I used to be ridiculously excited to improve to an iPhone 16 final fall. After spending 5 years with my well-loved, however outdated iPhone 11, I used to be prepared for all the standard perks: a greater battery life, nicer cameras and (significantly thrilling for me) a Barbie pink hue. What I did not anticipate was that my iPhone 16 would include not one, however two new buttons: motion and digicam management. And one in all these would completely rain on my parade.
The motion button is a small button above the amount adjusters. It was launched with the iPhone 15 Professional fashions and is a customizable button that may do something from turning your ringer on to ordering your Dunkin’ espresso to-go. It is small, demure and minds its personal enterprise.
It is the digicam management button that causes all of the chaos.
Camera control is a brand new button on the iPhone 16 lineup that does what the identify suggests: it controls your digicam. It is meant that will help you rapidly snap pictures and serves as a shortcut to launching your digicam app. You may slide your finger via a mini settings menu to regulate your digicam’s zoom, amongst different issues. However there’s one true motive for the button’s existence: AI.
Like each different tech firm, Apple has been closely investing in synthetic intelligence. We’re anticipating subsequent week’s Worldwide Developers Conference to spotlight any progress the corporate’s made because it debuted its suite of Apple Intelligence options final yr, and to element what role AI will play within the subsequent era of its software program and {hardware}.
Apple Intelligence has been the driving drive behind a lot of the corporate’s innovation. The digicam management button, as an illustration, is the bodily pathway into Visual Intelligence, a brand new AI-powered characteristic that allows you to use your digicam to scan objects in the actual world to get extra data on them. It sounds snazzy, but it surely’s fully pointless to me, and it is a characteristic I’ve by no means been enticed to make use of.
There are other use cases for the digicam management button, together with methods to customize your button’s settings, as my colleagues have discovered via their testing. However that does not change the truth that the digicam management button is so fully annoying.
It is a lengthy button, concerning the dimension of the ability button, positioned on the decrease proper facet of the gadget. And it is very, very straightforward to faucet accidentally. I’ve opened my digicam whereas placing my telephone in my pocket, whereas I am driving and utilizing navigation apps and as soon as as I used to be turning off my telephone for the evening, which left the digicam app open the entire evening and drained my telephone’s battery.
And if that wasn’t annoying sufficient, each time I really supposed to open my digicam by way of digicam management, it took a number of faucets to take action. Go determine.
Whereas I had digicam management enabled, my digicam roll included gorgeous photographs like these:
I could not inform you when or the place these pictures obtained by chance taken.
I ask you: What’s the level of a button that works when you do not want it and does not work whenever you do? There are already 3 ways to entry your iPhone’s digicam from the lock display that take literal seconds to make use of. Digital camera management is a really costly, very unreliable addition to the iPhone 16, all for the sake of AI options that many people don’t need or use. There hasn’t been one second since I turned digicam management off that I’ve missed it. So even when Apple publicizes some large Visible Intelligence updates at WWDC subsequent week, there is not any means I am voluntarily turning it again on.
I understand my gripes with digicam management are minor complaints amongst what has been an general optimistic expertise with my new telephone. However as an AI reporter, I am unable to assist however see this as a troubling signal. So many tech firms have overhauled their software program and units to be AI-friendly, whether or not it is Google spamming us with Gemini pop-ups in each single Google app, the brand new Copilot button on Microsoft Home windows laptops or Apple’s digicam management button.
Tech firms are too desirous to get on the AI prepare and have not given sufficient thought as to if these options improve or simply derail our expertise utilizing their merchandise. And never sufficient provide opt-out choices. Fortunately for me and my digicam roll, Apple does. However I hope sooner or later, such drastic measures will not be obligatory as firms are extra intentional with their AI-enabling options.
If you wish to be part of me in making your digicam management button out of date, you possibly can navigate to your iPhone’s settings and choose digicam. Then, faucet digicam management. Inside digicam management choose accessibility, after which toggle off digicam management. For those who’re additionally experiencing the hyper-sensitivity, you possibly can regulate what number of faucets (and the stress wanted) to set off the button in that very same accessibility web page beneath light-press drive.
For extra, try our hands-on expertise with the iPhone 16 Pro and our iOS 19 wish list.
