Equipped with the A18 Pro chip and designed with Apple Intelligence, the Pro lineup features larger displays, Camera Control, advanced pro camera capabilities, and significantly improved battery life.
Today, Apple unveiled the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, both powered by the A18 Pro chip and featuring Apple Intelligence. These models boast larger displays, innovative pro camera features, stunning graphics for immersive gaming, and more. Apple Intelligence brings powerful generative models to iPhone, offering a personal intelligence system that understands context and protects user privacy. The new Camera Control feature provides an intuitive way to interact with the advanced camera system, which includes a 48MP Fusion camera with a faster quad-pixel sensor capable of 4K120 fps video recording in Dolby Vision. Additional enhancements include a 48MP Ultra Wide camera for high-resolution photography, a 5x Telephoto camera, and studio-quality microphones for true-to-life audio. The durable titanium design is both strong and lightweight, with the thinnest borders on any Apple product and significantly improved battery life, especially in the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max will be available in four elegant finishes: black titanium, natural titanium, white titanium, and desert titanium. Pre-orders start on Friday, September 13, with the official release on Friday, September 20.
“With the faster and more efficient A18 Pro chip and Apple Intelligence, the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max are the most advanced iPhones we’ve ever created,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Customers seeking the best iPhone experience can benefit from this significant upgrade, whether they’re editing photos hands-free, refining meeting notes for a professional tone, or using the advanced camera system to capture stunning 4K120 fps videos in Dolby Vision—all while enjoying exceptional battery life.”
Designed for Apple Intelligence The iPhone 16 lineup leverages the power of Apple silicon and Apple-built generative models to understand and create language and images, perform actions across apps, and use personal context to streamline and speed up daily tasks. Apple Intelligence ensures user data privacy and security with Private Cloud Compute, which allows for flexible and scalable computational capacity between on-device processing and larger, server-based models on dedicated Apple silicon servers—an impressive advancement for privacy in AI. Apple Intelligence will be available as a free software update, with the first features rolling out next month in U.S. English for most regions worldwide.
With systemwide Writing Tools, users can make notes or emails friendlier, more concise, or more professional; check grammar, word choice, and sentence structure; and summarize text for easier digestion. In the Notes and Phone apps, users can also record, transcribe, and summarize audio. When a recording is initiated during a call in the Phone app, participants are automatically notified, and once the call ends, Apple Intelligence generates a summary to highlight key points.
Apple Intelligence enhances user experience by prioritizing notifications and highlighting time-sensitive emails through Priority Messages in Mail. Instead of just showing the first few lines, it provides summaries that convey the most crucial information from each email.
Siri is now more deeply integrated into the system, featuring a new design with a glowing light around the screen’s edge when active. With improved language understanding, Siri offers a more natural and flexible communication experience. It can follow along even if users stumble over their words and maintain context across multiple requests. Users can seamlessly switch between typing and speaking to Siri, making everyday tasks more efficient. Additionally, Siri now has extensive product knowledge, capable of answering thousands of questions about iPhone and other Apple devices.
Later this year and in the following months, Apple Intelligence will introduce several new features. The Image Playground will enable users to create playful images quickly. Emojis will reach a new level with Genmoji, allowing users to generate unique emojis by typing a description or selecting a photo of a friend or family member.
Siri will become even more personalized, drawing on users’ personal context to provide tailored intelligence. It will also gain onscreen awareness to understand and interact with users’ content, and perform hundreds of new actions across Apple and third-party apps. Additionally, users will be able to seamlessly access ChatGPT from OpenAI while using iOS 18 features like Siri and Writing Tools.
An Incredibly Light and Durable Design with Larger Displays
The new Pro lineup boasts the thinnest borders of any Apple product and introduces larger display sizes: 6.3 inches for the iPhone 16 Pro and 6.9 inches for the iPhone 16 Pro Max, marking the largest iPhone display ever. The stunning Super Retina XDR displays, featuring Always-On and ProMotion technologies, enhance user productivity. Both models are built with industry-leading durability, thanks to a strong, lightweight titanium design and the latest-generation Ceramic Shield, which is twice as tough as any other smartphone glass.
The new mechanical architecture improves heat dissipation and efficiency, resulting in up to 20% better sustained performance. Combined with the advanced power management of iOS 18 and larger batteries, these enhancements offer a significant leap in battery life.
