plus. If you are trying to decide which iPhone 16 model to get, you should check out his reasons. For me, I prefer the Pro model because of the 5x telephoto lens, the Always On display with support for Stand By mode, the better display with ProMotion, the better video recording with Dolby Vision up to 4K at 120 fps, and the support for USB 3 (which I used to quickly transfer home movies or other video from my Mac to my iPhone).
At some point this month, Apple will release iOS 18.1. Tim Hardwick of MacRumors highlights some of the expected big features in that upcoming release.
Everyone has different ears, so while Apple’s AirPods Pro are a great fit for some folks, for others they don’t work well. If you fall in that category, John Moltz writes in an article for Macworld that the AirPods 4 are worth checking out.
I know that some people have been able to locate a stolen car when there is an AirTag in the vehicle, but Marko Zivkovic of AppleInsider reports that police found a stolen Ferrari worth over half a million dollars by tracking the owner’s AirPods, which were in the car when it was stolen. Better yet, when the police pulled over the car, the suspect escaped but left his iPhone behind, allowing the police to identify the thief when he was later arrested for stealing another car.
One week ago, I recommended using the Juno app for the Apple Vision Pro to view 3D content on YouTube. If you own a Vision Pro, I hope you took advantage of my recommendation when I made it because as July Clover of MacRumors reports, YouTube forced Apple to remove the app from the App Store. If you don’t already have the app, you can no longer get it. As John Gruber of Daring Fireball reports, this is the second time that the same developer, Christian Selig, has had Apple remove one of his well-reviewed apps from the App Store because of a complaint by a service provider. (Selig used to make the beloved Reddit client Apollo.) If you want to view 3D content from YouTube on a Vision Pro and you don’t already have Juno, I don’t know what else to suggest since YouTube itself doesn’t yet make a native Vision Pro app.
William Gallagher of AppleInsider reports that Wolfs, a movie that debuted last week on Apple TV+ starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney, was the most watched new movie ever on the service. Of course, there haven’t been that many new movies on Apple TV+, but clearly this movie is popular, and Apple is already planning a sequel. I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet and have other plans this weekend, but this one is on my short list.
And finally, there is a limited series coming to Apple TV+ starring Billy Crystal, but don’t get ready to laugh. The show, called Before, is a psychological thriller in which Crystal plays a child psychiatrist, and it is interesting to see Crystal playing such a drmatic role. As the preview video shows, this is not a remake of When Harry Met Sally:
Apple is well-known for having a generous 14-day return policy. If you purchase a product directly from Apple—online or in an Apple Store—the Apple website says: “You have 14 calendar days to return an item from the date you received it.” Obviously, your return must include everything that come with the product, including the cables. But this is truly a no-questions-asked return policy. Over the last few months, I used this policy a few times and learned a few things along the way.
My multiple Apple Watch purchases and returns
I purchased an Apple Watch Series 7 with a stainless steel case in 2021. I loved that device, But after three years, the battery life wasn’t as good as when I first received it and I was ready for something new. Thus, my plan had been to get a new Apple Watch when the new models went on sale in 2024, which I correctly guessed would be in September.
Unfortunately, at the very end of a family beach vacation in early August, my Apple Watch Series 7 stopped working. I have no idea why. I had been using it in a pool, but I’ve done that on and off for years. I don’t believe that I dropped it or anything. It was just dead. So when my vacation ended, I brought it to my local Apple Store to see if perhaps it just needed a new battery, which would cost $99. With a fresh battery, maybe I could sell the Series 7 model after I had upgraded or even pass it along to a family member. The Apple employee was able to use his special tools to get the watch to turn on and run a diagnostic test, but the verdict was that a new motherboard was requried, and I wasn’t going to spend hundreds of dollars on a watch I was about to replace.
I use my Apple Watch every day so I didn’t want to go without one for a month, but I also felt silly purchasing any Apple Watch when new models would be announced in just a few weeks and available for sale soon after that. But it occurred to me that maybe I could purchase an Apple Watch to carry me over for a short period of time and then return it. And to my surprise, the Apple employee who helped me even suggested this as an option. I could purchase an Apple Watch, use it for two weeks, then return it and get a different Apple Watch, and then return that and perhaps then the new models would be available. The Apple employee mentioned that some people refer to this as the unofficial Apple Loan program.
