Why Apple added yet another button to the iPhone 16

Apple giveth and Apple taketh away — particularly when it comes to ports and buttons. The company has long taken a “less is more” approach to any detail that might disrupt its devices’ feng shui. The company is feeling a lot more bullish about buttons these days. After introducing the Action Button on the Apple Watch Ultra, the company added the feature to the iPhone 15 last year. With another new iPhone comes another new iPhone button: Camera Control, which was announced at Apple’s “Glowtime” event on Monday.

The feature harkens back to the bygone days of devoted camera buttons, which have almost entirely fallen out of favor on smartphones. For some, the quick, successive addition of two new buttons may feel like a step back.

For Apple, it’s part of a feature ebb and flow that’s not entirely uncommon in hardware. Ports and buttons come and go with every passing year.

It’s hard to imagine Apple adding Camera Control were Apple Intelligence not already on the docket. While camera features have always been an essential selling point for handset upgrades, in the long run, the driving force behind the button is something else altogether. As Software Engineering SVP and parkour enthusiast Craig Federighi noted, the forthcoming Visual Intelligence feature is “enabled by Camera Control.”

However, much like other Apple Intelligence features, it won’t launch alongside the iPhone 16 line later this month. With the feature MIA, the company is really leaning into its camera functionality in the meantime. Whether the button will ultimately be regarded as a camera- or Visual Intelligence-first feature ultimately comes down to the success of the latter and what Apple can do to distinguish it from the already ubiquitous Google Lens.

Apple offered time with the feature after the keynote, at least the camera aspect. Visual Intelligence won’t launch until sometime later this year. As I got in closer to take a picture of the feature, I fumbled with my own phone, to which an Apple rep helpfully suggested my life would be improved with Camera Control. Fair enough.

Like any other new feature, Camera Control takes a bit to master. The trickiest part is determining how much pressure to apply in order to toggle between features. That, however, is what makes it unique versus earlier camera buttons. It’s more than just a way to open the camera app and take a shot. It also lets you navigate within the app itself.

This is particularly important in the wake of the iPhone 15’s Action Button. Camera was, after all, one of the available options for the button. From a hardware perspective, the capacitive Camera Control button offers a much broader range of options than does the Action Button.

Camera Control will be available across the iPhone 16 line when it launches later this month.