I repeatedly instructed you through the iPhone 16 rumors season that I needed two issues from the mannequin I’d get and two issues alongside. These have been the telephone’s rumored signature options: Digicam Management and Apple Intelligence.
Six months and two iPhone 16 purchases later, I’m disillusioned that each signature options are large flops. In hindsight, there’s no level upgrading to any iPhone 16 mannequin only for these two options alone. I say that as somebody who used the iPhone 16 Plus for about two months, and is now on the iPhone 16 Professional Max.
The iPhone 16 remains to be an excellent piece of {hardware} and can stand the check of time. Whether or not you purchase the most affordable iPhone 16e taste or the costliest iPhone 16 Professional Max, you’re nonetheless getting an amazing gadget that would serve you for a number of years. However I’m simply unhappy to search out that neither Digicam Management nor Apple Intelligence are what I anticipated.
The one good issues about Digicam Management
I didn’t want to purchase two iPhone 16 fashions to determine the Digicam Management button wouldn’t be as thrilling in actual life because it was in my thoughts.
I’ve been a longtime iPhone person who has all the time held the handset in my left hand. The iPhone 16 Plus confirmed me that the Digicam Management button was unreachable. I wanted to function the gadget with two palms, so this defeated the aim of attending to the digital camera app rapidly.
Nevertheless, the iPhone 16 Professional Max is barely thicker, so the Digicam Management button is so much simpler to press with my ring or little fingers. Taking photographs remains to be tough, and overlook about utilizing the button to navigate the digital camera menus.

I’ll say that I’ve been utilizing the Digicam Management button much more on the iPhone 16 Professional Max than on the Plus. I in all probability took near a thousand photographs on my latest marathon operating journey, and I invoked the digital camera with the Digicam Management button more often than not.
However I nearly all the time tapped the display screen to take a photograph or used the Quantity rockers.
Due to this fact, the perfect factor about Digicam Management is its quick entry to the digital camera app. You can begin the digital camera from any display screen a lot sooner than earlier than, and that’s a win.
Then once more, I might all the time make use of the Motion button for that. Simply pair it with the Digicam app so I can begin the digital camera and take photographs with my thumb.
The Digicam Management additionally has Visible Intelligence hooked up to it, however earlier than I let you know how unhealthy Apple Intelligence is, I’ll additionally say that Apple will carry Visible Intelligence help to the Motion button on the iPhone 15 Professionals. Digicam Management button isn’t required.
There’s nothing good about Apple Intelligence
Apple Intelligence is an excellent greater letdown than Digicam Management, contemplating what simply occurred. Apple needed to come out and say that the important thing function of Apple Intelligence, the smarter Siri that can have entry to all of your on-device information and management apps, isn’t coming this yr, as we have been instructed initially.
With out that Siri, Apple Intelligence has nothing attention-grabbing left. Even the built-in ChatGPT help isn’t that thrilling. I’m a longtime ChatGPT person who’d moderately go for the iOS app moderately than Siri to get to ChatGPT.
Do not forget that Apple Intelligence options weren’t even out there when the iPhone 16 telephones launched. We needed to wait just a few weeks for the primary ones to reach. I’m an iPhone person in Europe, so I obtained Apple Intelligence just a few weeks in the past by way of the newest iOS 18 beta.

I wasn’t anticipating Apple Intelligence so quickly, and my pleasure rapidly vanished after I realized there was completely nothing I needed to make use of it for. Even Visible Intelligence isn’t what I want, because it depends on ChatGPT or Google to get the job completed. The smarter Siri wasn’t right here, and every little thing else was ineffective for this iPhone 16 person at this time limit.
ChatGPT covers an enormous a part of my AI wants, and even there I nonetheless don’t have entry to all of the latest novelties OpenAI launched previously few months. That’s, I exploit AI on the iPhone 16 on a regular basis. I simply do it by way of third-party standalone AI apps, the place ChatGPT is my go-to AI software.
Nonetheless, when Apple Intelligence rolled out in Europe, I assumed we have been on the verge of getting the primary beta of that good Siri assistant. That was nonetheless thrilling. Now that Apple needed to virtually admit that Siri is vaporware, Apple Intelligence has misplaced its enchantment completely. I would as nicely flip it off on my iPhone and faux I nonetheless can’t entry it.
