While the specs, display, camera and battery life are all important qualities to consider when picking out a new smartphone, we’d be lying to say we didn’t put any thought into the colour and finish of the phone.
After all, that’s a colour you’ll be looking at multiple times a day for the next year or two at the very least.
Apple typically chooses lighter, more fun colours for its standard and Plus models and reserves the darker, more sophisticated shades for the Pro range. The iPhone 16 series is no exception to this rule, though the colours are still a large departure from the soft, pastel colours we saw on the iPhone 15.
The iPhone 16 comes in five shades at launch, including black, white, pink, teal and ultramarine.
Apple has strayed away from the muted, almost washed-out, pastel colouring found on the iPhone 15 and, to a lesser extent, the iPhone 14. The refreshed pink, green and blue shades are bolder and more saturated than those on the iPhone 15.
These new colours combined with the return of the vertically stacked camera bring a fresh look to the iPhone that we haven’t seen since the iPhone 12 in 2020.
Moving onto the pricier Pro models, the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max look much more similar to their predecessors, the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max.
Despite being physically bigger than the 15 Pro phones, the 16 Pro handsets resemble the 15 Pro series with their similar camera modules and three matching finishes – black titanium, white titanium and natural titanium.
The one obvious departure here is the lack of a navy blue (or ‘blue titanium’) option. Instead, Apple has chosen to launch a bronzey desert titanium iPhone 16 Pro.
The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus are available to pre-order now with prices starting at £799 or $899, respectively. The iPhone 16 Pro starts at $999, while the 16 Pro Max starts at $1199, with pre-orders also available now.