The new year has begun and I've been receiving many firsts, but the most impactful first thing I've received is upgrading from my iPhone 14 to an iPhone 16 Pro.
There are a number of complex reasons for the replacement, but first of all, this iPhone 14 had previously caught fire (See this article), I was worried about continuing to use it as it was, and since SoftBank was running a free upgrade campaign (where any remaining balance on the old device would be waived), I decided to buy a new phone.
And since I have the chance, I thought I would try a comparative review. I would like to introduce the latest gadgets while enjoying them.
Review of 16 interesting features of the iPhone 10 Pro
Some of the following features are also included in the iPhone 15, but we will review them with that in mind.
Titanium body texture
First of all, the beautiful and rugged design of the case catches your eye.
And the body is made of beautiful titanium (although you won't notice it until you put the case on), and the cool feel and dull shine of titanium really give it a luxurious feel.
I chose the feminine color Desert Titanium. Space Gray would have been cool, but there are a lot of black gadgets around so I was worried it would get lost...
But as always with the iPhone series, if I don't put a case on it, my hands hurt right away. Also, it's slippery and hard to hold...
I bought an iFace case even though I suspected they might be in cahoots with case manufacturers.
Larger screen size
In terms of appearance, the iPhone 14's 6.1-inch screen is (1,170 x 2,532 pixels)
The screen size of the iPhone 16 Pro has increased to 6.3 inches (1,206 x 2,622 pixels).
As someone who used to use an iPhone 5, I can say that even the standard iPhones these days are big and heavy.
Personally, I think the standard iPhone 14 is big enough, so I don't think there's any need to go up that much in size.
That said, I was using an iPhone 11 Pro Max, so I'm not sure what I'm talking about.
The long-awaited USB Type-C
As I was looking at it from afar, I thought, "That's nice," when I saw the iPhone equipped with USB Type-C.
When I'm outdoors or doing nomadic work, I often have to carry around two cables, one Lightning and one USB Type-C, which I find inconvenient, so I've always wanted a new Type-C cable to be installed.
At last, that dream came true and it joined the Type-C family.
Now you don't have to worry about cables anymore. It's great.
Telephoto camera lens
And the biggest benefit to me is that it comes with three camera lenses.
I often have to take pictures of small things while running a gadget blog, but the iPhone only has a wide-angle and a standard lens, so when I try to take a close-up shot of a small object, the focus is blurred, and I have no choice but to bring out my SLR camera, which is a pain. (Actually, it's better to take pictures with a SLR...)
Before the iPhone 14, I was using the iPhone 11 Pro Max, so I really felt that I needed a telephoto lens.
Why did I choose the iPhone 14?
Huge camera pixel count
Also, the camera resolution has been significantly increased from 1200 megapixels to 4800 megapixels. With the iPhone 14, it was possible to enlarge images to roughly A300 size at 4 dpi, but with the iPhone 16, it will be possible to enlarge images to A2 size with ease, which I think will be a great experience for those who take photos seriously (although the storage capacity will increase accordingly).
This is just my personal preference, but in the future, when AI chips are installed, I would like users to be able to choose the number of pixels.
Too many unnecessary pixels only do harm by eating up space on the iPhone.
Interesting 4K shooting
As a videographer, I'm interested in the fact that the camera can shoot 4K video. It's packed with specs including up to 4K60p, ProRes 422 recording, image stabilization, and HDR.
Although there is a difference in sensor size, I think this can be considered a professional spec "video equipment." Although the weak sound recording is still a weak point.
Still, there's no doubt that the iPhone is awakening as a full-fledged action camera.
Nowadays, you can take cinema-class videos with an iPhone, except for the depth of field. It's the ultimate gadget.
You can shoot spatial video.
Another interesting thing is that a new shooting function called "Spatial Video" has been added. This is a shooting method for VR, and it seems that you can easily shoot VR with Apple Vision by recording with dual cameras. I wonder if this function will allow you to enjoy 3D images on VR devices such as Meta Quest XNUMX. Until a while ago, it was very difficult to create VR images.
