iPhone Diary: Apple likely to sell me an iPhone 16 Pro Max for two reasons

I didn’t always upgrade my iPhone every year. That process started with the iPhone X, but it has continued since then, and it’s generally been the camera features which have parted me from my money.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max doesn’t seem like it will quite have a single killer feature for me, but it does appear that it would only take two rumored new features for Apple to ring up a sale …

It’s not usually about a single killer feature

It’s rare that a single killer feature has sold me on an iPhone upgrade. The X was a no-brainer, of course, for the new form factor, and with the iPhone 11 Pro, it was the wide-angle lens. But more often it’s a set of camera improvements which has given Apple my money.

The iPhone 12 Pro Max gave me an irresistible combination of a larger sensor, night mode portraits, and ProRAW shooting.

The iPhone 13 Pro Max had an amazing line-up of camera features in the form of Night mode on the telephoto lens; wider apertures, for even better low-light photos; Apple ProRes; and Cinematic Mode videos.

The iPhone 14 Pro Max offered much improved night photography, the 48MP sensor, and enhanced video performance.

The Action button was close to a killer feature on the iPhone 15 Pro Max for me, with instant video shooting the key attraction. The 5x telephoto lens is great for portraits, though most of the time I’d actually prefer the old 3x lens.

The Capture button gets close to KF status

I said recently that the closest thing yet to a killer feature for me is the dedicated Capture button.

What The Information appears to be describing here is a half-press feature, which has been standard on SLRs even before DSLRs. Pressing the shutter button halfway down locks the exposure and focus, and pressing it the rest of the way then takes the photo.

That simple feature makes a huge difference to the ease and speed with which you can correctly expose and focus a shot, and it will make an even bigger difference on an iPhone as that requires us to tap the part of the screen containing the subject, and then sometimes have to drag the exposure up or down. That’s very awkward while trying to maintain your framing of a shot.

Since then, we’re hearing that although the button will have a capacitive swipe feature for zoom (and possibly for manually adjusting exposure too), the actual press button will be mechanical, which pleases me even more.

Add one of two additional features, and Apple’s sales job will be complete …

Improved Ultra Wide camera

Although the wide angle camera was enough to persuade me to upgrade to the iPhone 11, and it’s great for daylight landscapes and cityscapes, it does struggle noticeably in poorer light. Indoor use is particularly disappointing (and that is something I value for some spectacular buildings when travelling).

This year, we’re expecting the UW camera to get a big upgrade, to 48MP. I’m hoping that will be matched with a wider aperture too – the current one is f/2.2 versus the f/1.78 of the main camera. If so, that could bring the quality on a par with the main camera, which I’d love to see.

New sensor for the main camera

It’s been a long time since the rumor, but the main camera may be getting a new sensor tech this year, which could be a very big deal for low-light photography. Ming-Chi Kuo last year pointed to a new Sony stacked sensor which separates out the photo diodes and pixel transistors into different layers.

If true, this would mean the photo diodes could be larger, which would effectively deliver some of the benefits of a physically larger sensor to the same physical sized one. Namely, better low-light performance, and greater dynamic range in high-contrast lighting.

That’s an area where Apple has been making consistent progress, but a stacked sensor would be a really big step up.

Lesser features

We’re expecting a number of smaller camera improvements too:

• 4K video recording at 120 frames per second
• Support for ProRes 4K video recording when connected to external storage 
• Support for 4K recording when using QuickTake 
• Support for the JPEG-XL format for capturing lossy and lossless photos
• Pausing and resuming video recording in the Camera app
• A feature to remove wind noise from videos

Again, none of these have significant individual appeal to me, but they do again contribute to an overall package of improvements.

So, yeah, the smart money is on me upgrading

We’ll of course have to wait until the keynote to discover which of the rumored new features pan out, and whether Apple has managed to keep any surprises up its sleeve, but the capture button plus either wider-aperture UW lens or stacked sensor for the main camera would do it for sure.

How about you? Do you plan to upgrade, and what’s the main driver for you? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Photo by Surasak_ch on Unsplash