iPhone 16 Pro Max Unboxing and First Thoughts

Alright, so it's launch day. It's September 20th. Really excited to go get a new phone. I'm still rocking the 12 Pro Max, so it should be a fun time. I gotta get some work done. My pre-order pickup time is 1.15, so I've got a few hours to kill. Gotta get caught up on some work, and then I think we're actually gonna head downtown. Probably go just find a coffee shop or something and chill, so we can be down there for when I can get my phone. Don't have to worry about traffic. Just walk over to the store and pick it up. Alright, so work is all caught up, and yeah, let's head downtown. Alright, so made it downtown. We still got a little bit of time to kill, so we're gonna go post up in a coffee shop. Go from there. The bag has been received. Alright, so just went to the Apple Store. I was able to get in actually like 15 minutes early, which was cool. My pickup time was 1.15. I walked in at about 1.03, and she was like, yeah, just go ahead, get in line. So we got her here. White titanium, super clean. The box is heavy. I don't know if it's just because it's such a big box, big phone, but the box has some heft to it. So really excited to get this bad boy pulled out and start unboxing it. We got the white titanium, 256 gig, Pro Max. Yeah, really sweet looking box. Really excited to check it out. So we're gonna drive home, and then we'll unbox this bad boy. Alright, so we're back home. Let's pop this bad boy open. So yeah, like I said before, iPhone 16, white titanium. So let's dig into it. Apple peel tabs. Oh, and there she is. The white 16 Pro Max. It's a pretty looking phone. Alright, so like always, we got the phone itself. Lightweight. Feels really good actually. Feels lighter than my current phone, as it should be. Got the phone. Braided USB-C cable. Feels really good. Feels durable. Really happy they switched to the braided design. And on the inside, no stickers. They switched to not having stickers this year, and instead you just get this little packet that just has information. So, without further ado, let's do the good ol' oh yeah. And power on. Really excited about this. I think it's gonna be good. The back feels much different than my current phone. It almost feels like it has a matte finish here, and then the logo itself actually is smooth. The cameras are crazy. It's really shiny. She's all good to go. Got the new action button there, which was on the 15 Pro series, but we really have. It's the new camera button that they refused to call a camera button. Really excited to check that out. Gives me fingerprint sensor vibes from the iPad Air, actually. But I'm gonna go ahead. I'm going to set the phone up, and then we'll get back to it. Alright, so yeah, I took the time. Got this bad boy set up. It actually only comes on iOS 18, so if you want to join the Apple Intelligence waitlist or beta, you have to upgrade to 18.1 and then go ahead and request the access. So, I went ahead and did that. I am on the waitlist. But honestly, this phone is incredible compared to the 12 Pro Max. The picture is just so much better. The ProMotion is incredible. Not having ProMotion and going to ProMotion makes such a big difference. I actually took a picture—I can put it on screen—on my girlfriend's phone of just the difference in brightness, of max brightness, on the 12 Pro Max versus the 16 Pro Max in direct sunlight coming in through our window. And it's just—it's pretty crazy how much brighter the screen is. Obviously, it's an OLED screen, and they've just made so many more improvements on it. Cameras on this bad boy are sick. The camera button is definitely going to take some getting used to. You do have to be careful not to hit it. I don't know. I noticed when I grab it, I can, like, press it with my palm, which is kind of weird. But the face ID is super quick. The island—I know it's not new, but to me it's new. I think it's awesome. I'm really excited for Apple Intelligence. What you can actually see is if you upgrade to 18.1, there's a whole new tab for Intelligence in Siri, and then you have to join the wait list. My buddy actually joined it earlier today and instantly got accepted, so I'm hoping that it doesn't take too long for me to get accepted. But, yeah, I'm really excited to see where this phone goes. I'm really excited to just get to play with it. Probably make an update video after maybe a month or about three months of using it, see what the difference is, how life has changed. I really want to see how the Apple Intelligence helps with my daily tasks. I mean, I use Siri to send messages and stuff all the time, so I'm really curious. I'm really excited for it. The new backing feels really nice and in my pocket. It definitely takes up space. I actually noticed, which was kind of odd to me, if you look at comparisons between the 15 Pro Max and the 16 Pro Max, there's quite a noticeable difference in terms of height. But if you actually take my 12 Pro Max next to the 16 Pro Max, they're almost identical in height. You can tell this one's taller, but it's not as much of a difference as it is with the 15 Pro Max and 16 Pro Max. I know my phone was really big for the time, and then I think they actually went a little bit smaller, and now they're going big again. So maybe I won't notice much of a difference in terms of screen size compared to people going from a 15. And while we're sitting here filming, I just got the notification, ready for Apple Intelligence. So there it is. We can set it up. We can get it going. I think it's really cool. Yeah, I think it should be really fun. I'm going to set this up and definitely just kind of give it a go. I'm really excited. I think it's just a cool feature. You can type to Siri now, but the new around-screen feature, that's dope. I hope I actually got that on camera. But anyways, yeah, I'm really excited for this phone. The new Apple Intelligence, I'm going to be playing around with that a lot. This will be my new filming device, so hopefully the video quality and everything will be even better than before. And I do have a microphone on the way, so hopefully sound content also sounds really good in the future with this bad boy paired up with a microphone. Thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed. I thought this was a really fun video to make. I'm so excited to have a new phone. It's been such a long time. And honestly, I really just hope you enjoyed the video. I tried to get really creative with it, and I look forward to making more videos in the future. So yeah, I'll catch you next time.