iPhone 15 vs. iPhone 16 Buyer's Guide: 30+ Upgrades Compared

[turbineseaplane]

These upgrades are so subtle. It does seem to add up over 3 or so years.

They seem to purposely hold things back from what they "could" do each year, in order to give themselves "new features" each year.

It's a pretty sad state of things ... to know we could be getting better devices sooner, but instead they stretch it out for maximum milkage of their customer base.

Sign me up for "Tim's Retirement"
This annual schtick has worn really thin

 

[magicschoolbus]

Starting to feel like I may not get another pro phone. These base models have gotten really good.

 

[Unami]

iPhone 15: 171g weight iPhone 15 Plus: 201g weight

iPhone 16: 173g weight (+0.01%) iPhone 16 Plus: 203g weight (+0.01%)

C'mon, Macrumors, have another glance at those numbers and then tell me with a straight eye that 173 is 0,01% more than 171.

 

[Infodataset]

Im very optimistic to not have ram upgrade in base ip 16. There is no way that base model have the same ram as laptop. Right apple?

 

[midkay]

iPhone 15: 171g weight iPhone 15 Plus: 201g weight

iPhone 16: 173g weight (+0.01%) iPhone 16 Plus: 203g weight (+0.01%)

That's not 0.01% increase. It's a 1.1% increase for the standard model, and a 1% increase for the Plus model.

 

[sehns]

Apple have completely locked me out of their iphone ecosystem by making phones that are just stupidly, ridiculously, idiotically too big. No idea what i'm going to buy when my 13 mini dies, but I refuse to look like a toddler carrying around an ipad.

 

[mjs916]

They seem to purposely hold things back from what they "could" do each year, in order to give themselves "new features" each year.

It's a pretty sad state of things ... to know we could be getting better devices sooner, but instead they stretch it out for maximum milkage of their customer base.

Sign me up for "Tim's Retirement"
This annual schtick has worn really thin

How would the alternative look? If they added whatever they possibly could each year, the updates would be even more subtle.

For instance, iPhone 13 Pro added cinematic mode, while iPhone 14 Pro added the Dynamic Island and the 15 Pro added the action button.

Had the 13 Pro received all of those additions, what would be the 14 Pro’s marquee feature, 2X zoom?

I don’t mind the dink and dunk addition of features because I don’t upgrade each year. I wait 2-4 years to get all the features I “missed out” previously on the latest model.

 

[turbineseaplane]

How would the alternative look? If they added whatever they possibly could each year, the updates would be even more subtle.

Probably not annual releases, which would be better for the product, but not the stock price.

This is especially true for the software (would be good to have a longer interval) since they insist on rev'ing that every year with updates that should be point releases.

 

[wouwout]

They seem to purposely hold things back from what they "could" do each year, in order to give themselves "new features" each year.

It's a pretty sad state of things ... to know we could be getting better devices sooner, but instead they stretch it out for maximum milkage of their customer base.

Sign me up for "Tim's Retirement"
This annual schtick has worn really thin

couldn't agree more. 1 inch camera sensors have been on Chinese phones for 2 years now, with some amazing results. Check Ben Sin's youtube channel. I'm sure Apple has already planned these large sensors but not until the iphone 17 pro or 18 pro. It's just lazy. Tim and the other old senior management guys need to go. Time for fresh blood!

 

[mjs916]

Probably not annual releases, which would be better for the product, but not the stock price.

This is especially true for the software (would be good to have a longer interval) since they insist on rev'ing that every year with updates that should be point releases.

Ah, I see. We’ve definitely become accustomed to annual releases but that would absolutely crush mind/market share and as mentioned the stock price.

Wholehearted agreement on the software piece.

 

[I7guy]

Probably not annual releases, which would be better for the product, but not the stock price.

This is especially true for the software (would be good to have a longer interval) since they insist on rev'ing that every year with updates that should be point releases.

Only conjecture non-annual releases would be better for the product. At any rate apple isnt changing their iPhone cadence.

 

[svish]

The standard yearly small improvements. No major changes. Capture button across the lineup will be good. Waiting to hear more about the colours.

