Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max review: Do you want the same phone every year?

These dimensional differences are headlined by what Apple advertised at launch as “the biggest display on an iPhone, ever”. That is factually correct—this year, you get a 6.9-inch display, with even slimmer borders between the screen and the frame. Does it make a huge difference in your everyday life? Not really, but in a world where our entire lives are played out through our smartphones, bigger displays never hurt. You also get it in nearly the same dimensions—the millimetre-wide difference doesn’t make an impact; and, if you’re buying the Pro Max variant of the iPhone, chances are that you’re not overly bothered with having such a large and unwieldy smartphone as your everyday device.

The hot new button

The biggest ‘difference’, though, comes in the form of a camera button—which, for some reason, Apple doesn’t want to call a button. Called ‘camera control’ in official jargon, this is a physical button with an embedded vibration engine that you can use to take photos as well as adjust settings with. The idea, for Apple, is to enable one-handed camera usage on a smartphone that borders on tablet territory—which is an interesting attempt at salvaging ergonomics.

To be sure, it’s good to see brands still thinking of ergonomics as part of the user experience (UX) journey—fewer smartphone makers today prioritise aspects such as pocketability and one-handed usage. But, the thing about the camera control button on the iPhone 16 Pro Max is that at least right now, it does feel surplus.

Also read: Google versus Samsung: Foldable phone designs hit the refresh button

The vibration feedback on the button makes you feel that the button is like a two-step shutter, even though it isn’t one. This half-step press of the button brings up a menu, which you can scroll through by swiping along the button. You can select options including exposure, depth, a servo zoom simulation, preset focal lengths including telephoto and ultrawide, and camera styles and colour tones. A long-press of the button from the home or lock screens directly opens the camera itself, and a full press of it takes an instant photograph. Further, long-pressing it also records an instant video. The camera module’s placement is also perfectly aligned to ensure that your fingers do not end up accidentally being in a photo that you take, with the Action Button acting as a shutter.

However, you can simply configure the iPhone’s ‘Action Button’—the erstwhile volume/mute toggle that became a multipurpose button since last year’s iPhone 15 Pro/Max models—can already do this. This button isn’t exclusive to just the ‘Pro’ models—the base iPhone 16 also gets it. While this is good for the new lineup in general, this also gives buyers fewer reasons to consider the ‘Pro’ models this year.

Beyond these, the biggest draw of the new iPhone 16 lineup is Apple Intelligence—the generative AI-powered suite of features that are expected to be introduced in a future software update. The latter, though, is not coming any time soon—if your settings are set to India, you’ll have to wait until the first half of 2025.

There are, however, incremental new features on iOS 18—but these aren’t tied down to just the iPhone 16 Pro Max. For instance, Apple’s ‘Voice Memos’ app finally gets the transcription feature—a lifeline for journalists. There’s also the ability to record spatial photos and audio with the new phone, which will be a definite step-up for content creators. The ability to edit and layer standard voice recordings is a deceptively useful feature for home audio and video productions alike, but in parallel comparison, the outright quality difference in audio recordings is not a major jump over its predecessor.

As always, the best part about the ‘Pro Max’ models each year is their battery lifespan per charge cycle—Apple’s official statement rated the iPhone 16 Pro Max to offer 33 hours of video playback time, four hours longer than the iPhone 15 Pro Max. This is delivered in the real world as well—even with considerably heavy usage, the battery has so far not fallen below 30% after 16 hours of continued usage.

Why the iPhone?

All said and done, though, there’s one thing that no brand does better than Apple—marketing. Each year, naysayers and critics underline that Apple’s primary revenue driver, the iPhone, is no longer innovative. Yet, market reportage and financial figures show a contrarian picture.

At the time of publishing this story, Apple was the most valuable company in the world—with a market cap of $2.9 trillion, ahead of Microsoft and Nvidia. Last year, one in every five smartphones sold globally was an iPhone, with Apple being the only brand among the top four phone-makers to have seen its sales grow in a year when consumer sentiment was down. In India, this impact is even bigger—this year, Apple is expected to sell 30% more phones than what it did last year.

This speaks of the brand’s halo that the iPhone has carved out in its 17-year history. In a year of consolidation, both Samsung and Google have shown that the primary innovation in consumer gadgets will come in software. Apple, on its part, takes its time in rolling out a feature—with AI, this is no different.

Also read: Apple Intelligence will come to iPhone, iPad, and Mac soon. But there’s a catch

The truth, therefore, is that for the iPhone 16 Pro Max, the target customer base is not consumers going through the usual upgrade cycle—this smartphone is mostly for content creators. This year, it begins at a lower price of ₹144,900, and while this is still one of the higher price tags for the iPhone 16 Pro Max globally, the impact of import duty reduction—and subsequent production localisation—will likely have a welcome impact on demand for the top iPhone variant.

To be sure, the social value of the ‘Pro’ iPhone’s three-camera design is a halo that no amount of criticism of innovation can take away. For that, the iPhone 16 Pro Max will continue to hold the same place alongside the very best of Samsung and Google—even if you don’t find its camera control button exciting enough.