So that’s what I did. I purchased the Apple Watch Ultra 2, and it was a great opportunity for me to learn first-hand what the Ultra models are all about, the pros and cons. I posted my review on August 13, 2024, and even though that model was released in 2023, it turns out that the review remains quite relevant today because Apple continues to sell the same Ultra 2 model, although a new color was added this year. (Perhaps in 2025 we will see an Apple Watch Ultra 3.) When I returned the Ultra 2, I exchanged it for an Apple Watch Series 9. I didn’t post a review of that watch, but using it gave me a chance to see the improvements since the Series 7 that I had been using and it also gave me a chance to stop using an Ultra after using it for two weeks so that I could find out what I would miss. I also got to try a different band, the Braided Solo Loop, which I reviewed on August 28.
When it was time to return the Series 9, it was still only August 31, so I exchanged it for another Ultra 2. My hope was to return that on Friday, September 13, and at that time purchase one of the 2024 models. Apple did announce the new Series 10 on September 9, but instead of it coming to stores that Friday, it would arrive the following Friday, September 20. Thus, on September 13, I returned my (second) Ultra 2 and got a (second) Series 9, this time with a gold stainless steel case just to see what I thought of having a gold case. Once my Apple Watch Series 10 arrived on September 20, I returned the Series 9 for a refund.
The return process
As you can see, I purchased and then returned four Apple Watches in August and September. I had heard that Apple has a good reputation for having a no-questions-asked policy when it comes to returns. and that was 100% my expeirence. Every time that I returned one watch, I thought that someone at the Apple Store would challenge me and ask for a reason for the return. But no. Once they saw that I was within the 14-day return window and that I had returned everything, that was it. I could not believe how easy it was.
You do need to pay attention to the return window dates. The Apple website says that the 14 days starts to run on the date you received a product. But during one of my returns, I did have one employee tell me that if I ordered a watch online for pickup the next day, the 14 days would start to run from the date of the online order, not the date that the watch was in my hands. To be safe, I decided that I would count 13 days from when I purchased a product, so if I purchased and received a watch on a Sunday, I would plan to return it on the Saturday that was 13 days later. Doing that always worked fine for me.
Although the normal return period is 14 days, Apple does often provide a more generous return period during the holidays. For example, any product purchased between November 3, 2023, and December 25, 2023, could be returned until January 8, 2024, a 66-day return period. That special policy meant that you could purchase an Apple product as a gift for someone, secure in the knowledge that if the recipient wanted something else, you could still return it after the holidays. I presume that Apple will do something similar next month for the 2024 holidays.
When you return one product and purchase another, the refund from one product applies directly to the purchase of the next one—i.e., an exchange. Thus, on some occasions, I would receive a refund on my credit card (such as when I returned an Ultra 2 to get a Series 9), and on other occasions, I would owe a little bit more because the trade-in value did not quite pay for my next purchase. Note that the Apple website says that exchanges are not available for certain custom products such as engraved AirPods or a custom-configured Mac; you can still return and get a refund to the original form of payment, but that money cannot be directly used on a product you are purchasing a the same time as your return.
Restrictions
As generous as this policy is, there are still some restrictions, all of which are noted on Apple’s website. Here are a few that I think you should keep in mind.
First, Apple’s return policy only applies if you purchase from Apple (either online or a retail store). If you purchase from another store like Amazon, you will have to figure out that store’s return policy.
Second, Apple’s return policy is really just intended for hardware. Apple specifically says that you cannot return opened software (not that many people purchase software in a box anymore), Apple Gift Cards, and Apple Developer products (such as a ticket to Apple’s WWDC conference).
Third, don’t damage the product. The product must be returned in its original condition to take advantage of the return program. If you break it, you bought it.
Fourth, if you return a product that has a wireless service associated with it (such as an iPhone) you may still have to pay carrier fees, and each carrier has its own cancellation policy. I use AT&T for my wireless service, and I pay $10.99 a month for the “Unlimited for wearable” plan. That plan includes unlimited talk, text, and data for a wearable device, and while there is a $35 activiation fee when you first start the plan, I was not charged any additional fee any of the times that I added a new Apple Watch—which I have done five times since my Apple Watch Series 7 died. But I don’t know if a different wireless company will charge you a fee every time you get a new Apple Watch.
Fifth, you can only return a product in the same country where the product was purchased.
Closing thoughts
It is wonderful that Apple gives people two weeks to try a product and see if it is right for them. I loved having the ability to try out an Apple Watch Ultra 2 and see what I thought after multiple days of real world use. And at the same time, Apple’s policy gave me the ability to use an Apple Watch during a period of time when I otherwise would not have had one.
I certainly don’t encourage people to abuse Apple’s generous policy. If too many people do that too many times, I’m sure that Apple would change the policy for all of us. But as someone who has been purchasing Apple products since 1988 but who has never before taken advantage of this policy, I was delighted to learn that this return policy really is as generous as people have said it is. It is truly no questions asked. If you find yourself in a position where you are unsure about whether an Apple product is right for you, keep this generous return policy in mind. As long as you don’t break it or forget to return it until after 14 days have passed, Apple’s return policy gives you more than enough time to see what you really think, the ability to try before you buy.
The 2024 edition of the iPhone—the iPhone 16 line—was released on Friday, September 20. I picked up my iPhone 16 Pro Max from my local Apple Store that morning, and I’ve been using it throughout the day, every day, for over a week. This new iPhone is nice to use because of two changes that Apple has made only on rare occasions in the history of iPhone: a larger screen and a new external button. Plus, this new iPhone is ready for Apple Intelligence when it launches next month—a point that Apple emphasizes in its ads, but I am skeptical of how useful it will be, at least at first. Even so, whether you upgrade every year or do so every few years, this is a good year to get a new iPhone. I’m a big fan of the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
I already provided my overview of all of the new features in the entire iPhone 16 line, so consider that prior post to be the first part of this review. In this second part, I address the new features that I’ve been enjoying the most. Some of those features are unique to the iPhone 16 Pro Max, but others are present across the entire iPhone 16 line.
Larger screen.
The two Pro versions of the iPhone 16 line have a larger screen. This is something that Apple does not do very often.
The original iPhone was introduced in 2007. It had a button on the bottom of the front and a 3.5" screen. (All screen measurements in this post are diagonal, which is how Apple has always measured iPhone screen sizes.) The first screen size increase was in 2012 when Apple introduced the iPhone 5, a taller iPhone that allowed for a 4" screen. In 2014, Apple made the devices larger and changed the screen size again, not only on the iPhone 6 (4.7" screen) but also with the iPhone 6 Plus (5.5" screen). Indeed, the iPhone 6 Plus was notable because it was the first time that Apple introduced an iPhone in both a regular size and a larger size.
For three years, the largest iPhones had a 5.5" screen. Then Apple dramatically changed the look of the iPhone in 2017 by introducing the iPhone X, which removed the front button completely, resulting in the all-screen design that we still have today. The new design allowed the iPhone X to have a 5.8" screen, and there was no larger model of the iPhone X in 2017. The next year, Apple introduced not only the iPhone XS with that same 5.8" screen but also the first “Max” model of an iPhone, the iPhone XS Max with a 6.5" screen.
Two years later, in 2020, Apple introduced the iPhone 12 Pro line, which changed the design of the iPhone. The rounded edge was replaced with a flat edge, reminiscent of the iPhone 5 introduced in 2012. Another change in 2020 was to increase the screen size of the Pro line, with the iPhone 12 Pro screen increasing from 5.8" to 6.1" and the iPhone 12 Pro Max screen increasing from 6.5" to 6.7". Apple also introduced an option for those who want a smaller phone: the iPhone 12 mini (with a 5.4" screen). That mini size only lasted one more year with the iPhone 13 mini and hasn’t been seen since then. However, the medium and large screen sizes of the the iPhone stayed the same in 2021, 2022, and 2023.
Thus, if you wanted to get the largest possible screen on an iPhone, the significant changes in the past were:
3.5" — Original iPhone (2007)
4" — iPhone 5 (2012)
5.5" — iPhone 6 Plus (2014)
5.8" — iPhone X (2017)
6.5" — iPhone XS Max (2018)
6.7" — iPhone 12 Pro Max (2020)
As you can see, while it took Apple five years to increase the screen size for the first time, in recent years we have seen a larger screen every two or three years. Considering that it had been four years since Apple increased the screen size to 6.7" in 2020, perhaps it should not seem surprising that Apple increased the screen size again this year, although only on the Pro versions of the iPhone. The iPhone 16 Pro goes from the prior year’s 6.1" to 6.3" and the larger Pro Max version of the iPhone goes from the prior 6.7" to 6.9". This year, just like in 2020, Apple has made the bezel even thinner, which means that the screen can be noticeably larger but the size of the iPhone’s case is only slightly larger in your hand.
There isn’t much bezel left to make much thinner, and if you make the case much bigger it is going to start to feel like an iPad instead of an iPhone. Thus, a part of me wonders if this is it. Is 6.9" the largest screen that Apple will ever make for an iPhone? If we let history serve as a guide, I guess we will find out around 2028.
For now, we have a huge 6.9" screen, and it is glorious. To state the obvious, you can see even more. In some apps, you see the same thing that you would see on prior iPhones but it is enlarged, making it easier to see small details. Looking at pictures and videos is a perfect example of this, and websites are also much easier to navigate in Safari when you have a little more space to work with. If your vision isn’t quite as good as it used to be, when things are bigger they are easier to read and appreciate. In other apps, the larger interface means that you see more content, such as perhaps an extra row in the Mail app allowing you to see one more email in the Inbox before you need to scroll to see more. To be sure, a 0.2" size increase is only a minor change, but it is noticeable. I’m sure that in the coming days and weeks, this larger size will become the new normal for me and I won’t think much of it until I see someone else using an older iPhone, which will likely seem too small to me.
Larger displays typically mean that the overall size of the iPhone itself is larger. Last year was my first year with a “Max” version of an iPhone, and it took me some time to get used to that larger size in my hand. Some tasks that I could previously do with one hand instead required using both hands. I’m happy to report that because the change in the width of the iPhone’s case this year is very small—3.02" on the iPhone 15 Pro Max versus 3.06" on the iPhone 16 Pro Max—it does not feel more awkward to hold the slightly larger iPhone 16 Pro Max. The height difference is also minimal—6.29" on the iPhone 15 Pro Max versus 6.42" on the iPhone 16 Pro Max—so I can still carry around my iPhone in a shirt pocket. Just like last year, it sticks out a little bit from the pocket, but not enough that it is going to fall out.
While the increase in size is the most noticeable, and the most noteworthy, difference with this year’s display, there is another change. This year, the display can get darker–down to only 1 nit of light. This can be useful if you are sharing a bed and don’t want a bright display to wake up your companion (although at its very darkest level, I find that even in a dark room it can be tough to read the display).
But the big news on the display this year is the size, not the 1 nit of light. Apple found a way to let you see more without the downside of a phone size that is too big for your hand. If you want to use an iPhone with only one hand, you may be happier with the regular size, but that has been true for a decade, ever since Apple introduced the first large iPhone, the iPhone 6 Plus. For the people who have already decided that they prefer a large iPhone, now there is more to love.
It is not often that we see Apple introduce the display size. And who knows, maybe this is as big as it can get. But I’m glad that Apple made the change this year. The larger display is great on the iPhone 16 Pro Max. And while I have not used an iPhone 16 Pro, I suspect that people will appreciate having a larger display on that model as well.
Camera Control. The second big change this year is the new Camera Control, which was added to all four models of the iPhone 16. Having a dedicated hardware button for nothing but taking pictures is a great idea. I’ve been using the Action button on the iPhone 15 Pro to launch my camera for the past year, and I’ve been using the volume button to snap pictures for as long as I can remember. With the iPhone 16 Pro Max, you can press the Camera Control to launch the camera app no matter what mode the iPhone is in, and that same Camera Control lets you adjust settings and take a picture.
What makes the Camera Control so powerful is that it has two kinds of interfaces. First, it is a physical button, so you can depress the button to take a picture with a satisfying click. (Or, you can hold down the button to take video for as long as you continue to press down.) Second, it is touch sensitive, like a trackpad, so you can tap on it without pressing the button to make camera adjustments.
The available camera adjustments are displayed just below the Camer Control itself. One set of options is to change the zoom level.
In this mode, you can swipe your finger back and forth across the Camera Control to zoom in and out. It is similar to what you have been able to do in the past by pinching the screen, but this time you can do it while your iPhone is in the position to take a picture, so when you get to the zoom level you want, just press the Camera Control to instantly take the picture without having to move your hands.
A related mode is the Cameras mode:
I like the Cameras mode even better than the Zoom mode because you slide your finger to switch between the different lenses. It is like Zoom, but it snaps to .5, 1x, 2x, or 5x.
For example, I can use the .5x lens to get the widest possible view, which lets me show the glass atrium in front of the Apple Store near New Orleans:
Or I can choose the 2x camera to select the special mode where the iPhone uses the 1x lens but doubles the pixels to create the best possible 2x picture.
Or I can select the 5x mode to get the closest look at that Apple in front of the store:
I like using the Cameras mode to get the best possible shot using the best lens for the job. Afterwards, I use the Crop function, where I can take my time and make the adjustments to get the final picture that I want to keep.
In the future, Apple will add another mode in which you can choose an object to keep in focus even with somehing else in the center of the picture, which is the way that a half-press on a shutter button works on DSLR cameras.
