The iPhone 16's Camera Control is a huge boon for smartphone photographers, but will it interest the masses?
(Image credit: Apple)
Apple's genius has always been delivering products that people need – even if they don’t know it – in the most simplified manner possible. And although the iPhone 16's Camera Control is an undeniably exciting development for iPhone photographers, I’m worried Apple is in danger of overcomplicating what made the best iPhone for photography so darn compelling in the first place. Simplicity.
To illustrate my point, let's head right back to 2007, the year Rhianna's Umbrella refused to budge from the top of the charts, Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare occupied teenagers for hundreds of hours, and the Colts became the first – and only – AFC South team to win the Super Bowl.
Apple aficionados will also know this to be the year that Cupertino launched the very first iPhone, which arguably popularized smartphone photography and spelt the beginning of the end for the compact camera. But here's the thing. Early iPhones didn't have very good cameras. In fact, they lagged well behind competitors of the time such as the Nokia N95 and LG Viewty.
The Camera Control button isn't just a Pro or Pro Max feature. It's also available on the base iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus. (Image credit: Apple)
It really wasn't until the iPhone 4 that Apple released a competitive camera. But you know what? It didn’t matter. People were still picking up iPhones in their droves and enjoying the effortless nature of smartphone photography, specifically, Apple’s revolutionary Multi-Touch tech and big, gorgeous screen real estate. When it came to intuitive experiences and simplicity, Apple reigned supreme.
Photography is my job. I'll always be excited by advancements in smartphone photography. But I'm pretty sure the average iPhone photographer wants to take largely the same snaps they've always taken.
From a photography perspective, the iPhone 16's Camera Control button makes an awful lot of sense. It allows for two-handed operation and offers various controls with minimal hand movement, both providing additional stability than simply prodding the screen. Hurrah, camera shake will be a thing of the past.
But then again, when was the last time you took a blurry photo on your iPhone? Unless you're using Night Mode, Apple's computational photography has gotten so good, everything's sharp. Arguably too sharp.
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The Camera Control button is a neat addition to the iPhone 16 line-up, but will it catch on? (Image credit: Apple)
My point is, not everybody needs their smartphone to be a bonafide content-creation tool. And that's why the iPhone 16, Plus, Pro and Pro Max exist, after all. But back in 2007, compact cameras had all the bells and whistles. And the masses still gravitated towards the exceedingly simple smartphone.
Sure, a large part of the smartphone's appeal was that it is the camera that's always on you. But I think simplicity played a huge part, too. And in a world of increasingly low-fi TikTok content and the retro camera boom, I can’t help but wonder if Apple's in danger of overcomplicating its base iPhone models.
Maybe the masses will adopt the Camera Control button – it's an undeniably cool feature, after all. But I can’t help wondering if it'll feature on the iPhone 17, 18 or 19. And I do wonder where the smartphone camera arms race will end.
Mike is Digital Camera World's How To Editor. He has over a decade of experience, writing for some of the biggest specialist publications including Digital Camera, Digital Photographer and PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine. Prior to DCW, Mike was Deputy Editor of N-Photo: The Nikon Magazine and Production Editor at Wex Photo Video, where he sharpened his skills in both the stills and videography spheres. While he's an avid motorsport photographer, his skills extend to every genre of photography – making him one of Digital Camera World's top tutors for techniques on cameras, lenses, tripods, filters and other imaging equipment – as well as sharing his expertise on shooting everything from portraits and landscapes to abstracts and architecture to wildlife and, yes, fast things going around race tracks...
