The Apple iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max during an event at Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, … [+]
Remember when the whole thing about an iPhone was its lack of physical buttons? The original iPhone had one home button on the front and three on the side: a power button, a volume button, and a ring/silent switch. Apple has gone one better ever since 2017, when the company introduced the iPhone X without a home button.
But with the new iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max, Apple has gone all in on side buttons.
There are two on the right side: a power button and the new camera control button. And there are three on the left side: the action button that replaces the traditional mute switch, and slightly separated volume up and down buttons.
While the new camera control button looks amazing in the Apple ads for opening the camera app, adjusting zoom and other settings and taking pictures, it has a significant downside that I’ve discovered in the three days I’ve owned an iPhone 16 Pro Max.
Not to put too fine a point on it, I’m always opening the camera app by mistake.
Enjoy this stunning photo of my feet
There are so many buttons on the iPhone 16 Pro models that it’s getting challenging to pick up your phone without pressing one or more of them. The action button is small and hard to press accidentally. Most times, the volume buttons are low risk if you accidentally press them. You’ll probably just increase or decrease your volume by a notch or two, and unless you’re AirPlaying to an external speaker and hold it so long you blast everyone’s ears, it’s no big deal.
But the camera control button is large. It’s also low on the phone’s side, near where I usually pick up my phones. It’s easy to press, and if your iPhone is on already, boom, you’re in the camera app. Press it again, and you’ve taken a picture of your desk, your feet, the ground, or whatever object your phone happened to be pointing at.
If your iPhone is sleeping, a single press won’t open the camera app, but a second—perhaps as you adjust your grip—will. I’ve somehow managed that feat as well.
It’s possible that the true culprit is just the case I got.
I bought Apple’s $69 iPhone 16 Pro Max Clear Case with MagSafe, and it’s literally the worse case I’ve ever had on an iPhone. It’s clear so you can see your phone’s color, which is great, but it is slick, smooth plastic that is just slightly easier to grip than a wet ice cube.
Conspiracy theorists might be tempted to think this the case Apple wants you to buy because you’re almost guaranteed to drop your phone multiple times, probably eventually resulting in damage to both it and the case. I’m 65% sure that having this case on is more dangerous than going nude, the way Steve Jobs intended everyone to use their phones, and which I last did in the iPhone 5 era.
I’m attempting to solve the problem with a dual solution.
First, I’ve ordered a new case from Amazon (this one is about $20, almost $50 cheaper than Apple’s case). And second, I’ve ordered a camera ring grip: the kind you can stick a finger through to hold your phone much more securely. It works with MagSafe to just magnetically click on to your iPhone—no glue required, meaning no stick residue if you tire of it—rotates and also doubles as a phone stand for media enjoyment.
Time will tell if this solves the problem. And I’ll update this post when I’ve had a chance to try the new case and the ring holder.
All this said, having a camera control button on the iPhone makes a ton of sense. And I’m sure I’ll find it very useful indeed, when I actually want to take pictures. Especially if I can avoid the false positives of unintentionally opening the camera app five times a day.
