The 16 Pro's camera finally made me stop carrying a dedicated camera on trips - here's the specific thing that changed my mind
I've been a dedicated camera person for years. Mirrorless for travel, compact for day-to-day, phone for snapshots when nothing else was available. The phone was always a fallback, not a first choice
The 16 Pro changed that on a trip last month - not because of megapixels or sensors but because of two specific capabilities that came together:
The half-press AF/AE lock on Camera Control. It took until January for this to arrive via iOS 18.3, and the feature remains buried in settings and has to be toggled on - but once enabled, you tap a subject, hold halfway, and it locks exposure and focus for as long as you keep your finger down, like a real camera. This single feature changed how I shoot. I'm composing and locking before I frame, which is how I shoot on my mirrorless. The phone now responds the same way.
The ProRAW speed improvement. Burst ProRAW 48MP frame rate on the 16 Pro is roughly twice that of the 15 Pro, which means I'm not waiting after shots the way I was. The workflow now feels responsive rather than like I'm shooting through molasses
Combined: I have something that fits in a pocket, shoots RAW at useful speeds, and has manual focus/exposure control via physical hardware. The gap to a dedicated camera is smaller than it's ever been for my actual shooting style
What's the specific capability that made the 16 Pro camera feel genuinely different from your previous phone rather than incrementally better?