iPhone 16 Pro Review: Iterative To Whom, Exactly?

Try to imagine the following not far-fetched situation.

You, a person who identifies as disabled, hears Apple unveiled and released new iPhones last month as is the company’s annual wont. It excites you because iPhones, egalitarian as they are, are pricey baubles and their cost has confined you to clutching to, say, a 6-year-old iPhone XR for as long as possible. The impetus for a new phone is it’s your primary computer, the one you rely on in part to stay connected with the members of your care team. Most disabled people aren’t made of money, so the XR serves its purpose well; still, an upgrade is necessary eventually. Everyone needs a good and reliable smartphone, after all.

Like my friend and occasional editorial overlord Federico Viticci, you determine the new iPhone 16 is for you. Your trusty yet tired iPhone XR may well run the latest and greatest software in iOS 18—and kudos to Apple’s engineering group for its work here—but the iPhone 16 assuredly runs it exponentially better. Despite what well-meaning but woefully out of touch gadget reviewers and tech YouTubers may tell you, such a scenario presented before you illustrates that the iPhone 16, both regular and Pro, are the furthest thing from ho-hum, iterative year-over-year updates. For many disabled people, the iPhone 16 could well be revolutionary. Acquiring one means not only having a nicer phone, it’ll make accessing the world more accessible. Given this context, to describe iPhone 16 as not all that special is actually downright insulting.

That’s the problem with mainstream iPhone reviews. The people who write them are doing their jobs, and are by no means bad journalists, but the annual review cycle is a double-edged sword. Apple seeds pre-release iPhones to outlets whose reporters do the embargoed “new iPhone review” ritual so religiously that their perception of reality is warped. It’s fun—it’s a privilege to unleash a Day 1 review unto the world—but it bugs me deeply that new iPhones are seen so lackadaisically. Maybe to tech reporters, a jaded lot of grizzled veterans of the game who see nothing but incremental change. But 99.9% of said reviews, bylined by people I know and admire, say not one word about accessibility. Sure, they always include the boilerplate statement that if coming from an iPhone of some vintage, the new iPhone will be tremendously appealing. But that isn’t equal to recognizing that, for certain groups of underrepresented people, settling for “it’s an iPhone, yawn” telegraphs the absolute wrong type of message. In other words, to blather on about how unremarkable iPhone 16 is compared to the one immediately preceding it completely misses the forest for the trees. It’s frustrating.

As a seasoned iPhone reviewer myself, I’ve spent time with the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro—Apple gave me review units of both: one regular 16 Plus in Ultramarine and one 16 Pro in Desert Titanium—attempting to challenge my own preconceived notions of what I need and want from an iPhone as a lifelong disabled person who copes with multiple conditions. For the sake of not burying the lede, my time with the small iPhone 16 Pro reaffirmed my affections for the big-screened Plus/Pro Max. Likewise, using the new AirPods 4 with active noise cancellation has me seriously questioning whether I truly need AirPods Pro in my toolkit any longer.

A Tale of Two iPhones

I was excited when, after attending a virtual briefing, a package from Cupertino showed up on my doorstep some days later containing the iPhone 16 Pro, not the Pro Max. I took it as an opportunity to revisit the regular-sized form factor after years of dogmatically choosing the Plus/Pro Max because of its larger display. The experience has been revelatory because (a) the 16 Pro is eminently easier to hold and pocket; and (b) despite the narrower bezels upping the screen size from the 15 Pro’s 6.1” to the new 6.3”, I’ve come to the realization I vastly prefer the bigger display of the Pro Max. For the last several years, I’ve said in every review this is accepting a Faustian bargain of sorts—to get the big screen, you must incur the cost of the unwieldy, aircraft carrier-sized phone—but it’s a tradeoff I’m more than happy to make because my low vision demands the transaction. The difference is immediately noticeable when comparing my 16 Pro and 16 Plus, especially considering both iPhone 16 models are, at a technical level, equal peers.

However pleased I am with the Plus/Pro Max screen, it does give me a little pause. To wit, in the roughly two weeks of testing time, I’ve often mulled the thought that Apple shouldn’t go bigger than what the Plus/Pro Max screen real estate already offers. To phrase it more crudely, it feels more than fair to observe the Big A** iPhone has hit its head on the imaginary ceiling. Go any further and it encroaches perilously close to iPad mini territory. From a user perspective, I’m unsure I want (or can handle) a bigger iPhone than the Plus/Pro Max.

Put another way, although I adored the nimbler nature of the standard 16 Pro, the bigger-in-itself display (relative to the 15 Pro) is just small enough that I’m not wholly comfortable. Again, tolerances vary, but for me, a small-screened iPhone is a bad iPhone for my needs. Full stop.

