iPhone 16e First Look: Unboxing, Setup, and Initial Impressions

In this podcast, Michael Hansen takes a first look at Apple's iPhone 16e, the latest member of the iPhone 16 family. He unboxes the device, goes through setup, and gives his initial impressions.

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by Aiko, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.

Hello Apple Vis.

This is Michael Hansen.

Thanks so much for tuning in.

I hope you're having a great day.

In this podcast, I'm going to be unboxing, setting up, and giving my initial first impressions of the iPhone 16e.

The iPhone 16e is the latest member of the iPhone 16 family.

It has all kind of the same foundational features as the rest of the iPhone 16 models.

So the A18 processor, Apple intelligence, things like that, but it comes at a more affordable price point.

I say more affordable because it's still a little bit more than kind of what I, and I think probably think it's safe to say many others, were hoping for.

For reference here, the devices start out at $599 for the 16e, $799 for the 16, $899 for the 16+, $999 for the 16 Pro, and $1199 for the 16 Pro Max.

But the other side of it is that this device has a lot, and I mean a lot of the same features as the more expensive, kind of the more costly other iPhone 16 models.

It's got the action button, it's got the A18 processor, so there's no chipset, a generation behind, anything like that.

It's got some new tech in there as well, and it's got the Apple C1, the new Apple C1 modem, which is going to deliver, hopefully deliver better battery life, the best battery life Apple says on a 6.1 inch phone.

It also has the action button, which is really, really cool, and it's got some interesting uses, not just in terms of the types of things that you can do with it for turning off and on focus, which is what I use my personal unit for.

But also you could even have it go to the home screen.

Speaking of the home screen on the iPhone 16e, this device has face ID and does not have a home button, and I know that as soon as I say that, there is probably going to be a subset of people going, what, no home button, and that's okay.

Don't feel bad if that's you, if the transition away from the home button concerns you.

Don't be embarrassed about it, don't be ashamed of it.

There's plenty of ways to make it work.

There's some new gestures for going to the home screen and other functions like that.

If the gestures are too difficult or just flat out don't work for you, you can always remap some voiceover gestures, some existing ones, or my favorite is you can use the action button to trigger a shortcut to take you right to the home screen.

That's really, really cool.

So Apple was kind enough to lend me an iPhone 16e and a case for review, and they sent me the white, I was thinking gold, these phones come in white and black, there is no gold.

Apple sent me the white iPhone 16e 512 gigabyte storage and a white silicone case.

I've got the boxes right here, so let's go ahead and I'll tell you about the case first because I like to, when I take a phone out, I like to immediately put it in a case.

So let's go ahead and open this up.

I guess there's a seal on the back of the case packaging, let's see if this is, oh that is the way that you open it.

Alright, hey, look at that.

Okay, so I have the case, it's kind of inside this box, and there is also a kind of a little, kind of, I wouldn't say it's cardboard because I know Apple is working on their packaging, kind of an insert here of a material to kind of help keep it in the case and that you also can use to pull it out.

So got that, take this inner piece out, and here in my hand we have the case.

So looking at the case for the device kind of gives us our first kind of look at the size of the iPhone 16e.

If you are familiar with an iPhone, you know, any of the 15 Pro, anything with a 6.1 inch screen, you will be familiar with the size of the iPhone 16e.

For a lot of people this is the perfect, perfect size.

This is now the smallest phone that Apple makes, and it is a 6.1 inch diagonal display.

So they say that it's a 6.1 inch display, what they mean is that they measure that diagonally, so top left to bottom right, or top right to bottom left.

Holding the case out here, and what's interesting is it's that silicone.

I love these silicone cases, they feel great.

Comparing them here to my, comparing the case size here to my iPhone 16 Pro Max, which is my personal device, it's obviously quite, quite, quite small compared.

I can set, and in fact I just have here, I have set the 16 Pro, the 16e case on the screen of the 16 Pro Max, and I can still move it around in all directions.

So there's quite the size difference, but again, if you're familiar with any of the recent, you know, the 6.1 inch screen devices, you will, that is exactly what you're going to get here with the iPhone 16e.

One interesting thing is that on the Pro Max, there is a little, the camera bump, and there's a little raised part on the case.

There is no raised part on this case, and I bet it is because the cameras, it's got the 2-in-1 camera system on the iPhone 16e.

