Thanks to a Weibo user, leaked photos of what appears to be an iPhone 16 dummy unit have surfaced online. And Reddit users have... mixed feelings.
The first noticeable difference between the leaked iPhone 16 and the iPhone 15 is the camera bump, which doesn't bother me much. Sure, camera bumps are annoying if you're not using a case, but it's worth it in my book for the quality photos you get in exchange.
Here's the design feature that gets me: the flash is separate from the camera bump. It's just floating beside it, and it looks so strange. And multiple Reddit users seem to agree.
Reddit users on the leaked iPhone 16 design
The elephant in the room — aka the iPhone 16's seemingly huge camera bump — has garnered a lot of negative attention from Reddit users, with one top comment eloquently reading, "That bump is ugly af."
In addition to appearing like it protrudes more than the iPhone 15's camera bump, it's also a different shape. Instead of a square with two lenses aligned diagonally, the two lenses are now aligned vertically. One Reddit user posits, "The cameras are vertical because of the spatial video [Apple wants] to implement."
While it'd be great to have "a thicker, flush phone (potentially with a bigger battery) than what we have now," as another Redditor puts it, the camera bump is likely here to stay. With better cameras and cases to essentially make a 'flush' phone, it might even become the norm for camera bumps to get slightly larger.
Despite the uproar at the iPhone 16's camera bump size, more of Reddit seems to be enraged at the odd placement of the flash. One Reddit user writes, "That flash looks so off-putting since it isn’t part of the bump." In response to that comment, another Redditor says, "The flash is what looks the most out of place," not the large camera bump size.
All that said, not all the comments have been negative. Currently, the most upvoted comment says it "Looks like an updated iPhone X," and multiple people replied that they were looking forward to finally upgrading their X or XS. The iPhone X and XS, however, integrated the flash into the camera array, which actually looks okay.
Of course, it's worth noting that these photos didn't officially come from Apple, so nothing is certain until the iPhone 16 launch. Keep your eyes peeled for more updates from us on the iPhone 16 and the rest of the lineup, which will hopefully be announced at the Apple September event in about a month.
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