The Camera Control is really nice. First, it reduces the time between when I want to take a picture and when I actually take a picture, helping to reduce the chance that I miss the special moment. That has been my favorite improvement so far. Second, it seems natural to have the most useful controls right there under my finger so that I can see the picture that will be taken on the screen while I use the Camera Control to make adjustments. In fact, to make this process even better, Apple removes all of the on-screen controls when you are using Camera Control so that you can just focus on the image on the display, a feature that Apple calls Clean Preview. But if you don’t like this new feature, you can turn it off by opening the Settings app and going to Camera -> Camera Control -> Clean Preview.
Having a Camera Control is something very new. I still sometimes find myself sometimes using the old methods to launch the camera—muscle memory takes time to change—but every day, I’m getting more and more used to it. I’m sure that Camera Control will soon become second nature. Considering how important the iPhone is to me as a camera, I love that Apple added this feature.
48MP Ultra Wide
The .5 lens on the iPhone, which Apple calls Ultra Wide but which I always call the wide angle lens, is great when you want to capture a full scene, such as the glass ceiling in front of the Apple Store. But in the past, a downside of using that lens was that the quality of the picture was lower because it was a 12 mega-pixel (MP) lens.
This year, Apple is using a 48MP lens, the same as the standard lens. This allows you to get greater details in wide angle pictures. Additionally, because wide-angle lenses are used for macrophotography (getting really close to an object), you can get better pictures when you are really close to an object. I think that the difference is noticeable. Here is a macro picture of a flower taken with an iPhone 15 Pro Max, with my iPhone incredibly close to the small flower:
Here is the same flower taken with the iPhone 16 Pro Max, again taken incredibly close to the small flower:
And in this last picture, I’ve zoomed and cropped both, with the iPhone 15 Pro Max lens on the left and the iPhone 16 Pro Max lens on the right:
Although I think that the difference in the two lenses is noticeable, you should consider that Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac believes that the difference has as much to do with Apple doing more noise reduction on the iPhone 16 Pro Max lens. His post has some pictures to support his theory. Whatever it is that Apple is doing, I do think that the end result is a letter better.
In addition to using the Ultra Wide lens for wide-angle pictures and macro pictures, the iPhone can also use the Ultra Wide lens with the Wide lens (the regular one) with one lens acting like a left eye and the other lens acting like a right eye to take Spatial Videos. Apple introduced this feature with the iPhone 15 Pro, and I like being able to take 3D videos now so that in the future, when devices like the Apple Vision Pro are more common, I’ll have more 3D memories from today. My hope was that the improved Ultra Wide lens would result in even better Spatial images and videos, such as perhaps 4K spatial videos. But no, spatial videos are still limited to 1080p, and if the 48MP lens results in a better picture from one of the two lenses, I’m not noticing it. Oh well. Maybe next year.
Audio Mix
There are also significant audio improvements this year when you take videos. The iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max have four microphones that allow for better-quality audio recordings, including spatial audio. The new iPhone can also reduce wind noise, although I haven’t had the opportunity to try that yet.
Another feature is called Audio Mix, and this one is cool. When you take a video, the four microphones record sound from all around you. When you play back the video, the standard mix is what you are used to hearing from prior iPhones. But if you change to In-Frame mix, the video plays the voice of people who are in-frame but noises from elsewhere, including background noises, are greatly reduced. If you want even more of that, change to Studio mix, and Apple dampens background noise to create an effect that is somewhat similar to recording audio in a sound studio. It’s not perfect, but it is very different from the Standard Mix. It is similar to using noise canceling headphones so that the sound of the outside world is greatly reduced and you can focus on one thing. On the other hand, if you want to hear all of the noises from around you but have them consolidated toward the front of the screen, the way that they are for movies, you can choose Cinematic mix.
This is going to be a really nice feature to have going forward. I wish I could use this feature on the iPhone to go-back and re-edit the sound mix one some of the videos that I’ve taken when my prior iPhones. Alas, that is not possible, but it is nice to know that I have this option going forward.
Battery life
The iPhone 16 Pro Max has the best battery life of any iPhone ever made. Apple says that it can play video for a staggering 33 hours in a row. I haven’t tested the battery life, but Tom Pritchard of Tom’s Guide has. Tom’s Guide has a standard battery test that it does with all smartphones in which it surfs the web over 5G at 150 nits of screen brightness. The result for the iPhone 16 Pro Max was impressive:
The iPhone 16 Pro Max managed to hit 18 hours and 6 minutes during our testing. Not only does that mean it has the best battery life of any iPhone Apple’s ever released, it also beats out almost every other phone we’ve tested. In fact, it was so good that we’re actually running the test again to make sure it wasn’t a fluke.
