8 iPhone 16 tips and tricks to take your new phone to the next level

Apple’s iPhone 16 has been available for almost a week now. If you recently upgraded to a new model, there are a ton of tips and tricks to make your iPhone 16 experience even better. Here are some of our favorites:

Cable transfer is faster than ever: An iOS 18 hidden feature, iPhone 16 Pro users will especially enjoy faster transfer speeds when setting up their new devices. Ideally, they’re upgrading from an iPhone 15 Pro and own a Thunderbolt cable. Still, even if you’re coming from a Lightning iPhone, you’ll still find faster transfer speeds by cable than using Wi-Fi.

Set a shortcut for the Action Button: If you’re coming from an iPhone 15 Pro, you might be familiar with the Action Button. However, if you own any other phone, you’ll find a new button instead of the mute switch. I’d recommend setting a shortcut for an action you perform regularly. For me, I like to shuffle my downloaded songs. You can try my shortcut here. BGR also has a guide that teaches you how to customize your Action Button.

Open third-party Camera apps: With the new Camera Control functionality, you can open third-party Camera apps instead of Apple’s own solution. You can open Instagram, Halide, and other options you have installed. Just tweak it in the Settings app.

Double-click to open Camera Control: Several users have complained that a single tap to open the Camera app can be annoying. This is why Apple lets you customize this toggle with a double tap instead; with that, you can make sure only to open the Camera when you actually want to.

Switch Lock Screen widgets: iOS 18 lets you switch Lock Screen widgets. Since Camera Control can work to open your Camera app, you could switch widgets to a different toggle, such as a third-party app, a connectivity toggle, and more.

Customizable Photographic Styles: In order to take advantage of the revamped Photographic Styles, you need to switch your shooting format to HEIF, which is better than JPEG and saves photo information so you can keep tweaking the Photographic Styles option.

Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR

Cinematic slow-mo shots: iPhone 16 Pro offers a new slow-motion video recording in 4K 120fps. Apple highlighted this feature during its keynote, and you need to open the Settings app, find the Camera tab, and select this quality to enjoy your most cinematic shots yet.

Macro mode control: A regular iPhone has a macro mode for the first time. However, this mode might cause some confusion, so you can turn it on or off whenever you need it. In the Camera settings, turn on Macro Control. You’ll see a toggle whenever macro mode is turned on.

Wrap up

These are some of the best iPhone 16 tips and tricks. BGR will keep adding more features as we learn more about them. Below, you can check some hidden iOS 18 features you might not know.