One of the things that’s annoyed me most about the iPhone for years now has been the lack of hardware access to the camera app, something that Android phones have been doing for around a decade now. Finally, that’s changing with iPhone 16, and in Apple’s classic fashion, it arrives with some meaningful improvements.
Accessing the camera on an iPhone has, for years, taken the form of either opening the camera app itself or using a long-press shortcut on the lockscreen. There’s no way to use the hardware to do this, which has always been frustrating to me. The iPhone 15 Pro’s “Action Button” offered a way to do this, but as I brought out in my review, I found it too slow, too unergonomic, and too cumbersome to be of any value.
Meanwhile, on Android, users have been able to access the camera app for years with a quick double-tap of the power button. This is missing for some brands, especially those in China, but Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy devices, among many others, support this simple, intuitive, and fast camera shortcut.
It’s something I’ve long wondered why Apple avoided, and why iPhone owners put up with the lack of.
Finally, Apple is delivering on a true hardware access shortcut for the camera on iPhone 16 with the arrival of “Camera Control,” a new physical button/touchpad on the side of the device that can be used to both open and operate the camera.
This new idea isn’t quite as simple as Android’s double-tap, nor is it a solution for the millions of iPhone owners on older generations, but it’s a step in the right direction, and a leap forward in terms of functionality.
“Camera Control” isn’t just a button. With a swipe and multiple layers of pressure, users can switch modes, zoom in, and, of course, take shots quickly and easily. This little touchpad lies on the bottom right side of the device, making it a great option for landscape shots that will feel like a traditional point-and-shoot camera. There’s an argument to be made that this won’t be as useful or ergonomic for portrait shots, which is what many of us are capturing most of the time anyway, but I think this will still be a considerable improvement over the Action Button’s poor placement (which still exists, by the way, across the entire iPhone 16 lineup).
Examples of how the swipe gestures can be used include swapping modes in the camera app, as well as zooming in on a subject. On the Pro models, you can also use this to add viewfinder guidelines for various best practices in shooting (such as rule of thirds and such).
Apple is also using this new button within “Visual Intelligence,” the company’s cheeky name for what is effectively a clone of Google Lens (and powered in part by Google). Users can point their camera at objects or scenes to get more details, such as shopping dog breeds, and more, using this new button to trigger those results instead of using the touchscreen.
It’s useful functionality that Android users have had for years, but put together into a more seamless implementation, and frankly I’m surprised that Google or Samsung or anyone else hasn’t come up with something similar over the years.
That really summarizes how I feel about this new move from Apple.
A hardware shortcut for the camera has existed on Android for a long time in the form of that double-tap, and I remain of the opinion that it’s not only the best way to quickly access the camera, but also the best use of a double-tap for the power button. But Apple’s decisions with UI and functionality could have only been made through a new piece of hardware, and I think it looks incredibly compelling. How it works in practice remains to be seen – I’m really curious about the ergonomics more than anything – but I’m glad that Apple came up with something that’s meaningfully better and I can’t wait to see how Android manufacturers respond.
Of course, I’d much rather have had a copy of Android’s functionality for the past 10 years, but Apple’s gonna Apple.
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