All that I can say is that in my last week with the iPhone 16 Pro Max, I haven’t even come close to running out of battery life during any day. Part of that is just because I have a new iPhone; new iPhones always have great battery life. But it is nice knowing that when I have one of those super long days where I won’t have an opportunity to recharge my iPhone, I’ll have more battery power than I’ve ever had before.
If you do need to replace the battery in an iPhone 16, it will be easier than before because Apple is using a special electrically-released adhesive to hold the battery in place. As Donald Papp of Hackaday explains, a repair shop can apply “a voltage (a 9 V battery will do the job) between the aluminum frame of the phone and a special tab on the battery. In about a minute the battery will come away with no force, and residue-free.” Interesting.
Ready for Apple Intelligence
Apple is emphasizing in its advertisements that all four models of the iPhone 16 are ready for Apple Intelligence, a series of AI features that will be added to iOS starting in October, with additional features added over time. The main reason that these new models are ready is that they contain 8GB of RAM. The two iPhone 15 Pro models introduced a year ago also have 8GB of RAM, and that is why Apple says that those two models are ready for Apple Intelligence but not the non-Pro iPhone 15 models.
I cannot review Apple Intelligence because I haven’t tried it yet, but I’ve been reading the review of people use the beta, and I have some doubts. John Gruber of Daring Fireball says:
Also, none of the Apple Intelligence features currently in iOS 18.1 are game-changing. The Clean Up feature in Photos is pretty good, and when it doesn’t produce good results, you can simply revert to the original. The AI-generated summaries of messages, notifications, and emails in Mail are at times apt, but at others not so much. I haven’t tried the Rewrite tool because I’m, let’s face it, pretty confident in my own writing ability. But, after my own final editing pass, I ran this entire review through the Proofread feature, and it correctly flagged seven mistakes I missed, and an eighth that I had marked, but had forgotten to fix. Most of its suggestions that I have chosen to ignore were, by the book, legitimate. (E.g., it suggested replacing the jargon-y lede with the standard spelling lead. It also flagged my stubborn capitalization of “MacOS”.) It took 1 minute, 45 seconds to complete the proofreading pass of the 7,200+ words in Apple Notes on the iPhone 16 Pro.
Siri will also be smarter with Apple Intelligence, with the ability to help you find information on your iPhone no matter where it is located, and much more.
The improved Siri and Clean Up feature in Photos both seem useful. On the other hand, I have questions about how useful the writing features will be.
Having said that, I have no doubt that AI on the iPhone has lots of potential for the long term. With the new iPhone 16, or with the Pro models of last year’s iPhone 15, you can start to experience it as it unfolds.
Conclusion
If taking pictures and videos is not important to you, then the other improvements in the iPhone 16 Pro Max may seem relatively minor: the screen is a little bigger, the battery lasts longer, and you get to see the first implementations of Apple Intelligence. But if you are like me and you enjoy taking pictures and videos, doing so is easier than ever thanks to the Camera Control, those pictures and videos look even more dynamic on the larger screen, and you can adjust the audio in ways that you never before could thanks to the four microphones and the Audio Mix feature. Those are great new features, especially considering that one of them—the larger screen—only occurs every few years and may not occur much more in the future.
If you are in the market for a new iPhone, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is a great device. It’s been fun to use over the past week, and I look forward to seeing what more it can do.
Brett and I begin this week’s episode of the In the News podcast talking about the Apple Watch Series 10. What makes it special, how does it compare to the Apple Watch Ultra 2, and should you consider upgrading? We address all of those topics, and then we move on to the new iPhone. We begin by discussing the different ways to move from an old iPhone to a new iPhone, including the dramatic solution of starting over again from scratch, which is what I did this time. We also discuss the Camera Control on the new iPhone 16, whether you should limit your iPhone to charging to 80% (spoiler alert: probably not), the new AirPods 4, what the Meta Orion means for the Apple Vision Pro, and much more.
In our In the Know segment, we discuss some new features in iOS 18. Brett discusses the excellent currency converter in the new Calculator app, and I discuss the new Privacy and Security section of the Settings app.