We'll see that when we take it out of the box.

Alright, I'm gonna go ahead and set this down, and now for the part that everybody's really here for.

We're gonna go ahead and open the box, taking off the seal.

There's two seals here on the underside of this box.

Interesting thing about the packaging now on these iPhones, the iPhone 16e package is completely fiber-based, so that's really cool.

It helps, it's gonna be helping Apple to reach their 2030 environmental goals, and yet the packaging itself doesn't feel any different.

So whatever material, they've really gotten some alternative materials here, which is great.

Alright, trying to get this open, oh here, okay, here we go.

Alright, so I'm gonna set it down, and when I open up the box, the device is inside the box, facing down.

And so when we put our hand here on the back of the device, it's kind of got a, you can feel where there's the Apple logo, the rest of it is kind of more, it's not a smooth texture, it's kind of similar to what you would kind of find in some of the other iPhone models.

And you have just one tiny little camera here, so I bet you that there's no real bump to speak of, and, which would probably explain why the case is that way, the case will sit nice and flat on the surface, which I like.

So I'm gonna go ahead and take the phone out of the box, and this is my first chance to hold it, and one thing is I'm kind of running my hands along the device, so if I've got it facing me, like I'm using it to use Face ID, on the right side we have the side button, that's to do various functions.

We then, going down the side of the device, then we get to the bottom, and then kind of going to the bottom of the device where we have a speaker and a microphone, and in the middle of those two, we have the USB-C port.

All these phones now support USB-C, and I really love that, because that means that I can use one accessory to charge everything, or a couple accessories.

I have a Windows laptop, and I can use that charger to power up the phone.

Speaking of chargers, if you haven't bought an iPhone in a while, you're gonna wanna make sure that you pick up a USB-C charger.

The phone does come with a USB-C cable in the box, but in terms of a power brick, Apple no longer includes those in the box to try and meet their environmental goals.

If you are buying a new USB-C power adapter, which you may not have to, I definitely recommend something that is going to be 20 watts or higher, so that you can take advantage of the fast charging.

One other quick note about charging, while I'm thinking about it, is this device supports Qi wireless charging, but it does not have MagSafe, so if MagSafe is something that's super important to you for wireless, you may want to look at a different model.

Unfortunately, it does not support MagSafe.

Device feels pretty good in my hand.

It is definitely not as small as some of the previous phones, the Minis, or if you've had an older phone, any of the iPhone SEs, especially the original one, it's definitely not as small.

It's definitely longer, and yet, it still feels good.

The edges of this device are very, very holdable.

They are not rounded edges, so you can grip it easily.

It has an aerospace grade aluminum frame, so it feels really good in my hand.

There's a little protective covering on the screen that I'm going to go ahead and take off, and at this point, I am going to put the device in its case.

I like to do that really as soon as I can.

And now, here we have it.

Device is in the case, and it will again sit flat, and as I suspected, there is no camera bump.

People have talked on AppleVis about cameras and things like that, and the iPhone 16e has the 2-in-1 camera, where some of the more higher-end devices or the more costly, pricey devices have multiple cameras.

Does it make much of a difference for things like Be My AI or PixiBot or any of these seeing AI, these sorts of apps, and my guess is probably not in most cases.

That's just an educated guess on my part, but if you're concerned about that, my gut reaction quick hot take is probably not.

You'll probably be just fine with the iPhone 16e camera.

Alright, so let's go ahead and power this device on, and we will see what happens.

Okay, pressing and holding that side button.

It does not, it did not give me any indication, no power on sound, but I don't think it's going to do that regardless until voiceover is set up.

We'll have to see if that is included on these devices or not.

We'll see if voiceover, if the device is on, I'm going to press, I'm going to press that side button three times quickly.

Hello, alright, so the device is on, and first off, when we turn up just a little bit, there we go, okay, speakers sound good.

First initial impression is that the speakers sound really good.

So voiceover gestures, so the moment that we turn this device on and we go to set it up, we are presented with a helpful pop-up that tells us how to use those voiceover gestures.

So let's listen to this.

To go home, slide one finger up from the bottom edge until you feel the first vibration and lift your finger.

To use the app switcher, slide up farther from the bottom until you feel a second vibration and lift your finger.

