Opinion: Between Apple Intelligence and “Cinematic” Video, the iPhone 16 is spread far too thin
posted Tuesday, September 10, 2024 at 7:06 AM EDT
Apple’s Glowtime event has been and gone, and with it came the iPhone 16: Apple’s latest iteration of smartphone. As part of the package, Apple Intelligence is finally taking the training wheels off with a suite of new features headed for your pocket, starting September 20th. There’s a lot to unpack in the launch, from the new camera systems to AI-powered productivity, so let’s first break down the key touchpoints.
A new camera
On the Pro and Pro Max variants of the iPhone 16, Apple has introduced a more powerful camera with a quad-pixel sensor: one that is twice as fast as its predecessors. With an equivalent resolution of 48MP, you have a trio of lenses to choose from along with a huge suite of creative styles. This is paired with the new Capture Button, which makes taking a photo more convenient and seamless than the clunky opening of menus.
New camera modes
The Apple team was proud to present their new camera presets, both in-lens and color grading. With macro photography and the ability to edit photos with creative color grades in both pre-and post-processing, photographers can experiment with a range of techniques. But it’s clear that Apple’s primary target was the video-oriented content-creator crowd. Cinematic Slow Motion and the ability to shoot 4K 120FPS in ProRes LOG allegedly make the iPhone 16 capable of shooting cinematographer-quality footage. Emphasis on the “allegedly”, however, as we’ll discuss below.
New sound quality
Alongside video, audio has been enhanced with both new microphones and software to reduce noise. For both phone calls and video recording, the iPhone 16 uses noise reduction to reduce background disturbance for clearer audio. They also highlighted the use of this in cinematic settings, with shifting audio presets for recording dialogue for a scene. The exact extent of this technology isn’t clear, but it is an improvement in audio quality that has been bizarrely lacking in previous incarnations of iPhone.
Apple Intelligence
As mentioned, Apple Intelligence’s new features will first arrive on the iPhone 15 Pro variants, but will come into their own with the iPhone 16 range. With new ways to search, including using more natural speaking voice and neural language models, but it was the new camera abilities that Apple showed off the most. Able to read and log locations, text and more from an image, Apple’s commitment to creating a phone purpose-built for Apple Intelligence shines through.
The Problem(s)
So what’s the issue? A new iPhone generation, packed with new features, whilst retaining all that made the previous models so popular. The iPhone 16 presentation spanned the better part of an hour, split between base and Pro models, as the developers explained in detail the various features with a few demonstrations. From scenarios showing off the new Apple Intelligence lens to a shoot with the Weeknd, to identifying a dog breed with the Capture button, we were shown how these new iPhones could be used.
But therein lies the twofold issue. The iPhone 16 range explicitly marketed itself as a jack-of-all-trades device for filmmakers, but is still limited by its form factor to make it a master of none. At the same time, it is crammed with AI consumer features that I don’t see anyone using. So if it’s not professional-focused and not consumer-friendly, who is the iPhone 16 for?
Starting with Apple Intelligence’s camera capabilities, I found myself watching the Glowtime event and wondering who exactly these features cater to. I’m not the most extroverted person, but even I would rather ask someone “What breed is your dog?” than gormlessly stand with my phone pointed at it for a few seconds. Similarly, it is much more convenient - and much less embarrassing - to quickly open your Notes or Maps app of choice to note down a cafe than to take a photo outside of it. And yelling into Siri in the middle of a tourist destination? The features are impressive, but not practical.
It’s all set up, of course: demonstrating the features rather than being true-to-life. I’m sure there are plenty of times when using the intelligent camera will come in handy. But the fact that Apple couldn’t produce any doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence. The examples of artificial intelligence in action feel, appropriately, artificial.
The other major demonstration of practical iPhone 16 use took us to the set of a new music video for The Weeknd for his new single “Dancing in the Flames”. Cinematographer Eric Hendrickson brought us behind-the-scenes as he used the 4K 120FPS cinematic slow-motion mode featured on the iPhone 16 Pro Max to shoot a stylish slow-motion video. There wasn’t anything as pretentious or laughable as the iPhone 15’s “Voila, Cinema” moment that the filmmaking community continues to ridicule to this day, but it felt similarly arbitrary. It’s a nice sentiment: I don’t doubt that the iPhone 16 Pro Max is capable of cinematic video, and it’s a strong step in democratizing filmmaking that smartphones are capable of shooting LOG. One of the major issues with getting into filmmaking is the high financial barriers, especially for the camera department, so this serves as a good way for low-budget filmmakers to get started.
But the “Dancing in the Flames” video isn’t some low-budget job: it’s a full set with studio lighting, rain machines, and a full crew. The takeaway isn’t “you can shoot a Weeknd music video on the iPhone 16”, it’s “you can shoot a million-dollar music video with the iPhone 16”. And for an actual production of that scale, a camera rig is not only a worthy investment but a necessary one. Without follow-focus, cinema prime lenses or even a viewfinder; there were no doubt plenty of takes that lost focus, looked flat or simply weren’t polished. And with a base price of $1199 (pay more to get more storage space, which as any DIT will tell you is a filmmaking essential), is the iPhone 16 Pro Max really that entry-level?
At the end of the day, it is exciting to see what Apple’s developers have been creating. You can see why camera usage is in decline compared to smartphones, when these machines can fit inside your pocket and are capable of such strong performance. But at the same time, Apple’s lengthy attempt to appear cinematographer-scale proved why a professional camera market will always exist. Using the iPhone 16 Pro Max to shoot a music video of this scale speaks more to the talents of the crew behind the camera than the camera itself.
We’re only a year removed from the joint writers’ and actors’ strike that crippled the film industry to an extent that it still hasn’t recovered from: a strike that, among other things, was protesting the use of AI in the filmmaking industry. So to see Apple doubling-down on the technology whilst simultaneously claiming it can use it to replace sound recordists and camera teams is a little disheartening. But given the confusingly broad scope that the iPhone 16 has, I think our jobs are safe for now…