You just dropped a grand or more on a slab of titanium and glass. It looks sleek. It feels fast. But honestly, if you’re just using it to scroll TikTok and send green-bubble texts, you’re basically driving a Ferrari in a school zone. The iPhone 16 series—especially with the 2026 software refinements—is a different beast than the iPhones of three years ago.
Most people think they know how to use their phone. They don’t. They miss the haptic nuances of the new buttons or let Apple Intelligence sit idle in the settings menu like a dusty treadmill.
That New Camera Control Button is Kind of a Mess (At First)
Let's talk about the elephant in the room: that capacitive "button" on the right side. Apple calls it Camera Control. When you first use it, you’ll probably accidentally take forty pictures of the inside of your pocket.
It’s sensitive.
To actually make it useful, you have to dive into Settings > Camera > Camera Control. Most "pro" users are actually turning on the "Double Click" requirement to launch the app. It stops the accidental pocket-launches.
But the real magic isn't just clicking it to snap a photo. It’s the light press. If you press it just a tiny bit—don't click it all the way—you get a tiny overlay. You can slide your finger to zoom, change exposure, or even swap "Photographic Styles."
Pro Tip: In the Accessibility settings, you can actually change how much pressure it takes to trigger that light press. If you have "heavy fingers," set it to "Firmer." It'll save your sanity.
And for the love of God, stop zooming with two fingers on the screen. Use the button. It’s 2026; we have haptics for a reason.
The Action Button Isn't Just for Muting Anymore
Remember the mute switch? Gone. Rest in peace. The Action Button is its replacement, and if yours is still set to "Silent Mode," you're wasting it.
I’ve seen people set this thing to open ChatGPT directly, which is cool, but the real "galaxy brain" move is using Shortcuts. You can actually make the Action Button do different things based on the time of day or your location.
For example, I have mine set so that if I’m at home, it toggles my smart lights. If I’m at the gym, it starts my "Heavy Lift" playlist. If it’s after 10 PM, it turns on Low Power Mode and opens my Kindle app.
How to actually set that up:
- Open the Shortcuts app.
- Create a new "Personal Automation."
- Use the "If" statement logic.
- Assign that shortcut to the Action Button in the main Settings menu.
It takes ten minutes to build, but it feels like living in the future every single day.
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Apple Intelligence is Hungry for Battery
Apple Intelligence—or "AI" as the rest of the world calls it—is finally fully baked in 2026. Features like Clean Up in Photos (which lets you scrub out that annoying tourist in the background of your vacation shots) are incredible.
But there's a catch.
Processing all that "on-device" intelligence makes the iPhone 16 Pro run hot. If you notice your battery life tanking, it’s probably because your phone is busy indexing your entire life to make Siri smarter.
Go to Settings > Battery and look at the "Activity by App" list. If you see "System Intelligence" at the top, your phone is working overtime.
One trick? Turn on the 85% or 90% Charge Limit.
Apple finally gave us more granular control over this. By keeping your max charge at 90% instead of 100%, you’re going to preserve the chemical health of that battery for years. If you plan on keeping this phone until the iPhone 20 comes out, do this today.
Visual Intelligence is the "Google Lens" Killer
If you have an iPhone 16, you have Visual Intelligence. You trigger it by long-pressing the Camera Control button.
Point it at a restaurant. It’ll pull up the Yelp reviews and the menu immediately. Point it at a dog. It’ll tell you it’s a Golden Retriever (even though you already knew that).
The coolest use case? Point it at a flyer for a concert. It’ll extract the date, time, and location and ask if you want to add it to your Calendar. No typing. No switching apps. It just works.
Stop Using the Default Control Center
iOS 18 and the updates leading into 2026 have made the Control Center completely modular. Most people still have the default layout.
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Don't be most people.
Swipe down from the top right, then long-press on any empty space. You can now resize the buttons. Want a massive "Now Playing" widget? Make it huge. Want to get rid of the "Screen Mirroring" button you haven't used since 2019? Delete it.
You can even add controls from third-party apps now. If you use a specific app for your Tesla or your home security, you can put a dedicated button right there in the Control Center.
The "Hidden" Video Trick: 4K 120fps
If you bought the Pro model, you have 4K 120fps video recording. It’s gorgeous. It’s also a storage hog.
The trick here isn't just recording in slow-mo; it’s the Audio Mix feature in the Photos app after you've shot the video.
Once you’ve recorded a clip, hit Edit, then tap the Audio Mix icon (it looks like three overlapping circles). You can choose "In-Frame," which basically uses AI to ignore any noise that isn't coming from the person on camera. It makes a windy beach video sound like it was recorded in a studio.
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Actionable Next Steps
If you just unboxed your iPhone 16, do these three things right now:
- Limit your charging to 90% in the Battery settings to save your hardware.
- Map your Action Button to a Folder or a Shortcut, not just the mute switch.
- Update to the latest iOS 18.x or 19.x version immediately. Apple has been pushing "Visual Intelligence" patches every few weeks, and the early versions are way buggier than what’s out now.
Seriously, spend the twenty minutes to customize the interface. A phone this expensive shouldn't feel generic. Make it yours.