If you move too far to the left or right, a rumble vibration will indicate the gesture was cancelled.

To use control center, slide one finger down from the top edge until you feel the first vibration and lift your finger.

To use notification center, slide down farther from the top until you feel a second vibration and lift your finger.

So I have to, I gotta just stop and pause here and just reflect for a moment.

So when I was first learning this, I haven't listened to this little help message in a long time.

I've been using devices without the home button since the iPhone XS Max in 2018.

And I gotta hand it, I really like the way that Apple describes these gestures because these gestures are definitely slide gestures.

You plant your finger on the bottom of the screen and then you slide it up until you feel that first vibration, that haptic to go to the home screen.

It is a plant and slide and I really like the way that Apple explains that.

Okay, so now that the device has gone back to sleep while I talked, let's go ahead and wake it up.

So the way that you do this on a device without a home button is you'll just tap on the screen with one finger or alternatively you could press the side button.

I'm gonna go ahead and just tap on the screen.

All right, so I am on the, all right, so I've got my language setup screen here and I'm gonna go ahead and slide up to go to the home and we're gonna double tap on English.

All right, we're gonna swipe to the right with one finger and double tap on United States.

Okay, next screen is our appearance heading.

Okay, we're gonna keep swiping to the right and I'm just swiping with one finger holding the device here and just using the swipe gesture.

We'll go to the default one.

We could swipe up or down to change it.

I can't see the screen, doesn't make a difference to me but let's go ahead and look at the options just in case.

That's cool, so I'm gonna keep it at default and you can customize these things if you want to.

Okay, we'll double tap on continue.

All right, quick start is really, really cool and it will allow you to set up your device using another device.

Now normally when I buy my devices, I like to set them up as brand new, I like to do it every year, I set it up as a brand new device, I configure things.

Since this is a review, I am gonna just go ahead and use quick setup and unless you really, really, really want to set your device up as brand new, I recommend that you use quick setup too.

It'll make things so much easier.

So let's swipe to the right.

Let me go ahead now and, we're gonna do that so I'm gonna go ahead and get my, it definitely is, it's running iOS 18.3.1 and this is really a cool way to use it, I'm gonna go ahead and unlock this phone and, all right, so it says use your Apple account, all right, we're gonna continue.

Oh, once my face, face ID, there we go, all right, okay, so now in order to connect this, the two phones together, there's a way that you can do it by having, holding the new iPhone up to the camera on the old one or, it just did it, I just, what I did is I just held it, held the one phone in one hand and held the new phone in my hand and held my phone, my personal phone, the older phone on the left above it and it recognized it.

If that doesn't work for you, you can also pair it manually.

