Getting the iPhone 16 Pro: Great, But Also Has Issues

Now the 618 shopping festival lasts for months. Before June 18th even arrives, the activities have already started early. I couldn’t resist and got the iPhone 16 Pro in mid-month. So far, I’ve been using it for several weeks. Here I’ll mark down my usage experience and also explain what I consider to be the issues with the 16.

Purchase Motivation

My iPhone 12’s battery health is at 79%. Now whenever the battery drops to 10-20%, I can clearly feel it draining particularly fast. Additionally, this year some iPhone models have government subsidies (government subsidies for phones under 6000 yuan). Considering that new phones released in October can’t possibly be cheaper than the 16 even at their lowest price, I decided to get the 16.

128 or 256, Non-Pro, Pro or Pro Max

Initially, I was also torn about the configuration, but based on several points of analysis and elimination, I finally reached a conclusion. If you’re also struggling with which one to choose, you can refer to this.

1. Storage Issue
   • With a limited budget, naturally bigger is better. I checked my previous iPhone 12 128G and found I was using under 100G of storage, so 128GB is sufficient for my current usage needs.
   • If using Pro camera for video recording, it takes up more space, but I mainly take photos with little recording needs, so photography won’t cause storage shortage.
2. Pro or Non-Pro
   • Pro has better camera and screen, and I like photography.
3. Weight
   • Max weighs 227g which is heavier, while Pro is 199g. Everyone prefers lighter devices. Of course, Max’s biggest issue is the more beautiful price - even at 618’s lowest it would definitely be 7K+.
4. Configuration
   • Pro’s configuration is higher than non-Pro, mainly the titanium body and camera lenses. I lean towards wanting a phone with a better camera.

Based on using the government subsidy as much as possible within 6K, while balancing the several concerns mentioned above, I chose the base model iPhone 16 Pro 128G Natural Titanium, purchased from JD at a price of 5469 CNY.

Note: For 3C digital products without particularly large price differences, I personally still consider JD rather than PDD and other channels.

Accessories

As mentioned in my other article Do iPhones Need Cases and Screen Protectors? You’ll Understand After a Few Drops, I currently only have the following accessories.

1. SHANMO iPhone 16 Pro screen protector - HD anti-fingerprint borderless transparent window explosion-proof drop-proof non-full screen film, purchased from JD, 18.4 CNY
2. Huaqiangbei iPhone MagSafe protective case, purchased from PDD, 29.57 CNY

Current Experience

Advantages

1. The build quality is impeccable, the screen is first-class. I’ve always loved Apple’s display colors and color temperature.
2. Dynamic Island is quite fun. I was using the 12 non-Pro before and hadn’t experienced it.
3. Photo quality, especially at night, is excellent.

Disadvantages - Issues

1. Both the left-side mute button and volume buttons are buttons, causing me to frequently accidentally press them when pressing blindly. I think this design is a failure and suspect the iPhone team’s testing wasn’t thorough enough.
2. The newly added camera button on the right side, I admit, is convenient when taking photos, but without it there wouldn’t be much of a problem, so isn’t it quite redundant? Simplicity no longer exists, making the physical buttons feel very bloated. The overall design aesthetics of the iPhone is at least far worse than the iPhone 4 era. The Cook era always feels like the aesthetics have deteriorated significantly, let alone surpassing previous designs.

Speaking of disadvantages, besides these above, the entire Apple ecosystem has quite a few shortcomings, such as macOS now having many bugs, iPhone’s yearly toothpaste-squeezing updates, gradually declining aesthetics, the perpetually unchanged stupid Siri, the endlessly delayed PowerPoint-version AI, and so on.

My Apple Ecosystem

Although iPhone has its shortcomings, currently Apple’s ecosystem closed-loop experience is still the best. For example, my current Apple ecosystem device list is as follows. I’m now in a state of complaining while still using these Apple products.

Final Thoughts

Overall, the iPhone 16 Pro is the first time I’ve clearly felt design flaws, as mentioned above with the mute button and camera button, but it’s still a well-balanced excellent phone. Over these years, the charm and aura of iPhone and even Apple has been genuinely fading bit by bit, and many friends around me have already switched to Android. I hope Apple can make some big moves this year, whether in software or hardware, otherwise I’ll also consider switching brands.