Contemplating Camera Control

I’ve developed somewhat of a love-hate relationship with Apple’s newfangled Camera Control button. On one level, the button is a more accessible (and expedient) method by which to access the camera, particularly when trying to capture a fleeting moment before it goes away forever. I’ve long since internalized the ever-present shortcut gesture from the Lock Screen where you swipe left to open the viewfinder. I can do it, but it requires me to look at the phone and ensure I’m doing the correct motion; this level of involvement necessitates more cognitive and motor movement than merely pressing a single button. Camera Control removes that friction—all while introducing new forms of friction which considerably up the complexity ante for people.

This is where the hate part of the dichotomy comes into play. I’m left-handed, and my left is the dominant one by a country mile. I keep my iPhone in my left front pocket for this reason, but I’ve increasingly found myself inadvertently launching the Camera app by my thumb before my phone reaches my face for Face ID. It’s supremely annoying, but astonishingly less so than actually manipulating the button itself when taking pictures. Here, I’ve noticed being confused by what gestures invoke what actions; what’s more, the problems I encountered in the hands-on area after last month’s presentation at Apple Park have persisted. The muscle tone in my right hand is low, to the extent that it’s really hard to accurately perform Apple’s light presses, deeper presses, and scrolling the UI (hold that thought). As of this writing, I’m still fiddling with the accessibility preferences for Camera Control (Accessibility → Camera Control) such to dial it in exactly how I want it. As to the interface, short of enabling the system-wide Zoom feature, I’d love it if it were possible to “localize” zooming so I could enlarge the ticker-tape scroll of Camera Control’s software. As it stands, it’s awfully difficult for my eyes to discern the icons, let alone ƒ-stops. I have no qualms about the menu or its placement. I’m merely noting somebody in Apple’s iOS design group presumes everyone has eagle-eyed vision.

On balance, Camera Control gets a thumbs up from me. It’s fitting to note here that, alluding to iPhones ostensibly being boring nowadays, Apple doesn’t add big new paradigms or buttons to the iPhone very often. The whole conceit of the original model was it (in)famously eschewed buttons! On that basis alone, it’s incredible to consider that, in the last three years, Apple has added two physical buttons and the Dynamic Island. There are serious accessibility ramifications to all of them if you’re disabled. All told, recent iPhone history flies in the face of the narrative that iPhone innovation has plateaued and each new one is comprised of nothing more than spit shines. The tech commentariat surely won’t be satisfied until Apple makes a trapezoidal iPhone soon.

A Few Cursory Words Regarding iOS 18

Believe it or not, the advent of iPhone 16 marks the first time I’ve had real experience using the latest edition of the operating system. For better or worse, I’m a terrible beta-tester whose bandwidth and brainpower can’t handle testing throughout the summer after WWDC.

I like iOS 18. I love the new Music Haptics accessibility feature as an Apple Music subscriber. Generally speaking, it feels as if there’s a significant amount of cognitive/motor/visual load placed on the various customization options. There is a lot of tricking out one can do, which is great for freedom of expression but not necessarily for someone who perhaps has one (or more!) of said disabilities. Personally, I’ve worked on configuring my Lock Screen, Home Screen, and Today View—but Control Center ratchets up my anxiety. By the same token, I’ve left the Flashlight and Camera launchers be on the Lock Screen because my brain begins to melt whenever I try to ponder what else should sit beside Flashlight. How Apple could or should approach easier customization is beyond my ken for the purposes of this review; the recurring sentiment for me is simply that customization doesn’t come without a cost. It’s highly plausible many in the disability community pay it in spades.

The Bottom Line

Is the iPhone 16 good? Yes. Should you buy it? If you can, yes.

Although there are more than a few cynical bones in my body, my pointed remarks at the outset are instructive insofar as they (hopefully) illustrate why accessibility coverage in mainstream tech news is so sorely needed. It’s understandable that most iPhone reviewers will shy away from covering it, much in the same way I couldn’t care less about mentioning Geekbench scores or camera compares or how much RAM these phones have (8GB). The thing is, the iPhone is a mass market product, and last I checked, disabled people made up the largest marginalized and underrepresented group on the planet. Accessibility should be part and parcel of the assessments of not only an iPhone’s capability, but of its attainability and relevance as a primary computer.

The Deaf and hard-of-hearing community love Apple devices, especially iPhone, for FaceTime and iMessage. That deserves far more digital ink to be spilled than the usual navel-gazing about how iPhones are boring. Reviewers should think about how maybe the new iPhone is the one and only affordable computer a homebound disabled person has to stay in touch with family and friends on social media, as well as for ordering food and other essentials. That isn’t trivial. The salient point is simply that journalists should be asking themselves: “Iterative for whom?”

Disability coverage in mainstream media, regardless of area, lags far behind that of other social justice reporting like race and sexuality. The tech beat is no different, and while getting better, has a long way to go. Look no further than the breathless coverage of artificial intelligence with nary a word on how it affects the disability community. There is real opportunity to do similar justice by the iPhone—reviewers just need to step outside Bubbleville sometime. Iterative is a decidedly relative term.