Expect This to Be a Big iPhone Upgrade Year (Not Just Because of New Buttons)
A new "capture" button for video and photos is rumored for the iPhone 16, but that alone won't be the reason more people may look to upgrade this fall.
- Bridget has spent over 18 years as a consumer tech reporter, hosting daily tech news shows and writing syndicated newspaper columns. She's often a guest on national radio and television stations, including ABC, CBS, CNBC and NBC.
The next iPhones are expected to debut in roughly three months -- but this upgrade cycle feels different from before.
Every September it's the same dance from Apple: iPhones get incremental improvements in performance and design, and customers who hold off on upgrading still get new software improvements. But with the introduction of Apple Intelligence, the company's generative AI tools, it changes the story this fall. Now the biggest software tricks that everyone is buzzing about will require the new hardware.
If you want an iPhone that can send silly AI-generated images to friends and can tap into a smarter Siri, you'll need one of the newest iPhones with a top-of-the-line processor. Right now that's the iPhone 15 Pro with an A17 Pro chip.
That alone has analysts predicting a huge wave of customers looking to upgrade. Investment firm Wedbush says the iPhone 16 will bring us into an upgrade "super cycle," as highlighted by AppleInsider, since an estimated 270 million iPhone users haven't upgraded in four years.
With so many folks hungry to taste the new AI software, what's in store for the hardware in iPhone 16? This week's episode of One More Thing, embedded above, goes over all the latest reported iPhone changes -- including the addition of a camera button for all models that will unlock different tricks, depending on how you move your finger over it.
Reports also say an Action button will replace all the mute switches, but we just need to figure out some clever uses for that button. Coffee, anyone?