If you have an iPhone 15 or 15 Pro, you might want to wait for the iPhone 17 series. Everything indicates that the upcoming iPhone 16 series won’t be a significant change, keeping practically the same design too. So, it wouldn’t represent a big enough upgrade, especially for the price.
Following the iPhone 15 series launch, the mobile tech industry began to speculate about potential changes on the next generation. What was initially optimism quickly became disappointment for possible minimal improvements. While some hardware upgrades are expected for the iPhone 16 series, it seems that support for Apple Intelligence will be its key selling point.
iPhone 16 series to keep same current design and get few improvements
In line with that, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman listed the main expected hardware upgrades that the iPhone 16 series will bring. According to the report, there will be only four key improvements: an Action button, a Capture button, a larger screen for the “Pro” models, and the same chipset across the series (including vanilla and Plus variants). So, they don’t even apply to all models.
Apple debuted the Action button on the iPhone 15 series, replacing the Mute switch. However, it was only available on the “Pro” variants. It’s basically a customizable button that you can assign shortcuts to for running apps or executing specific tasks. Now, all iPhone 16 models are expected to have it, which is great. As for the Capture button, it’s a physical camera shutter that will enable some features. These include tweaking the zoom, activating autofocus, and taking photos/videos.
As for larger displays, only the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro Max will get it. The “Pro” variant display is said to grow to 6.3″ (previously 6.1″), and the “Pro Max” model will go up to 6.9″ (previously 6.7″). It’s possible that the company wants to use the screen size as a further differentiating aspect between the vanilla and Pro variants. This would make the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s display as big as tablets of yesteryear.
Apple will return to its previous strategy: same chip for all models
Lastly, Apple will stop using weaker chipsets in non-Pro models. The company started that strategy in the iPhone 14 series, recycling the previous-gen Apple A15 chip for the vanilla and “Pro” variants. However, Apple Intelligence will be a key selling point in the iPhone 16 series. Therefore, Apple has to make sure that everything works perfectly on all models. In fact, that strategy would have negatively affected the future-proofing of the current-gen iPhone series. As we already know, outside of the iPhone 16 series, Apple Intelligence will only reach iPhone 15 Pro models.
2024-08-12 15:06:21