How the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max Really Are Bigger Than Other iPhones. Apple Fools Everyone Again

The first unboxings and reviews of the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max have died down, and people have shared their impressions of the new-sized devices.

Everyone is striking with thinner frames, but here’s the thing: finally, gadgets have really grown in size, they have come absolutely conflicting findings.

Of course, the easiest way is to come to the store and try on models that fit your hand, but not everyone has this opportunity yet. I decided to make a visual comparison of new smartphones with previous generations up to a meter..

Below I report that the growth in size was completely unexpected Proshekwhether the pores still interfered with watching videos, how the frames of iPhones have changed over the past 5 years, and one conclusion about the dimensions that seems logical, mitigating, and at the same time very alarming.

What was in the Pros before and what screen does it have now?

Starting this year, Apple’s OLED smartphones have come out in the following sizes.

I won’t list all the models, but the size of the iPhone with an OLED display grew like this.

iPhone Pro diagonal growth:

Pro: 5,85 > 6,06 > 6,12 > 6,27 дюйма
Pro Max: 6,46 > 6,68 > 6,69 > 6,86 дюйма.

At the same time, throughout its history, Apple has increased the size of its smartphones 7 times:

▴ iPhone 4S – iPhone 5 (+0.5″)
▴ iPhone 5S – iPhone 6 and Plus (+0.7″ And +1.5″)
▴ iPhone 8 – iPhone X (+1.1″)
▴ iPhone 8 Plus – iPhone XS Max (+1″)
▴ iPhone 11 Pro (Max) – iPhone 12 Pro (Max) (+0.21″ And +0.22″)
▴ iPhone 13 Pro (Max) – iPhone 14 Pro (Max) (+0.06″ And +0.01″)
▴ iPhone 15 Pro (Max) – iPhone 16 Pro (Max) (+0.15″ And 0.17″).

As you can see, everything sounded epic on paper until the iPhone XS Max came out. Previously, the iPhone screen size was very noticeable because the counter was in tenths, and sometimes in whole inches. People called each new model giants. This was the case with the iPhone 5, iPhone 6 and iPhone XS Max.

But after the launch of “frameless” iPhones, the growth of screens began to run into… frames. Diagonals are now revealed only when technological progress allows the company to reduce the black fields.

Real same sizes ProMaxa The evening was almost in place, while the mid-size model gradually grew in height, but almost did not change in position.

Where does such stubbornness come from?

The dimensions of the iPhone have hardly changed over time iPhone 6

In 2014, Apple created two ideal directions from which it does not want and, most likely, cannot exit.

Both models grew in height more often. The longest iPhone 16 Pro Max (163 mm), but all models before him came to the conclusion 157.5 mm in iPhone XS Max up to 160.8 mm in the iPhone 12 Pro Max. There were no monumental changes here.

The mid-size model has grown noticeably. The iPhone 6 was tall 138.1 mmiPhone X already 143.6 mmand the iPhone 16 Pro is as much 149.6 mm. One more such leap, and the case will reach the iPhone XS Max, which Apple is unlikely to do.

By the way, the iPhone 16 Pro is still smaller than the iPhone 11, which was once Apple’s most popular frameless smartphone. It’s 1.3 mm abbreviations and whole 4.2 mm already.

That is, the screens have become longer due to the reduction of the frames and an increase in height by several millimeters.

Therefore, all the progress in cameras, batteries and cooling systems should be given to us, not in diagonal, but in thickening. The iPhone 16 Pro together with the iPhone 15 Pro have a lamp for all modern history – 8.25 mm. Compare that to the iPhone 6 and its profile of just 6.9 mm.

The weight, by the way, has also increased sharply. The iPhone 6 had 129 gramsiPhone X already 174 gramsiPhone 16 Pro improved to psychological mark of 199 gramsbut did not step over it thanks to the transition to titanium instead of steel.

So it turns out that For 10 years, since the release of the iPhone 6, the company, with the occasional presidential experiment, has followed a strategy of two smartphones of approximately the same size: 7.1×15 cm And 7.8×16 cm.

This fits well with the influence of jam, when one should not offer customers more than 6 types of the same type, but at the same time imposes restrictions on the level of development.

The iPhone 16 Pro’s screen and frame are even rounder. They can’t get any rounder

I remember that the leak of the iPhone 12’s appearance right before the presentation caused me an unusual delight.

The smartphone seemed to have retained its beveled corners, the proportions were also preserved, but something looked different, a literally imperceptible change.

I can’t find the link, but there was a shot like this:

Then I noticed the same feeling after the release of the iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro and now with the iPhone 16 Pro.

It’s all about the little details like radius of curvature.

The newer the iPhone, the less it looks like a contour and more like a quadracircle. This is a shape with curved edges and rounded corners, which differs from the usual one in that the rounding starts earlier, but happens more smoothly.

So for the fifth year now, the rounding on the edges has been starting earlier, which is why the corners of the screen are cutting off more and more content. In general, by the way, what the displays themselves have also shown.

But it feels like the next step could mean the iPhone has no straight top line at all.

There is no benefit from increasing screens

When rumors began to circulate about the increase in the diagonal of the iPhone 16 Pro, there were opinions that smartphones were becoming longer, that is, their proportions would change.

In reality, the company simply scaled the screens, while the side panel remained the same.

As a result, the hope that, for example, the touching island would not interfere with watching a video in a two-to-one format was never realized. Half of the cutout is still visible.

The network connection, clock and battery charge icons have not changed either. There is more space, but the designers did not use it.

Neither the behavior of iOS nor the layout of icons on the Home screen and in Control Center have ever changed.

Moreover, the algorithm that blocks random actions works too aggressively, which is why the buttons located near the edges do not work. This is also about the events of our editor-in-chief Nikita Goryainov in his review of the iPhone 16 Pro.

The increase in size was almost certainly forced, since it was no longer possible to fit a new 5x telephoto camera or a larger battery into the small iPhone 15 Pro case. In addition, the company will have to further increase the size of the main camera matrix in order to somehow compete with viruses.

While the company claims to have made its biggest screens yet, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is indeed the tallest iPhone ever, the actual dimensions of the flagships are almost no different from what we’ve seen in the last 10 years.

In terms of dimensions, we got the same iPhone X and iPhone 6 Plus, stretched in height within the margin of error.

The design ended up being aesthetically pleasing thanks to the reduced bezels and relatively similar size, but it may have led the company to a point where engineers and marketers would have to take a different path a few years later.

Apple has hit the diagonal ceiling. Reducing the bezels is now dangerous

In the next three to four years, we will be able to sit back and not expect any larger screens on flagships at every iPhone presentation.

Drop tests of the iPhone 16 Pro have already shown that the company has crossed the line of safe limits. In this case, the smartphone is dropped in a region with much higher security measures when destroying the matrix, even if the target glass is confirmed once again.

In the subsequent increase of screens, this will most likely be accompanied by the launch of a folding iPhone, but this conversation has not included exactly five years. The bend remains right on the screen of all smartphones of this form factor that are currently released, and the capacity of the required volume of Apple is still not there.

From the frontal changes, we can now expect only a reduction of the dynamic island to the size of the camera, since the remaining sensors will go under the display closer to 2026.

Otherwise, this is the last such post about flagships that has appeared in the near future. Although there are complaints that the iPhone does not change, it has evolved over the past five years. Not from behind, but from the front – where we look every day.

📸 All photos in the article: