Apple Introduces iPhone 16 Series with AI Features

Built for Apple Intelligence

Apple Intelligence on the iPhone 16 lineup harnesses the power of Apple silicon and Apple-built generative models to understand and create language and images, take action across apps, and draw from personal context to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks. Apple Intelligence maintains the privacy and security of user data with Private Cloud Compute.

This groundbreaking approach provides the ability to flex and scale computational capacity between on-device processing and larger, server-based models that run on dedicated Apple silicon servers — an extraordinary step forward for privacy in artificial intelligence.

Apple Intelligence will be available as a free software update, with the first set of features rolling out next month in U.S. English for most regions around the world.

Apple Intelligence unlocks new ways for users to enhance their writing. With systemwide Writing Tools built into iOS 18, users can rewrite, proofread, and summarize text nearly everywhere they write, including Mail, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps. In the Notes and Phone apps, users can also record, transcribe, and summarize audio. When a recording is initiated while on a call in the Phone app, participants are automatically notified, and once the call ends, Apple Intelligence generates a summary to recall key points.

Pause playback of video: Writing Tools with Apple Intelligence on iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus

With systemwide Writing Tools, available with the first set of Apple Intelligence features, users can rewrite, proofread, and summarize text nearly everywhere they write.

Apple Intelligence helps users prioritize with summarized notifications, along with Priority Messages in Mail, a feature that understands the content of emails and surfaces time-sensitive messages. Across a user’s inbox, summaries convey the most important information of each email instead of previewing the first few lines.

Pause playback of video: Priority Notifications with Apple Intelligence on iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus

Available with the first set of Apple Intelligence features, Priority Notifications in Apple Intelligence elevate what’s most important, and summaries help users scan stacked notifications to show key details right on the Lock Screen.

Siri becomes more deeply integrated into the system experience and gets a brand-new design with an elegant glowing light that wraps around the edge of the screen when active. With richer language-understanding capabilities, communicating with Siri is more natural and flexible. Siri follows along when users stumble over their words, and maintains context from one request to the next. Users can type to Siri at any time, and switch fluidly between text and voice as they accelerate everyday tasks. Siri also now has extensive product knowledge to answer thousands of questions about features on iPhone and other Apple devices.

Coming with the first set of Apple Intelligence features, Siri becomes more natural, contextually relevant, and personal, with an elegant glowing light that wraps around the edge of the screen when active.

Additional Apple Intelligence features will roll out later this year and in the months following, including Image Playground, which allows users to create playful images in moments. Emoji will be taken to an entirely new level with the ability to create original Genmoji by simply typing a description, or by selecting a photo of a friend or family member. Siri will be able to draw on a user’s personal context to deliver intelligence that is tailored to them. It will also gain onscreen awareness to understand and take action with users’ content, as well as take hundreds of new actions in and across Apple and third-party apps. And while using iOS 18 features like Siri and Writing Tools, users will also be able to easily access ChatGPT from OpenAI.

Introducing Camera Control

Camera Control — a result of thoughtful hardware and software integration — elevates the camera experience on the iPhone 16 lineup. It is packed with innovation, including a tactile switch that powers the click experience, a high-precision force sensor that enables the light press gesture, and a capacitive sensor that allows for touch interactions.

Camera Control can quickly launch the camera, take a photo, and start video recording so users don’t miss the moment. A new camera preview helps users frame the shot and adjust other control options — such as zoom, exposure, or depth of field — to compose a stunning photo or video by sliding their finger on the Camera Control. Additionally, developers will be able to bring Camera Control to third-party apps such as Snapchat.

Later this year, Camera Control will unlock visual intelligence to help users learn about objects and places faster than ever before. Users can click and hold Camera Control to pull up the hours or ratings for a restaurant they pass, add an event from a flyer to their calendar, quickly identify a dog by breed, and more. Camera Control will also serve as a gateway into third-party tools with specific domain expertise, like when users want to search on Google to find where they can buy an item, or to benefit from ChatGPT’s problem-solving skills. Users are in control of when third-party tools are used and what information is shared.

Camera Control will enable visual intelligence to help users learn about objects and places around them faster than ever before.

New Camera Experiences

The powerful new camera system helps users capture both everyday moments and cherished memories like never before. The 48MP Fusion camera enables a 2x optical-quality Telephoto option, which is like having two cameras in one, so users can get closer to the subject to easily frame a photo. In addition to wider-angle shots, the new 12MP Ultra Wide camera with autofocus enables macro photography. The Ultra Wide camera also gathers up to 2.6x more light for higher image quality. Additionally, iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus now take spatial photos and videos to help users relive memories with remarkable depth on Apple Vision Pro.

Next-generation Photographic Styles help users express their creativity and customize their photos by locally adjusting color, highlights, and shadows in real time. Styles also have a deeper understanding of skin undertones, so users can personalize how they appear in photos. Unlike filters, which often use a one-size-fits-all approach by adding a color to an entire scene, adjustments are applied to specific colors of a selected style. A wider set of styles offers more creative options for editing a photo’s aesthetic, and styles can be rendered during live preview, applied after a photo is taken, or even reversed later.

Video can now be captured in Spatial Audio for immersive listening with AirPods, Apple Vision Pro, or a surround sound system. Both iPhone models introduce creative new ways to edit video sound with Audio Mix — allowing users to adjust their sound after capture to focus on the voice of the person on camera, make it sound like the video was recorded inside a professional studio, or position vocal tracks in the front and environmental noises in surround sound. With wind noise reduction, powerful machine learning (ML) algorithms reduce unwanted noise for better audio quality.

Pricing and Availability

iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus will be available in ultramarine, teal, pink, white, and black in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB storage capacities. iPhone 16 starts at $799 (U.S.) or $33.29 (U.S.) per month, and iPhone 16 Plus starts at $899 (U.S.) or $37.45 (U.S.) per month.