So now it's saying continue on the other iPhone, we're gonna go ahead and do that, I'm also going to, I'm gonna turn the, I'm gonna keep the, turn the speech rate down for eloquence just a little bit for you guys here, all right, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna continue and I am on the iPhone 16 Pro Max, my old device, set up for me, all right, I am going to go ahead and on the new device enter in the passcode for my old, my personal older phone, zero, interesting that typing mode settings do not appear to carry over, three, two, there we go, okay, now what are we doing, let's see, all right, it's activating the iPhone, here we go, all right, so I have two phone numbers here, one that I use for personal, one that I use for work, so I am going to transfer both of them, okay, I'm gonna double tap on this, I'm gonna turn the other one on, all right, now it is asking me to confirm the transfer and what we're doing is we're transferring over my eSims, okay, okay, so I've got two phone numbers here, it's asking me which one I want to set up, I want to try and set up my personal one first, let's see if it takes it, now it says here finish on other iPhones, I'm gonna go ahead and set the old one down, all right, so what we will do is when you get your iPhone 16E, if you're getting one soon after launch, there is what is called a day one software update, recommended you get that done and we'll go ahead and do that, and we'll go ahead and let these guys, let this continue, the software update process, gonna take a brief pause and we'll be right back, okay, so we're back now and the software update for iOS 18.3.1 has installed, if you're listening to this and some time has gone by and we've seen iOS 18.4 or whatever the software updates after that would be, it's probably likely that your device will come with those updates already installed, but if you're buying one right now, this is likely you will have that software update and I recommend just go ahead and get that done now, otherwise if you have like a backup from say iOS 18.3.1 like I do, it would not let you restore back from it until that software is updated because you can't take a backup and put it on older software, all right, so when the device woke back up from the update, it took us back to that hello screen, so we'll go ahead and tap on the screen with one finger and wake it up, all right, slide up, okay, here we are, now here we are on the sub screen, all right, took us back to the default, the appearance thing which is fine, looks like it wants to reconnect to my iPhone which is fine, my other phone, it's here, there we go, all right, so it took us when the software update came up, it's going to kind of want us to restart that process which is fine, so what I'll do is I will go ahead and hit continue on my 16 Pro Max, okay, hold your new iPhone up to the camera, so literally what I'm going to do, I'm going to put the new iPhone, I'm just going to put the new phone, the 16E, take it in one hand, point the camera of the 16 Pro Max at it and I feel a little haptic and we should be off and rolling, are we, let's see, all right, yep, it took it and, set up for me, other option is for a title, all right, I'm going to go ahead and enter in my, enter in the passcode of my old phone here, okay, got that in and now it will let me, good, since the process restarted, it will actually let me transfer my other phone number which I want to do because remember I have the two phone numbers, okay, it's the alert here, it says, you know, basically that once I transfer and I can't use the eSIM on the old device, which is fine, go ahead and do that, okay, I've got the old iPhone in my hand now, click that side button two times, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, and it should be, should be transferring it over, I think this is the part where I need to use patience and just wait, okay, there we go, okay, so a little time here and now the setup is complete and now I have both eSIMs for both of my phone numbers on the new phone, 16E which is what we want, okay, I'm on the 16E, okay, Face ID, so Face ID is Apple's facial recognition system, it replaces Touch ID and I have set up enough devices with Face ID, I kind of have an idea of how this is supposed to be done, so the Apple instructions will tell us, I'll read what Apple says to do and then I will tell you how I do it and how I recommend you do it and you can take whatever you feel is the best approach, so I'm going to go ahead and set up Face ID and again Face ID will just take a picture of your face or will scan your face rather, it does not store pictures, it will just scan your face and allow you to unlock or authenticate, okay, how to set up Face ID, this is Apple's instructions on that process, okay, so if I had not done this before and I read that description, I would be really, really put off by it, as a blind man, that description just isn't relevant for me and this is something that I really think that Apple really needs to improve upon, especially as more people are kind of taking on these devices now that we're not selling, you know, they're not selling devices with the home button anymore, but I've done it and so I will talk you through how I do it and the thing is that once we are actually taking a scan of the face, I keep saying picture, once we're taking a scan of your face, VoiceOver will guide you and it will tell you what to do, the thing is move slowly and listen, move very slowly and listen, so what we'll do is we'll go ahead and, go ahead and move to setup here, get started, okay, so I'm going to go ahead and hold them, I know that, okay, that's what we'll do, we're going to hold the device right in front of my face at a distance of 10 to 20 inches, okay, that doesn't really help me, so what I'm going to do, oops, just said turn your head right, so I'm just going to hold my head level and turn it right, okay, up and to the right now, going a little up and I move a little up, way up, holding, okay, up and to the left, okay, okay, turning to the left, down, tilt the head down, my chin is almost on my chest and it has completed, it has completed it, so, in summary, as you are setting up FaceID, the thing is you need to just listen for its instruction, listen for the instruction, follow it and hold your position until it tells you what to do next, okay, yeah, we'll do that, yeah, we'll do with a mask don't use face ID with a mask don't use face ID with a mask face ID is now set up continue okay i'm gonna go ahead and continue double tap on that continue alert face ID oh good so right here apple displays an alert about face ID and voiceover and we'll go ahead and talk about this um i'll let it play the message i'll swipe to the right let it play that message and then we'll go from there face ID has been set up to verify your identity but not required that you look at iphone to authenticate this can be changed at face ID and passcode