 

[Jay Tee]

I have a 15 Plus. That smaller battery capacity in the 16 Plus concerns me. I’ll have to keep an eye on how that actually turns out. More RAM is nice but I really don’t care about anything else the 16 series appears to be offering - particularly spatial video and AI-based features.

I have a 15 plus and nothing much changes in 16 plus for those of us not interested in making spatial videos.

Surely Spatial Recording will need a storage and RAM bump; thus a price hike. Prudent for Apple to limit this to Pro devices.

 

[macjaffa]

The action button for me is just one of those innovative things, that don’t seem like much at first glance…but the flexibility is amazing.

Wow. Imagine if there were 2 action buttons. Mind blown

 

[OrenLindsey]

A18 is such an awful name... Just say it out loud. But I don't see a way they could get around it. Sigh.

 

[Born Again]

As is always the case for me..

"No Mini" = "No Buy"

You guys had your chance but nobody showed up to buy it.

Small phones are dead my friend.

 

[ifxf]

Looks like the are designing the new phone to support the niche Apple Vision product.

 

[Jim Lahey]

Same amount of RAM as a MacBook Pro 😳

 

[yukari]

Up to 27W wired charging	Up to 40W wired charging (48% faster)
15W charging via MagSafe	20W charging via ‌MagSafe‌ (25% faster)

Hmm… isn't the predicted MagSafe charging 33% faster?!

5 watts more vs. the 15 is 5/15 = 1/3 = 33%!

After all, wired charging is 48% faster and that’s because it's expected to go from 27 to 40W — or 13/27 = 48%!

C'mon, Macrumors, have another glance at those numbers and then tell me with a straight eye that 173 is 0,01% more than 171.

Someone at MR is not doing the math correctly and not using the same metric for comparison.

 

[BigDO]

I wonder when, if ever, the base iphone will get >60Hz screen.

In any case, if this is true, 16 will be yet another gen I skip unless my 13 Pro breaks or gets stolen.

 

[ttyRazor]

I again did the side by side comparison on Apple's web site of the iPhone 15 Pro Max and my iPhone 14 Pro Max both with 1TB of memory. There were actually too few changes to justify spending close to $1,800 when including sales taxes and Apple Care Plus.

There needs to be some earth shattering changes in the iPhone 16 Pro top model to justify that cost plus the forecast price increases. One can not even get a real leather case from Apple but for the same price they offer a cheap fabric one.

My current iPhone takes photos and makes and receives calls, messages and emails just fine.

Maybe this could be the year where Apple has iOS perfect from day one, but I doubt that will happen. It takes until the following spring to get the most recent onerous bugs worked out. There are still persistent issues iOS dating from years back still not addressed.

I wonder if the phrase by Sarah Palin of "putting Lip Stick on a pig results in the animal still being a pig" applies here as well.

A side button change is not the carrot for me to upgrade.

Unless you’re doing one of those carrier trade in deals, no, there’s not much point. It used to be every 2 years, now every 3 is probably a more reasonable window to compare to, and even that is still a maybe if your phone is working fine.

 

[ttyRazor]

I wonder when, if ever, the base iphone will get >60Hz screen.

In any case, if this is true, 16 will be yet another gen I skip unless my 13 Pro breaks or gets stolen.

Probably when Micro-LED or some other must-have display improvement gives the Pro tier something to make the non-pros look worse.

 

[mjs916]

A18 is such an awful name... Just say it out loud. But I don't see a way they could get around it. Sigh.

You done messed up A-A-Ron! (Link leads to YouTube clip of Key and Peele sketch comedy show)

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Apple can’t milk the dual camera on the standard iPhones for an incredible 6th consecutive year surely??!

It amazes me even last year we saw this too. When you look at phones in the same price range to the standard iPhones with much better specs and features, it’s quite insulting to Apple users I would say. I know we use iPhones because we prefer iOS etc, but let’s have something back on the hardware.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

The action button for me is just one of those innovative things, that don’t seem like much at first glance…but the flexibility is amazing.

Everybody I know with a 15 Pro has defaulted the action button as their mute switch. Thats probably what I would do to be honest as I use the mute switch daily and losing it would be a real pain in the backside.