With the iPhone 16 lineup, Apple has completely revamped the Photographic Styles feature – which was first introduced with the iPhone 13. However, despite the new iPhone 16e having almost the same hardware as its more expensive siblings, the device seems to lack the latest-generation Photographic Styles.
iPhone 16e and Photographic Styles
Based on Apple’s official webpage that compares different iPhone models, only the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro feature the latest-generation Photographic Styles. iPhone 16e gained a lot of camera features that weren’t available on the now-discontinued iPhone SE, but it looks like the phone won’t have the new Photographic Styles.
The iPhone 16e specifications mention support for “Photographic Styles” without including “latest-generation,” which suggests that the phone has the same old photo filters as the iPhone 13.
For those unfamiliar, Apple introduced Photographic Styles with the iPhone 13. Unlike simple filters applied to a compressed image, this feature modifies the tone, contrast, and warmth of the image during capture. As a result, these adjustments are made more intelligently, specially when it comes to skin tones and the sky.
With the iPhone 16, Apple has made this feature much better. The iPhone now stores the color, light and shadow data for each photo, so that users can apply and edit Photographic Styles after the photo has been taken. This also enables many more possibilities when it comes to editing photos.
There’s no word on why the iPhone 16e lacks the new Photographic Styles, as the phone has the same A18 chip and 48-megapixel main camera as the base iPhone 16. It could be a marketing decision, similar to not enabling ProRAW image capture on non-Pro iPhones.
More about the new iPhone
In addition to the A18 chip and 48-megapixel camera, the iPhone 16e has a 6.1-inch OLED display, Face ID, and a USB-C port. It also features Apple’s first custom 5G modem for better energy efficiency.
Pre-orders for iPhone 16e begin on Friday, February 21. The first orders will arrive next week, on February 28. Pricing starts at $599 for 128GB of storage. There are 256GB and 512GB options available, in white and black.
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