How the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max Are Actually 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 device sizes.

Everyone notices the thinner frames, but absolutely no one is talking about how much the gadgets have actually grown in size. 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 the opportunity yet, decided to make a visual comparison down to the millimeter of new smartphones with previous generations.

Below I will tell you how unexpected the increase in size was. Proshekdoes the cutout still interfere with watching videos, how iPhone frames have changed over the past 5 years, and one conclusion about the dimensions that seems logical, reassuring, and at the same time very alarming.

What was in the Pros before and what kind of screen do we have now?

Starting this year, we have OLED smartphones from Apple in the following sizes.

I won’t list all the models, but the diagonal of the iPhone with an OLED screen 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 diagonal of its smartphones 7 times:

▴ iPhone 4S – iPhone 5 (+0,5″)
▴ iPhone 5S – iPhone 6 и 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. Previously, the growth of iPhone screens was felt strongly, because the count was in tenths, and sometimes in whole inches. People called each new model gigantic. This was the case with the iPhone 5, iPhone 6 and iPhone XS Max.

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

Real dimensions ProMax remained almost in place while the mid-size model gradually grew in height but remained almost unchanged in width.

Where does such stubbornness come from?

The iPhone’s dimensions have remained virtually unchanged since the iPhone 6.

In 2014, Apple created two ideal sizes that it does not want to, and most likely cannot, go beyond.

Both models grew in height more often. The iPhone 16 Pro Max was the longest (163 mm), but all the models before him varied from 157.5 mm in iPhone XS Max 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 shorter and by whole 4.2 mm already.

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

Therefore, all the progress in cameras, batteries and cooling systems should be attributed not to the increase in diagonal, but to the thickening. The iPhone 16 Pro together with the iPhone 15 Pro have the thickest in 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 gramsand the iPhone 16 Pro reached the psychological mark of 199 gramsbut did not step over it thanks to the transition to titanium instead of steel.

So it turns out that In the 10 years since the release of the iPhone 6, the company, with the exception of rare experiments, has followed the strategy of two smartphones in almost identical sizes: 7.1×15 cm and 7.8×16 cm.

This fits well with the jam theory, when one should not offer customers more than 6 types of the same thing, but at the same time it imposes restrictions on the development of the line.

The screen and bezels of the iPhone 16 Pro have become even rounder. Nowhere else

I remember that the leaks 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 this is approximately the frame that was there:

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

And it’s all about such a subtle detail as radius of curvature.

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

So for the fifth year now, the rounding on the edges has been starting earlier and earlier, which is why the corners of the screen are cutting off more and more content. In general, it is pleading, considering that the displays themselves are also growing.

But it feels like the next step might be an iPhone with no straight top edge at all.

There is no benefit from increasing screens

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

In reality, the company simply scaled the screens and left the aspect ratio the same.

As a result, the hope that, for example, the dynamic island would not interfere with watching videos in a two-to-one format did not come true. About half of the cutout is still visible.

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

There are no changes to the behavior of iOS or the layout of icons on the Home screen and in Control Center.

Moreover, the algorithm that blocks accidental clicks works too aggressively, which is why the buttons located near the edges do not work. Our editor-in-chief also talked about this 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 and a larger battery into the small body of the iPhone 15 Pro. In addition, the company will have to increase the size of the main camera matrix in order to somehow compete with the rest.

While the company claims to have made its largest screens yet, and 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 smaller bezels and relatively similar dimensions, but it may have led the company to a point where engineers and marketers will have to find a different path to take in a few years.

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

For the next three or four years, you can sit back and not expect larger screens in flagships at every iPhone presentation.

Drop tests of the iPhone 16 Pro have already shown that the company has crossed the line of safe frame reduction. In this generation, dropping the smartphone on a corner is much more likely to destroy the matrix, even if the reinforced glass remains intact once again.

The next time screens get bigger, it will most likely be accompanied by the launch of a foldable iPhone, but that’s definitely not something that will happen in the next five years. The deflection still remains right in the middle of the screen in all smartphones of this form factor that are currently being released, and Apple still doesn’t have the production capacity that Apple needs.

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 seems to be the last such post about flagships for the near future. Although there are complaints that the iPhone does not change, over the last five years it has evolved significantly. Not from behind, but from the front – where we look every day.

All photos in the article: