Apple's 'Glowtime' event has come and gone, confirming just about everything we expected, including the iPhone 16 series, the new Apple Watch, new AirPods, and a ton of new Apple Intelligence features. Somewhat lost in the shuffle was the announcement that Apple would finally bring 4K frames per second slow motion video recording, new camera controls and spatial audio to the iPhone 16 Pro.
Long story short, Apple is bringing more cinematic capabilities to the iPhone 16 Pro with slow-motion effects. Apple illustrated this at the event with an amusing but dramatic shot of two guys walking away from a fiery explosion. Apple also demonstrated the feature with The Weekend's new music video.
Naturally, there's also 4K 120fps video recording with Dolby Vision for non-slow-motion video, emphasizing the capabilities enabled by the 48-megapixel Fusion camera, which comes with quad-pixel sensors. All of this is also powered by the A18 Pro chip, which interestingly allows you to adjust playback speed after capturing video, letting you add slow-motion after the fact with a half-speed option. You're also able to slow it down to a cinematic 24fps playback.
Also, check out: A Billion Pixels a Second: A Rare Look Inside Apple's Secret iPhone 16 Camera Labs
That's also not the only feature for aspiring videographers. According to Apple, the iPhone 16 Pro has four studio-quality mics, allowing for spatial audio capture. AI can also enhance the Audio Mix feature, helping you separate background noise from speech. You can also choose between studio and cinematic mixes.
It seems fairly clear that Apple aims to have the iPhone 16 Pro be the main camera powerhouse of the lineup, together with its larger sibling, the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Both come with a 48-megapixel Fusion camera as the primary sensor with reduced lag between hitting the shutter button and taking the photo. There's also an upgrade to the ultrawide sensor, with a bump from 12-megapixels to 48-megapixels, giving you better, more detailed landscape shots.
Finally, you get redesigned and improved camera controls, including a new physical camera control button and the ability to do spatial photos and videos for the Apple Vision Pro. All this capability will run you $999 for the iPhone 16 Pro and $1,199 for iPhone 16 Pro Max.