Everything You Can Do With the New Camera Button on iPhone 16

It’s a big deal when Apple adds something new to the iPhone, and yet the camera control button on iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro was a surprise. Not the existence of a new button — that had been rumored for months — but the shock of what this physical mechanism with a touch-sensitive control surface can do.

Triggering the camera shutter with a physical button isn’t a new idea. You can currently use the volume button to take a photo in the Camera app, so it would be a disappointment if the new camera control was just another button — even if it’s better placed when you’re holding the phone in a wide orientation.

But Camera Control isn’t just any button. Its capacitive surface recognizes touch and swipe gestures to perform a variety of actions while taking photos.

Camera Control is built into iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max. Each of these models is available for pre-order this Friday, and will be available the following week, on September 20.

How will the camera control button work?

The iPhone’s camera button is a physical button that fires when pressed, but it also has haptic feedback similar to the trackpads on MacBooks (which are indistinguishable from a physical mechanism, even though the trackpad is just a piece of glass).

The button surface is a smooth capacitive surface that responds to fingertip movements. (The MacBook Pro Touch Bar technology lives on!)

When you lightly press the button — which seems to mean some pressure on the surface, but not enough to press the switch — an overlay appears on the screen. The iOS 18 beta introduced a subtle UI animation that shows where the physical button press occurs, and we now know that was in preparation for the expanded control area that accompanies the camera control button.

Open the Camera app using the Camera Control button

One of the new features in iOS 18 is the ability to remove the default Camera icon from the lock screen and replace it with something else. Personally, I’ve never used this shortcut, preferring to swipe in from the right edge to open the app.

Now, pressing the camera control button will quickly launch the built-in Camera app, which is arguably faster since it’s located near your thumb or index finger when holding your iPhone.

Take a photo or record a video the “traditional” way

Camera ergonomics are often overlooked, but they can be the difference between composing your shot comfortably and having to press the shutter button on your screen.

To take a photo, press the Camera Control button. To start recording video, press and hold the button. (We hope there’ll be a setting that changes the behavior of holding to record bursts of photos instead of video. You can do that now by pressing the Volume Up button, but only after you’ve turned on the option in Settings > Camera > Use Volume Up for Burst.)

A light press temporarily hides most interface elements, so you can enjoy a tidy view of the object.

In a later software update, you’ll be able to lock the focus with a light press and hold of the button, just as you can do with a half-press of the shutter button on most cameras. (In the meantime, you can touch and hold the screen where you want to focus, and the app will lock the focus and exposure at that point, even if you recompose the shot.)

Zooming and switching between cameras

Perhaps the biggest advantage of the Camera Control app is having access to so many features without having to swipe all over the screen.

To zoom in or out, press lightly to display the slider and drag to change the focal length.

Double-pressing the camera control button will display a sliding overlay with other camera options.

The Cameras option — represented by an icon that looks like a shutter — lets you switch between individual cameras and jump to their focal lengths, such as choosing between the ultra-wide camera (0.5x zoom) and the telephoto camera (5x zoom).

Quick exposure and depth adjustment

The overlay that appears when you lightly double-press the Camera Control button also includes Exposure Compensation and Depth controls. The latter is the iPhone’s way of changing the aperture (it even uses the ƒ icon to indicate the aperture value), but because all iPhone cameras have fixed apertures, the control adjusts the simulated depth in Portrait mode; if the camera detects an object in the scene, it will automatically record the depth information.

Choose your photography styles

Apple has revamped the Photographic Styles feature on the new iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro models, replacing the factory filters and making the styles more editable. They can also be selected using Camera Control.

Lightly double-tap the control to bring up the capture overlay and swipe to select Photo Styles. Then swipe to preview the styles in real time and choose one.

Camera control also allows you to record video

These camera control options also apply when recording video. In the Apple event video, the demo suggested that switching between resolutions and frame rates, such as 4K 120 FPS, is possible via the controls.

Apple also showed how this feature can be applied to third-party photo and video apps by showcasing the Grid Composer feature in Lux Software’s Kino video app, which lets you switch between different types of visible guides.

What about non-photo related Camera Control features?

The button is reserved for photography applications, including features that third-party developers include in their photo and video apps. But Apple also sneaks in an Apple Intelligence feature called visual intelligence that leverages the camera.

With your iPhone locked, press and hold the Camera Control button to turn on the camera. When you take a photo in this mode, Apple Intelligence looks at what you’re pointing at. In Apple’s examples, someone took a photo of a restaurant to get more information and check its opening hours, then checked the breed of a dog passing by.

Camera Control will be available with iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro on September 20, but pre-orders will be available starting at 5 a.m. on September 13. For more on what’s new with iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods, check out our full coverage of the event .