UPDATE FOR ANYONE CONSIDERING A CAUDABE iPHONE 16 CASE
Based on a CNET article warning iPhone 16 consumers about the case they were about to buy for their phone, there was much speculation about which manufacturers would provide a proper conductive button or large enough cutout that would allow proper translation of finger gestures to the phone's new camera control button.
CAUDABE, being one of the leading brands of cases, was under suspicion since they had yet to unveil their iPhone 16 lineup. I had been contacting them for the past week about the button and they evaded answering the question in their response which prompted further suspicion.
Yesterday, I received this response from Caudabe:
Caudabe Support
Sep 11, 2024, 14:45 GMT-5
Just to clarify, we’re not mentioned in that Cnet article, nor are there any images of our cases. However, the article makes a valid point. A couple of third party cases have launched recently with a button instead of a cutout, but it's still unclear how well they perform with the iPhone’s capacitive touch Camera Control button.
Like most other third party manufacturers this year, we’ve opted for a cutout. Rest assured that the Camera Control button will be 100% compatible with all of our cases, since your finger will be able to operate the button directly.
Our team knew early on that Apple was including a capacitive touch button this year, which detects both swiping motions and presses of varying degrees of pressure. Our goal was to design a cutout that would enable users to easily access and use the Camera Control button, but wouldn’t be grotesquely large, especially given the slightly awkward placement of the button on the phone itself. Not to ruin the surprise, but once our iPhone 16 lineup launches on Friday, we think you’ll find that we were able to strike a nice balance.
POST THOUGHTS FROM ME:
I don't know if this cutout works as well as the specific camera control feature via sapphire crystal that Apple and Beat cases offer. That's something we won't find out for a few weeks.