Based on our testing, the iPhone 15 is one of the best phones out there. After all, we called it the best iPhone value in our review. You get excellent performance from the main camera, a brighter screen and very good battery life from a compact handset.
But as we get closer to the launch of the iPhone 16 in September, there are some pretty big reasons to wait for the new iPhone. And I’m not just talking about hardware rumors. This is why you should hit pause on buying an iPhone 15 and buy the iPhone 16 instead.
iPhone 15 will not get Apple Intelligence
The good news is that iOS 18 is coming to the iPhone 15, bringing features like the customizable Home screen and Control Center, the redesigned Photos app, and plenty of Messages upgrades. The bad news is that you won’t be able to experience Apple’s AI features called Apple Intelligence.
Currently, only the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max can support iOS 18 features of Apple Intelligence, which includes capabilities like rewriting tools, web page summaries, a photo cleaning tool, AI-generated images and Genmoji, and an all-new Siri . And that’s because Apple requires at least an A17 Pro chip for the features to work on mobile devices.
The assumption is that the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus will have a chip powerful enough to support Apple Intelligence, and you won’t need the iPhone 16 Pro or iPhone 16 Pro Max.
iPhone 16 design upgrades, including the Capture button
The iPhone 16 is tipped to receive a number of design upgrades, starting with a new Capture button that will likely be used for instant photo and video capture. This addition will apparently be made available on all four new iPhone 16 models.
Additionally, the iPhone 16 is expected to feature a vertical camera design, allowing the phone to capture spatial videos. This means that you can watch the video again in compatible headsets such as the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3.
iPhone 16 display changes
The new iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro are both tipped to use microlens technology on their OLED displays, which is designed to increase brightness while reducing power consumption. So you can get a more vibrant panel and get longer battery life at the same time.
Meanwhile, multiple sources point to thinner bezels on the iPhone 16 series. The new iPhones can implement a new Border Reduction Structure to make the screen more immersive. The bottom edge in particular could shrink.
New A18 chip
The A16 Bionic chip on the iPhone 15 is quite fast, but it is starting to show its age. And not just because it doesn’t support Apple Intelligence features. The Samsung Galaxy S24 and top Android phones have overtaken the iPhone in some performance tests with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, and Apple must respond.
Rumor has it that all four iPhone 16 models will use the same A18 chip, but my money is on a Pro variant for the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max. As you would expect, the A18 chip features a more powerful neural engine with additional cores. So you should be able to achieve even better performance on locally executed AI tasks.
Faster 5G (with less power)
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t been all that impressed with smartphone 5G performance in recent years. Perhaps things will change with the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus, as these new iPhones will reportedly include Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X75 modem.
This modem will likely offer faster performance, but also a more efficient design that uses up to 20% less power. And this could help the iPhone 16 last significantly longer and make it into our list of the best phone battery life.
Longer battery life
The iPhone 15’s 3,349 mAh battery delivered very good endurance during the Tom’s Guide Battery Test, which involves continuous web browsing over 5G, but it wasn’t great. The phone lasted 11 hours and 5 minutes, compared to 13:28 for the Galaxy S24.
But the new iPhone could overtake the rumored battery with a larger capacity of 3,561 mAh. Additionally, the stacked battery technology that Apple could use would result in a longer battery life. There were rumors about the iPhone 15, but this never happened.
WiFi 7
If you haven’t heard of Wi-Fi 7 yet, you probably have. This new networking technology is starting to appear in more and more routers and you can experience speeds up to four times faster. Additionally, the new standard reduces latency and increases capacity for multiple devices.
The iPhone 16 series is expected to support Wi-Fi 7, and if you want to be ready, we’ve rounded up the best Wi-Fi 7 routers you can buy right now, including mesh systems.