In my opinion, iPhones are not designed to be upgraded every year. Clearly, Apple is happy for die-hard fans and the uber-rich (and my friend Lewis) to spend money every time a new model is announced, but the increases in specs and the rate of new features only add up to a noticeable improvement in user experience. if you wait two or three generations between upgrades.

When I upgraded from the iPhone 15 Plus to the 16 Plus last month, I wasn’t expecting huge changes. And I was mostly right.

As I explained in my article develop thoughts article, the design is a little nicer but basically the same; The action button hasn’t made much of a difference so far; Camera Control doesn’t feel like much of an upgrade; and the extra processing power isn’t noticeable in real-world use. As for Apple Intelligence, finally camebut it is lacking features and still needs a lot of time to become a serious competitor against Gemini and other rival AIs.

But there’s one really important improvement I’ve noticed, and it has to do with the camera. Not Camera Control or Visual Intelligence, but the actual camera.

Things that stay the same

Now your photos will look the same most of the time and in most contexts and shooting conditions. This makes sense, as the main lens remains 48 MP and f/1.6. (The ultra-wide lens has been upgraded from f/2.4 to f/2.2, so we can expect slightly better performance, but it’s still 12MP.)

As you can see in this shot, color reproduction and vibrancy are basically the same on the two devices.

Here’s a shot of a subject with less color, so you can focus on clarity and level of detail.

What about tougher shooting conditions? Again, since they both feature Smart HDR 5, we should expect both devices to handle complex or difficult lighting with roughly the same aplomb. The 16 Plus has a faster processor, which in theory could mean more computing power being applied to this process, but I didn’t notice any difference when shooting trees silhouetted against the Sun:

What about the front camera? Is this different? Not exactly. In both cases we are working with a 12 MP, f/1.9 lens.

macro perspective

Here’s where photography has changed dramatically: macro performance is miles ahead.

When you get closer, the iPhone 16 Plus switches to macro photography mode (you can tell it’s engaged because a small flower icon appears in the bottom corner), bringing the subject into sharp focus. Incredibly impressive.

Good for nature photography. It’s also very useful if you draw small models and take photos of them for social media.

Honestly, it’s rare to get such satisfyingly different test photos when comparing two phones. And it’s almost unheard of to see this in a single generation.

Here you go. Upgrading from the iPhone 15 (or in my case, the 15 Plus) to the iPhone 16 (or 16 Plus) is an experience defined primarily by lots of small tweaks and small iterative improvements. But the new macro mode has a massive impact on close-up photography, and if that’s a priority for you, this is a worthwhile purchase.

If you are interested in iPhonography, you might also be interested in our guide. best iPhone cameras.