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Updated June 23 with new details on case and charger: article originally published June 22.

New iPhone 16 leaks suggest several upgrades, including support for visionOS tools, a popular iPhone Pro feature, and an addition to the user interface. Now a set of iPhone 16 cases supports these offers.

A closer look at the iPhone 16 cases has been published by the TechNetBook team, and you can see how the updated features have affected the exterior design.

First is the orientation of the camera lenses. they’ve changed from the iPhone 15’s diagonal placement on a square camera island to a vertical placement on a more diamond-shaped island. This shouldn’t affect regular photos and videos taken on the iPhone, but the placement of the lenses will allow for side-by-side lenses when shooting in landscape mode – which is the orientation you’ll need to make stereoscopic videos that would enable 3D playback on the Apple Vision Pro headset.

Then you have the button area covered for the action button. This programmable physical button debuted on last year’s iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Max. Allows users to set a shortcut or action when the button is pressed, such as when the camera app opens, so a photo can be quickly taken. The button wasn’t available on the vanilla iPhone 15 or 15 Plus.

The action button will now be a universal offering, appearing on the vanilla iPhone 16 models along with the iPhone 16 Pro models.

You finally have a new button. Perhaps based on positive feedback from the iPhone 15 Pro, Apple will add a Camera Butto. The case shows a full cutout for the button, which makes sense as the button is expected to be pressure sensitive and allow for multi-step pressing (allowing, for example, focus lock to be selected with a “half press” before taking the shot with a full press).

Update: Sunday, June 22: Famous tipster Ice Universe posted a look at another iPhone 16 case this weekend. Their video shows the case being rotated to reveal the back and edges of the case. Just like the TechNetBook images, the vertical placement of the camera lenses, the push button for the action button, and the space for the capacitive camera button can be seen.

The cases add to the discussion surrounding another feature, namely Apple’s inductive charging system. The location for the MagSafe ring is clearly visible, but the charging ring is also slimmer than on the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro phones released in 2023. While the two different ring widths will offer interconnectivity, the newer iPhone family 16 will come with the thinner and lighter option.

These three features bring the vanilla iPhones in line with the Pro models. As Apple wants to clear the water in terms of specs between the Vanilla and Pro models, there will need to be a few upgrades to the Pro models to make up that gap and make consumers want to buy the more expensive model.

One suggestion is that the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max will update their own camera hardware, with the ultra-wide camera quadrupling the sensor size from 12 to 48 megapixels, a new optical coating to reduce lens flare, and greater optical zoom , available on the 16 Pro Max via a larger periscope-style telephoto lens.

Apple is expected to launch the iPhone 16 family in early September 2024.

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