Editing also requires skill. But now it has become so accessible. I'm interested, but I don't have a headset...
I used to have an Oculus Rift, but it was a device that required some skill to turn on.
*VR is expensive and we cannot purchase it, so we are looking for companies that can lend it to us for review purposes.
I'm happy with the increased memory
The memory has been increased from 14GB on the iPhone 6 to 16GB on the 8 Pro. I have never experienced slowdowns when multitasking, but considering that I will be using generative AI a lot from now on, the increased memory is a safe bet. It's only a 2GB increase, but I think the difference from 6GB is quite large.
Until a while ago, both PCs and Macs were considered to have high specs, with 256MB of memory, but more than XNUMX years have passed since then...times have changed.
Battery power has also increased slightly
It's also reassuring that the battery life has been extended, with the iPhone 14 Pro's battery life lasting up to 20 hours, compared to the iPhone 16's maximum video playback time of 22 hours. It may only seem like two hours, but when I go hiking and leave Google Maps on, the battery gets a little shaky by dusk, so I'm happy about this power boost. It may not be too far in the future when we have a function to manage the battery using AI.
How to use the action buttons
Another big difference in appearance is the inclusion of an "action button," which allows you to assign shortcuts to your favorites, which I think is an interesting move. By default, pressing and holding the button will put the phone into silent mode, and pressing and holding it again will turn it off.
Personally, I would like to assign the action button to launch the camera or take screenshots, but in that case, how would I put the phone into silent mode?
It's worth a little investigation. This is a must-see for gadget lovers.
Another reason for choosing "Pro"
Besides the camera function, there was another reason why I chose the iPhone 16 Pro, and that is as insurance against OS updates.
AI functions were incorporated into iOS 18.2, but they were only available on the iPhone 15 Pro. The original iPhone 15 was cut off.
Thinking that something like this might happen again in the future, I upgraded my iPhone 16 to the Pro model.
Recently, Apple has been very strict with its MacOS cutoff line, so I'm actually a bit scared that iOS will finally follow suit. This iPhone 16ro is over 20 yen.
To be honest, I'd like to keep using it for 6 years to get my money's worth. (I've never lasted that long, though.)
In reality, the life cycle of a product is probably 2-3 years. That's too short. The only gadgets that are this expensive and have such a short lifespan are smartphones.
Anyway, for these reasons I decided to go with "Pro".
Of course, this is premised on the fact that you are attracted to the camera functions.
Packed with AI features starting in April
What the iPhone 14 Pro has that the iPhone 16 doesn't have is AI functionality.
However, most of its functions have not yet been localized into Japanese, and they will likely be available in the iOS 2025 update in April 4, so I'd like to review them again at that time.
So until then, your iPhone will slowly go to sleep.
I wish spring would come soon(｡•ᴗ•｡)♡
The power of the camera's telephoto lens
This was the feature I was most happy to use. It comes with a lens that can take close-up photos from 2x to 5x optical magnification, so I immediately tried taking some product photos for my blog, and it was incredibly easy to use.
Previous iPhones didn't have telephoto lenses, so if I wanted to use a close-up photo, I had to crop it, but worrying about pixel count wasn't very mentally beneficial.
The joy of using the iPhone 11 Pro Max is brought back to life.
I'm happy that I can now take lots of photos without having to worry about that anymore.
There is no longer any need to hold the heavy Nikon D3 in one hand.
Lightness is justice!
Summary
The iPhone 16 Pro does not yet have "AI" localized, and it is still like an egg that is warming slowly to break out of its shell.
Will it be Bahamut or a chocobo that breaks out of its shell in the spring?
Right now, there's not much difference between what it can do and the iPhone 14, but I'm sure the iPhone will make a big leap in the spring...
Until then, I can only admire this beautiful gadget and wait patiently, excitedly.
↓I also wrote an article predicting the iPhone 16e, so please check it out if you're interested!
↓The latest information on the iPhone 17 Air is summarized here!
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