Apple has just announced the new iPhone 16 Pro Max at its event held on 9th September 2024. It is the usual highest-end iPhone launched by the company for this year and comes as a minor upgrade over the iPhone 15 Pro Max. It has a few significant changes though, which I will detail here.
A Larger display!
The new iPhone 16 Pro Max gets a larger display. It has a brand new 6.9-inch Super Retina XDR OLED display, which is bigger than the 6.7-inch display seen on the iPhone 15 Pro Max. 
It is a ProMotion panel, meaning that it supports up to a 120 Hz refresh rate and uses LTPO technology to enable variable refresh rates, going down to as low as 1 Hz. It has a resolution of 2868x1320p and a pixel density of 460 ppi. However, there are a few noticeable changes. The display now supports a minimum brightness of as low as just 1 nit, while the peak brightness figures stay at the same 2000 nits as last year. The Dynamic Island is also present as expected, complete with the Face ID system for biometrics, and it keeps support for always-on-display.
A (minor) performance bump!
The iPhone 16 Pro Max is powered by the new Apple A18 Pro chipset. It is a minor upgrade over the A17 Pro seen in the iPhone 15 Pro Max. It is a 3 nm chipset with a 6-core CPU (consisting of 2 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores) and a 6-core GPU. However, the major highlight is the new 16-core neural engine, which enables the Apple Intelligence features (more on these later). 
There is an upgraded cooling system and better thermals which promises 20% better sustained performance on the new iPhone 16 Pro Max compared to its predecessor. As usual, the iPhone 16 Pro Max starts with 256 GB of base storage and goes up to 512 GB and a maximum of 1 TB of storage.
Design and Build: almost the same!
The iPhone 16 Pro Max is made out of the same Grade 5 Titanium chassis as the 15 Pro Max. The front and the rear panels are covered by the latest generation Ceramic Shield, which is claimed to be twice as tough as glass on any other smartphone.
There are four colors this year: Natural Titanium, Black Titanium, Desert Titanium, and White Titanium. The basic design has been carried over since the iPhone 11 Pro Max and it is very familiar by now. Three lenses in a triangular arrangement on the rear within a square camera island, and this arrangement does not change.
The Action Button which debuted on last year’s iPhone 15 Pro series makes a return, but the iPhone 16 Pro Max debuts a new Camera Control area. The Camera Control button is actually a pressure-sensitive area covered by sapphire glass, which is used for most of the camera functionality. 
We can use the new camera control area to adjust the zoom range or switch between photographic styles in the camera app, among other functions. It supports two types of tap responses (single and double taps) and swipes are registered as well. It will eventually also be updated to be used as a 2-stage shutter button.
Cameras: Noticeable changes!
The new iPhone 16 Pro Max has significant changes to its camera system, which encompasses both hardware improvements and new software capabilities.
For starters, there is the new Camera Control area already described above, which will come in handy for landscape photography and videography. However, there are a few more significant changes. 
Firstly, the ultrawide has been upgraded. It’s now a 48-megapixel main sensor, up from the older 12 MP unit on the 15 Pro Max. Apple claims the ultrawide light intake is 2.67 times more than its predecessor, which should translate to better ultrawide shots in low light. It has better autofocus for macro shots and is paired with a 13 mm lens for landscape shots. It has a f/2.2 aperture. 
Secondly, the upgraded ISP of the A18 Pro chipset means that the iPhone 16 Pro series finally supports 4K 120 fps video recording, which supports normal video as well as Slo-Mo. The company now also allows adjusting the playback speed of the video after capturing it in the Photos app. It also supports shooting in 4K120 fps in Pro-Res, Dolby Vision, and Log formats. 
Apple may not be making the switch to 8K video recording yet, but this is indeed a step in the right direction. The company has also revised and refreshed the Photographic Styles selection within the camera app.
Overall, the focus for Apple has been to improve the camera performance incrementally, while also adding more long-requested camera features.
iOS 18: All about Apple Intelligence!
According to Apple, the iPhone 16 series is made for Apple Intelligence, the company’s suite of AI features coming later this year starting with the iOS 18.1 update. There’s finally a new re-designed Siri, which hopes to be less useless than its predecessor, and it is accompanied by a new animation. 
There’s Clean Up, which is Apple’s answer to the AI Eraser feature seen on many Android brands, which actually runs on-device on the A18 Pro’s Neural Engine. Users will be able to transcribe voice-to-text in the Notes and Phone apps, and call recording is now officially supported (so that Apple Intelligence can generate a summary of the call’s transcript.)
There are systemwide writing tools designed to check grammar, proofread texts, and shorten large texts to make them smaller. And then there’s Genmoji, the company’s new iOS 18 feature which generates emojis with specific prompts.
Apple Intelligence maintains the privacy and security of user data with Private Cloud Compute, which provides the ability to scale computational capacity between on-device processing and larger, server-based models that run on dedicated Apple silicon servers. This helps keep the user’s data protected and private. Apart from Apple Intelligence, iOS 18 also brings several customization features, like the ability to place apps wherever we want, dedicated icon theming, and the new control panel re-design.
Faster MagSafe Charging!
The new iPhone 16 Pro Max, like the rest of the iPhone 16 lineup, supports faster 25W MagSafe Charging, which is a major upgrade from the predecessor’s 15W MagSafe support. The wired charging remains unchanged, but there has possibly been a battery increase from the predecessor since Apple now claims the phone will last 33 hours of video playback (up from 29 hours of its predecessor). 
This also means that wired charging time has actually gotten slightly slower now, with the iPhone 16 Pro Max having a claimed figure of 50% charge in 35 minutes (an increase from 30 minutes on its predecessor).
Pricing and availability
The iPhone 16 Pro Max has three storage variants: 256 GB, 512 GB and 1 TB. 
The US pricing remains the same as its predecessor, which is as follows.
- 256 GB variant: $1199
- 512 GB variant: $1399
- 1 TB variant: $1599
The Indian pricing has actually lowered from last time, which could be a result of the phone being assembled in India.
- 256 GB variant: ₹1,44,900
- 512 GB variant: ₹1,64,900
- 1 TB variant: ₹1,84,900
Pre-orders will begin on 13th September, with sales starting on 20th September.
Indian buyers get a ₹5000 discount on certain bank cards (American Express, Axis Bank, and ICICI Bank).
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