Introducing Camera Control
Camera Control is a feature born from the seamless integration of hardware and software, enhancing the pro camera system’s versatility. It offers an innovative way to quickly launch the camera, take photos, and start video recording. The tactile switch provides a satisfying click experience, while a high-precision force sensor enables light press gestures, and a capacitive sensor supports touch interactions.
A new camera preview helps users frame their shots and adjust controls like zoom, exposure, and depth of field by sliding their finger on the Camera Control. Later this fall, an update will introduce a two-stage shutter that locks focus and exposure with a light press, allowing users to reframe their shots without losing focus. Additionally, developers will be able to integrate Camera Control into third-party apps like Kino, enabling users to adjust white balance and set focus points at various depths within their scenes.
Later this year, Camera Control will enhance visual intelligence, enabling users to quickly learn about objects and places. By clicking and holding Camera Control, users can access information such as restaurant hours or ratings, add events from flyers to their calendar, identify dog breeds, and more.
Camera Control will also act as a gateway to third-party tools with specialized expertise. For example, users can search on Google to find where to buy an item or use ChatGPT for problem-solving. Users will have full control over when third-party tools are used and what information is shared.
Enhanced Creativity in Photo, Video, and Audio
The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max elevate the world’s favorite camera to new heights. Powered by the A18 Pro chip, the upgraded camera system features a new 48MP Fusion camera with a faster, more efficient quad-pixel sensor and Apple Camera Interface. This enables 4K120 fps video recording in Dolby Vision, marking the highest resolution and frame-rate combination ever available on an iPhone, and a first for smartphones. The quad-pixel sensor reads data twice as fast, allowing for zero shutter lag in 48MP ProRAW or HEIF photos.
Additionally, the new 48MP Ultra Wide camera includes a quad-pixel sensor with autofocus, enabling higher-resolution 48MP ProRAW and HEIF images for uniquely framed, wide-angle shots or macro photography. Both the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max now feature a powerful 5x Telephoto camera, allowing users to capture distant action regardless of the model. These models also support spatial photos and videos, providing remarkable depth when viewed on Apple Vision Pro.
Users can record in 4K120 fps using Slo-mo or Video mode and later adjust the playback speed in the Photos app. Options include quarter-speed, a new half-speed for a dreamy effect, and fifth-speed, which matches 24 fps. With the A18 Pro’s new image signal processor (ISP), users can perform frame-by-frame cinema-quality color grading for 4K120 fps in Dolby Vision. Additionally, users can capture 4K120 fps ProRes and Log directly to an external storage device, streamlining professional workflows.
Both Pro models come equipped with four new studio-quality microphones that capture true-to-life sounds. Videos can now be recorded in Spatial Audio, providing an immersive listening experience with AirPods, Apple Vision Pro, or a surround sound system. The iPhone 16 Pro lineup also introduces innovative ways to edit video sound with Audio Mix. This feature allows users to adjust audio post-capture, focusing on the voice of the person on camera, creating a professional studio-like sound, or positioning vocal tracks at the front with environmental noises in surround sound. Additionally, wind noise reduction and advanced machine learning algorithms help minimize unwanted noise for superior audio quality.
Next-generation Photographic Styles enable users to express their creativity and personalize their photos by adjusting color, highlights, and shadows in real time. These styles have a deeper understanding of skin undertones, allowing users to customize their appearance in photos. Unlike filters that apply a uniform color to an entire scene, these adjustments target specific colors within a chosen style. A broader range of styles provides more creative options for editing a photo’s look, and users can further personalize these styles using a new control pad and intensity slider for simultaneous adjustments across tone and color. These changes can be previewed live, applied after taking the photo, or even reversed later.
Apple Intelligence elevates the pro camera system to new heights. Soon, Siri will be able to handle in-app requests and perform actions across different apps. For example, Siri can retrieve a specific photo from a user’s library and apply edits in Darkroom. Additionally, Siri will assist users in maximizing the extensive photo and editing features, such as guiding them on how to adjust background blur in a photo.
Unmatched Performance and Power Efficiency
The A18 Pro chip sets a new standard with its exceptional compute power, driving Apple Intelligence into a new era of professional performance. Utilizing second-generation 3-nanometer technology and a novel architecture with smaller, faster transistors, the A18 Pro achieves remarkable efficiency. The 16-core Neural Engine, now faster and more efficient than its predecessor, enhances on-device performance for Apple Intelligence.
