First things first: we LOVE the fact that Apple actually reduced the price of the Pro series as compared to their predecessors. At Rs 1,19,900, the iPhone 16 Pro is a clear Rs 15,000 cheaper than the iPhone 15 Pro. Hell, we would have loved something similar for the regular series too, which stays at the 'regular' price of Rs 79,900, but we still love this!

Next up, we are just SO relieved that Apple finally decided to give the iPhone 16 a bit of a design makeover, making it look totally different from the iPhone 15/14/13, which looked like triplets separated by evil fate at a festival in a Bollywood film. No, it is not a radical design change, but thank heaven, it is at least different - thanks mainly to the camera units. And the Ultramarine and pink units look lovely.

In another welcome development, all the new iPhones finally have the same processor - the A18. This is a change from the last couple of years when the Pro series got the new chip and the 'normal' iPhones were given variants of last year's Pro chips. This time around the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus get the A18, while the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max get the A18 Pro, which seems fair. It also means that ALL of the new iPhones will get Apple intelligence, unlike in the 15 series, where only the Pro and Pro Max are scheduled to get it.

Of course, there have been hardware and software improvements all around, but a lot of attention has been given to the addition of a Camera Control button. While we have seen camera buttons on phones before (they used to be an integral part of phones from 2005-2012), Apple has added a whole lot more functionality to it, apart from just clicking a photograph. We are a little conflicted about this - one of us thinks this is very cool, the other thinks it complicates matters (as Apple also plans to add AI functionalities to the button later on). All said and done, we like the idea, but will wait to use it before sharing our take.

Which brings us to Apple Intelligence, which is being hyped as the coolest thing to hit Apple iPhones since God knows when, but which will be available on the iPhone 16 series later. From what was shown and what we have experienced on beta versions, this could add a whole new dimension to using the iPhone, with features ranging from summarising of documents to composing messages and mails to more powerful search and image and video editing and a whole lot more, All with Apple's trademark privacy protection in place. It sounds awesome, and Apple is awesome at implementation, but it is quite a massive proposition, so we are keeping our fingers firmly crossed, This could be huge!

Speaking of huge, Apple seems to have taken the big phone route big time with its Pro series. The iPhone 16 Pro Max's 6.9 inch display is the largest we have seen on any non-folding flagship phone this year, and even the iPhone 16 Pro's display has been bumped up to 6.3 inches. The iPhone 16's display remains at 6.1 inches, but we have a feeling that the compact iPhone era range is coming to an end! And that is a bit of a pity.

We also think that the Pro series is now being increasingly targeted at content creators. The stress on cameras and the arrival of features like 4K 120 FPS Dolby Vision, and the presence of a number of powerful video and audio editing tools seem to indicate that the Pro bros of the iPhone 16 series are multimedia monsters - those big displays help in better editing too, and those faster processors will make the process smoother.