I love my Apple Vision Pro in part because it is great to use today but also because it is a fun preview of what many more people will be using in the future. Eventually, this type of device will get cheaper and even smaller, like a pair of glasses. This week, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta showed off to Alex Heath of The Verge a device called Orion, which is a pair of AR glasses. Meta isn’t going to sell the device because it is too difficult and expensive to make—Zuckerberg said that they would have to charge over $10,000 for each device—but Meta is using them internally to test out ideas for the future. Seeing the Orion in action in the video on The Verge makes me wonder what eyeglass-like device Apple must be testing in its own labs. Of course, Apple, unlike Meta, doesn’t show off devices unless it is going to sell them. Watching the Orion in action gives me hope that at some point in the future, not too many years from now, the Apple Vision Pro will evolve into something really special. And now, the news of note from the past week:
As September—Childhood Cancer Awareness Month—draws to a close, we are days away from the end of the annual campaign to raise money for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. Thank you to everyone who has donated. If you haven’t done so yet, you have a few more days to do so—which will give you that good feeling inside that comes with doing something to help others who really need the help. So for the last time this year, here is the link to make a donation to the campaign. Thank you!
Last week, I raised a glass to Touch Arcade, a website that started in 2008 (the same year as iPhone J.D.) and is now shutting down. This week, iMore, an Apple-focused website that also started in 2008, announced that it is shutting down too. There have been a ton of fantastic writers at iMore over the years who moved on to bigger and better things including Rene Ritchie (YouTube), Serenity Caldwell (Apple), Dieter Bohn (Google), Lory Gil (Apple), and others. I think the site was at its all-time best when Rene Ritchie was in charge, and I will always remember Serenity Caldwell’s 2016 review of the Apple Pencil that was produced with the Apple Pencil (and is still fun to look at today). I have linked to iMore countless times in these In the News posts. Thanks to everyone who made iMore a special place for all these years.
Jason Snell of Six Colors recommends using the Action button on an iPhone 16 to trigger a shortcut, and he explains exactly how to do that.
Are the iPhone 16 Pro’s Spatial Videos any better than the iPhone 15 Pro’s? David Stroud ran many tests, and unfortunately, the answer is no. That’s a bummer because this is something that I had been expecting.
In 2002, the movie 28 Days Later came out, a Zombie movie directed by Danny Boyle that received excellent reviews. The sequel, 28 Weeks Later, came out in 2007. And filming just finished on the third movie, 28 Years Later, which will be released in Summer 2025. Carlton Reid of Wired reports that the upcoming movie, which stars Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Ralph Fiennes, was filmed entirely using the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which is a first for a big-budget blockbuster movie.
Should you enable the setting on an iPhone that limits the maximum charge to 80% to prolong battery life? Juli Clover of MacRumors enabled that setting for an entire year on an iPhone 15 Pro Max, and then compared her results to others who had the feature turned off. As she explains in this article, the impact on her overall battery life was minimal, and suffering through an 80% battery limit for a year wasn’t worth it. I’m so glad that she ran this experiment and shared the result so the rest of us know that this probably isn’t worth doing. As John Gruber of Daring Fireball commented on her results: “for most people there’s no practical point to limiting your iPhone’s charging capacity. All you’re doing is preventing yourself from ever enjoying a 100-percent-capacity battery. Let the device manage its own battery. Apple has put a lot of engineering into making that really smart.”
Tim Hardwick of MacRumors published a great list of 25 features in watchOS 11 that you should know about.
Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac reviews the AirPods 4 and finds lots of great improvements.
Billy Steele of Engadget provides the behind-the-scenes story of how the AirPods 4 were developed, starting back in 2020.
HomeKit now supports Matter version 1.2, and as Bradley Chambers of 9to5Mac reports, this means that it now suports more kinds of devices, such as air purifiers.
Apple files for many patents on ideas that never see the light of day, but sometimes they do. William Gallaher of Apple Insider reports that Apple has filed a patent for using an Apple Pencil as an antenna to pick up a TV signal to watch TV on an iPad. That is not something that I ever imagined doing with my Apple Pencil.
Speaking of patents, many people are upset that if you buy an Apple Watch in the United States, the blood oxygen monitoring feature is currently disabled because of a ruling in a lawsuit between Apple and Masimo. However, Masimo announced this week that its president is resigning after losing a proxy battle with a hedge fund investor, as reported by many including Filipe Espósito of 9to5Mac. With this major change at Massimo and a trial between Apple and Masimo coming up next month, perhaps we will see an end to this dispute soon and then the blood oxygen feature can be turned back on.