With a 17% increase in total system memory bandwidth — the highest ever in an iPhone — users experience quicker performance in Writing Tools and Image Playground, along with stunning graphics. This bandwidth boost also benefits the 6-core GPU, which is up to 20% faster than the previous generation, enhancing graphics rendering for Apple Intelligence and delivering breathtaking visuals for gaming. Hardware-accelerated ray tracing is now up to twice as fast, providing more realistic lighting and reflections. Game Mode in iOS 18 ensures more consistent frame rates and makes AirPods, game controllers, and other wireless accessories highly responsive.
The new 6-core CPU, the fastest in any smartphone, features two performance cores and four efficiency cores, running the same tasks 15% faster while consuming 20% less power compared to the previous generation. Next-generation ML accelerators, optimized for Apple Intelligence, conserve power by handling high-efficiency, high-throughput, and low-latency computations on the CPU without engaging the Neural Engine.
Enhanced Viewing and Performance
The A18 Pro chip supports Always-On and ProMotion technologies, delivering an exceptional viewing experience on the iPhone. It also enables faster USB 3 speeds and ProRes video recording. The new ISP and video encoder can process twice the amount of data, ensuring faster video encoding and professional workflows.
Expanded Safety and Communication Features
The iPhone 16 Pro lineup introduces innovative ways to stay connected and enhances safety features for peace of mind. Utilizing the same groundbreaking technology as Emergency SOS via satellite, users can connect to the nearest satellite to send and receive texts, emojis, and Tapbacks over iMessage and SMS when outside cellular and Wi-Fi coverage. Messages via satellite in iOS 18 are end-to-end encrypted. Additionally, the new Emergency SOS Live Video feature in iOS 18 allows users to share a live video feed or photos with participating emergency dispatchers during an emergency call. Later this fall, Roadside Assistance via satellite will expand beyond the U.S. to the U.K., helping users connect to a roadside assistance provider if they encounter car trouble while off the grid.
Environmental Commitment
The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max are designed with the environment in mind. As part of Apple’s 2030 goal to be carbon neutral across its entire carbon footprint by the end of the decade, Apple is prioritizing renewable electricity in manufacturing and investing in wind and solar projects globally to address the electricity used to charge all Apple products, including the iPhone 16 lineup. Currently, all Apple facilities run on 100% renewable electricity, including the data centers that power Apple Intelligence.
To achieve Apple 2030, the company is also designing products with recycled and renewable materials. The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max feature over 25% recycled content overall, including 100% recycled aluminum in the internal structural frame and 80% or more recycled steel across multiple components. The battery is made with 100% recycled cobalt and, for the first time in an iPhone, over 95% recycled lithium. The iPhone 16 Pro lineup also meets Apple’s high standards for energy efficiency and is free of mercury and PVC. The packaging is entirely fiber-based, bringing Apple closer to its goal of eliminating plastic from its packaging by next year.
Pricing and Availability
The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max will be available in black titanium, natural titanium, white titanium, and desert titanium, with storage capacities of 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. The iPhone 16 Pro starts at $999 (U.S.) or $41.62 (U.S.) per month, while the iPhone 16 Pro Max starts at $1,199 (U.S.) or $49.95 (U.S.) per month.
Apple offers various ways to save and upgrade to the latest iPhone. Customers can receive $180 (U.S.) to $650 (U.S.) in credit when they trade in an iPhone 12 or higher, or up to $1,000 (U.S.) in credits towards an iPhone 16 Pro with a carrier offer. These offers are available through the Apple Store online or at Apple Store locations. For carrier offer eligibility requirements and more details, visit apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/carrier-offers. To check the value of their device and for trade-in terms and conditions, customers can visit apple.com/shop/trade-in.
Customers in over 58 countries and regions, including Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea, Türkiye, the UAE, the U.K., and the U.S., can pre-order the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max starting at 5 a.m. PDT this Friday, September 13, with availability beginning Friday, September 20. The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max will be available in Macao, Vietnam, and 19 other countries and regions starting Friday, September 27.
iOS 18 will be available as a free software update on Monday, September 16. The first set of Apple Intelligence features will also be available as a free software update.