Apple’s new iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max feature Apple Intelligence, larger display sizes, new creative capabilities with pro camera features, graphics for immersive gaming, and more, powered by the A18 Pro chip.
With Apple Intelligence, the iPhone includes Apple-built generative models in the personal intelligence system that understands personal context to deliver intelligence that is helpful and relevant while protecting user privacy.
Camera Control unlocks a fast, intuitive way to tap into visual intelligence and easily interact with the advanced camera system.
Featuring a new 48MP Fusion camera with a faster quad-pixel sensor that enables 4K120 fps video recording in Dolby Vision, these new Pro models achieve the highest resolution and frame-rate combination ever available on iPhone.
Additional advancements include a new 48MP Ultra Wide camera for higher-resolution photography, including macro; a 5x Telephoto camera on both Pro models; and studio-quality mics to record more true-to-life audio.
The durable titanium design is strong yet lightweight, with larger display sizes, the thinnest borders on any Apple product, and a huge leap in battery life – with iPhone 16 Pro Max offering the best battery life on iPhone ever.
iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max will be available in four finishes: black titanium, natural titanium, white titanium, and desert titanium.
“Powered by the faster, more efficient A18 Pro chip and built for Apple Intelligence, iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max are the most advanced iPhone models we’ve ever made,” says Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice-president of worldwide marketing.
“Customers who are looking for the best possible iPhone will be able to take advantage of this huge step forward, whether they’re applying edits to a photo without lifting a finger, rewriting meeting notes for a more professional tone, or using the advanced camera system to capture their next masterpiece in 4K120 fps in Dolby Vision — all while enjoying extraordinary battery life.”
Apple Intelligence on the iPhone 16 lineup harnesses the power of Apple silicon and Apple-built generative models to understand and create language and images, take action across apps, and draw from personal context to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks.
Apple Intelligence maintains the privacy and security of user data with Private Cloud Compute. It provides the ability to flex and scale computational capacity between on-device processing and larger, server-based models that run on dedicated Apple silicon servers.
Apple Intelligence will be available as a free software update, with the first set of features rolling out next month in US English for most regions around the world.
Apple Intelligence adds systemwide Writing Tools, checking for grammar, word choice and sentence structure; and summarising selected text. In the Notes and Phone apps, users can also record, transcribe, and summarise audio. When a recording is initiated while on a call in the Phone app, participants are automatically notified, and once the call ends, Apple Intelligence generates a summary.
Apple Intelligence helps users prioritise with summarised notifications, along with Priority Messages in Mail. Across a user’s inbox, summaries convey the most important information of each email instead of previewing the first few lines.
Siri becomes more deeply integrated into the system experience and gets a new design plus richer language-understanding capabilities.
The new Pro lineup features the thinnest borders of any Apple product and introduces larger display sizes: 6,3-inches on iPhone 16 Pro and 6,9-inches on iPhone 16 Pro Max — the largest iPhone display ever. The Super Retina XDR displays with Always-On and ProMotion technologies. Both models include a titanium design, as well as Ceramic Shield. The new mechanical architecture improves heat dissipation and efficiency for up to 20% better sustained performance. Along with the new internal design and advanced power management of iOS 18, larger batteries are optimised to increase battery life.
Camera Control makes the pro camera system more versatile. It has a tactile switch, a high-precision force sensor and a capacitive sensor. A new camera preview helps users frame the shot and adjust other control options — such as zoom, exposure, or depth of field. Camera Control will soon be updated with a two-stage shutter to automatically lock focus and exposure on a subject. Additionally, developers will be able to bring Camera Control to third-party apps such as Kino.
Later this year, Camera Control will unlock visual intelligence to help users learn about objects and places.
Powered by A18 Pro, the upgraded camera system introduces a new 48MP Fusion camera with a faster, more efficient quad-pixel sensor and Apple Camera Interface, unlocking 4K120 fps video recording in Dolby Vision. The quad-pixel sensor can read data 2x faster, enabling zero shutter lag for 48MP ProRAW or HEIF photos.
A new 48MP Ultra Wide camera also features a quad-pixel sensor with autofocus, so users can take higher-resolution 48MP ProRAW and HEIF images when capturing uniquely framed, wider-angle shots or getting close to their subjects with macro photography.
The 5x Telephoto camera now comes on both iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, and both phones can now take spatial photos in addition to videos.
Users can capture 4K120 fps in Slo-mo or Video mode, and adjust the playback speed after capture in the Photos app, including a quarter-speed playback, a new half-speed option, and a fifth-speed option that corresponds to 24 fps. When coupled with the new image signal processor (ISP) of A18 Pro, users can do frame-by-frame cinema-quality color grading for 4K120 fps in Dolby Vision. Users can also capture 4K120 fps ProRes and Log directly to an external storage device.
Both Pro models feature four new studio-quality mics, and video can now be captured in Spatial Audio. The iPhone 16 Pro lineup also introduces new ways to edit video sound with Audio Mix — allowing users to adjust their sound after capture to focus on the voice of the person on camera, make it sound like the video was recorded inside a professional studio, or position vocal tracks in the front and environmental noises in surround sound. With wind noise reduction, powerful machine learning (ML) algorithms reduce unwanted noise for better audio quality.
Photographic Styles let users adjust color, highlights, and shadows in real time. Styles also have a deeper understanding of skin undertones, so users can personalise how they appear in photos.
In later updates, Siri will be able to complete in-app requests and take action across apps, like pulling up a specific shot from a user’s Photos library and then applying an edit to the image in Darkroom. Siri can also help users fully utilise the range of photo and editing capabilities.
The new A18 Pro chip is built with second-generation 3-nanometer technology and features a new architecture with smaller, faster transistors. The new 16-core Neural Engine is faster and more efficient than the previous generation. A 17% increase in total system memory bandwidth is the highest ever in an iPhone. The bandwidth increase also benefits the 6-core GPU, which is up to 20% faster than the previous generation. Hardware-accelerated ray tracing gets up to 2x faster, and Game Mode in iOS 18 unlocks more consistent frame rates while making AirPods, game controllers, and other wireless accessories more responsive.
A18 Pro enables Always-On and ProMotion technologies, as well as faster USB 3 speeds and ProRes video recording. A new ISP and video encoder process 2x the amount of data for faster video encoding and pro workflows.
Uusers are able to connect to the nearest satellite to send and receive texts, emoji, and Tapbacks over iMessage and SMS while outside cellular and WiFi coverage. Messages via satellite in iOS 18 are end-to-end encrypted.
As part of Apple 2030, the company’s ambitious goal to be carbon neutral across its entire carbon footprint by the end of this decade, Apple is prioritising renewable electricity in manufacturing, and investing in wind and solar projects around the world to address the electricity used to charge all Apple products, including the iPhone 16 lineup. Today, all Apple facilities run on 100% renewable electricity – including the data centres that power Apple Intelligence.
The company is also designing products with recycled and renewable materials. iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max feature more than 25% recycled content overall, including 100% recycled aluminum in the internal structural frame and 80% or more recycled steel across multiple components.
The battery is made with 100% recycled cobalt and – in a first for iPhone – over 95% recycled lithium. The iPhone 16 Pro lineup also meets Apple’s high standards for energy efficiency, and is free of mercury and PVC. The packaging is entirely fiber-based, bringing Apple closer to its goal of removing plastic from its packaging by next year.