One of my favorite podcasts is the Upgrade podcast, released every Monday by Jason Snell and Myke Hurley. For this week’s Episode 530, in addition to the traditional audio podcast, Jason recorded a 360º video version. While you can watch it in 2D on a computer and use a mouse to change the vantage point, watching this while wearing a Vision Pro is really incredible because you feel like you are just sitting quietly in a chair in the corner of the room as they record the podcast, with you having the ability to look anywhere around you, even behind you, as they talk. (Use the Juno app on the Vision Pro to watch a YouTube video in 360º. I also prefer using that app to watch any YouTube content.) Very cool, and another example of seeing a glimpse of the future by using an Apple Vision Pro.
Balatro is a game somewhat similar to poker that is very popular on the PC, Nintendo Switch, and other platforms. Yesterday, it was released on the App Store. Balatro+ is free if you subscribe to Apple Arcade, or you can pay $9.99 for Balatro. As Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac reports, the game gets great reviews. It seems like the type of game that I would enjoy playing—play at your own pace, consider strategies, etc. I played it for a short time last night and I’m not seeing what all of the fuss is about, but maybe it will grow on me in the future. If you have Apple Arcade, it won’t cost you anything to check it out to see what you think.
And finally, Jimmy Fallon of The Tonight Show filmed a cute segment in which he and Apple CEO Tim Cook discuss the new iPhone 16 while walking through New York. Here is the video:
For many of us, the Photos app is the most important app on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac because it is the place where we store our most precious memories. This year, the Photos app saw major changes in iOS 18 for the iPhone and iPadOS 18 for the iPad. Photos for the Mac also saw some important changes, although it doesn’t seem quite as dramatic.
If you want some help understanding everything that makes the Photos app so useful, there is a great resource for you: Take Control of Photos by Jason Snell. Jason has been writing about Apple since the 1990s and is the former editor of Macworld, so there are few people in the world who know more about Apple and its products. And as someone who has been a writer and a podcaster for many years, Jason is well-known for his ability to explain things in a way that makes sense to everyone. That is one of the reasons that I so frequently link to articles by Jason in my Friday In the News post.
Like all books in the Take Control series, this is an electronic book, available in PDF and EPUB formats. That means that you can read it on nearly any device, including the large screens of an iPad or a Mac. The book is $14.99, but if you own a prior version of the book, the upgrade is only $5.00. And anyone can download a free sample to get a feel for the book by browsing through 43 of the over 200 total pages. (Take Control Books provided me with a free copy of the book for this review.)
Back in 2015, Jason wrote a book for Take Control called Photos for Mac (my review). It was well done and I recommended it. Over the past decade, Jason has improved and updated his guide to using Photos, releasing Take Control of Photos in 2018 (my review), a second edition in 2019 (my review), and a third edition in 2022 (my review). This week, he has released the fourth edition. Not only is it the best one yet, but it is especiaally useful this year because, as I noted above, Photos itself has some major changes this year. So many aspects of the app work differently this year, and thus it is more useful than ever to have a well-written guide to every aspect of the apps.
And I say “apps” in plural because Jason addresses Photos on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It amazes me that there are still some things that you can only do on an iPhone or iPad and other things that you can only do on a Mac in Photos, and some things you can do on all platforms but the way that you do so is different. Jason’s book helps you to navigate all of this.
Jason also helps you to get the most out of the features in Photos. For example, a very useful feature in Photos is the ability to recognize faces. Once you start using this feature, it is easy to find all of the pictures with Mary. Or Susan. Or both Mary and Susan in the same picture. Jason explains how you can fine-tune this feature by helping the Photos app identify a person when it isn’t quite sure about a face. And even though faces are examined separately on each of your devices, the time that you spend identifying faces is used in all of your devices. As Jason explains on page 75: “While machine-learning-based face recognition data isn’t synced via iCloud Photos, all of your personal identifications and confirmations are synced, which helps Photos keep your People views more or less in sync across your devices.” Until now, I wasn’t exactly sure how that worked, and now I know.
Although the focus of the book is the Photos app, Jason also addresses things that are Photos-adjacent, such as sharing your photos with others in a printed book, displaying photos on an Apple TV or an Apple Watch, and more.
Jason’s book is full of pictures—download the free sample to see what I mean—making it easy to follow. It is an easy read, and you could just sit down and read it cover-to-cover if you want. But I especially like using it as a guide, jumping to the section on a specific topic whenever I have a qeustion about something in Photos or I just want to see if there is more that I can learn on some aspect of Photos.
Thanks to Jason for updating this valuable resource. We need it this year more than ever. If you or someone you know wants to learn more about the Photos app, this is a great place to turn.