settings so when you are not using voiceover um the way that this the way that this works is it requires that you both look at the device you know have your face in view but that you actively be looking quote unquote looking at the device now for someone like me who's blind um that that is a little bit more of a challenge now um so voiceover it when face ID is set up to not require that i'd be looking at the device whether or not you have this enabled is completely a personal choice on one hand um having it so that your eyes are quote unquote looking at the device is is you know more secure um if you can you know if you can make it work then you could do that um on the other hand for some people it just isn't possible and it's not possible to use any other way um or you know it may it's just easier too um you know so totally totally you're totally your choice um there's no right or wrong answer each person's situation is unique on that so we're gonna go ahead and continue face ID is okay button it transfer data from michael's iphone adding that now it says transfer data from michael's iphone and here is where i have the chance to transfer all my stuff if you are moving from michael's iphone you can transfer all its data and settings directly to this iphone continue other options button other options i want to actually go to other options because i want to see if i can restore from an encrypted backup on from my computer normally what i would recommend that you do if you're just setting something up as i would just recommend you do a direct transfer um i personally like the encrypted backup route because it will allow me to restore like all my passwords and my health data and stuff like that in progress so i hit double tap on other options setting up your account setting up your account terms and conditions sent by email all right so i've got the terms and conditions which i'm gonna go ahead and agree to but agree michael hansen signing in ellipsis okay signing me in that's good give it a second to sign this in okay so it has now signed me in there we go all right so now we're on the next screen here it says make this your new iphone here's everything set up with you added on your other iphone that's good learn more apps and data i cloud backup collapsed no settings series wallet connections continue customize button all right i want to customize that i don't want it to transfer your apps and data adding i want it to restore it from a computer backup not an iCloud backup from iCloud backup but from another iphone from mac or pc there we go from mac or pc so i'm going to go ahead and all right it says connect to a mac or pc that has the apple devices app connect the macro to a pc that has the apple devices i am going to go ahead and connect it to my windows computer and go through the process of getting that backup um restored connected to computer heading okay now it says it's connected to computer okay so from right here it says connected to computer so we're going to go ahead and take a quick pause while i restore the phone from the backup okay we are back and the restore is completed got stuck a little bit there but it has now successfully completed and we are now ready to go ahead and continue our setup so go ahead and press that side button hello slide one finger up from the bottom of the screen to setup yep okay we'll go ahead and slide up from the bottom set up setup restore completed there we go apps and data will continue to continue says apps and data will continue to download in the background all right next screen here is my apple account and it's going to ask me to enter in my password which i'm going to go ahead and do and pause briefly while we do that all right so i've got my password entered in now and we're going to go ahead and find that continue button and double tap continue continue in progress do not disturb image status bar item got location services okay next screen here is our location services location services allows maps and location services go ahead and prove that turn on location services definitely okay um this will allow me here cards to apple pay to send money to friends and make secure payments and ads on the web and it stores using nfc and i want to go ahead and do that card related information personal data you continue button previous cards and it will gives me a screen here the next screen will allow me to select my previous cards that i can go ahead and add quickly add the cards selected apple card okay and i've got my apple card selected apple cash about selected and uh a chase account as well so i'm gonna go ahead and make my selections and then we will go ahead and continue selected chase debit card four bullets 54 49 chase debit continue button a security code text field is edited three digit cvv insertion point that starts this is a cvv screen for my chase debit card so i'll go ahead and type that in all right got it there and we will add card chase the card security security clear text add this card run next but find my next button contacting the card issuer next add a card and setting up cards for apple pay awesome adding the wallet your card has been added to your card has been card on card on card using apple pay continue double click the side button authenticate with face id and hold near reader all right continue put apple watch heading all right next screen is my apple watch i want to use michael's apple watch with his iphone i do so um says do i want to use michael's apple watch i do want to do that and it should allow me let's see if it lets me transfer it over that would be so cool and progress data all right now next screen here is the apple intelligence apple intelligence heading intelligence that understands your personal context connect the wi-fi and power to prepare for apple intelligence all right that's fine writing and summarization enhance your writing and summarize notifications mail messages and more watch is telling me apple watch is telling me something let me check that to allow michael's iphone to unlock your apple watch enter your passcode oh okay next button next eight i type i'm going to enter in my watch passcode here on the screen here loading iphone in a blue edge michael's iphone can now unlock your apple watch okay oh all right that is to allow it to unlock my apple watch all right then the start of a new era for siri siri is more natural contextually relevant and personal to you built for privacy powerful intelligence without sharing your data with apple all right about apple intel continue button visual intelligence all right visual intelligence now visual intelligence is a feature that will if you activate it will you know take a picture of whatever you are looking at and it will help you learn more about that learn about the objects and places around you and get more information about what you see open visual intelligence and control center and use the camera to identify plants and animals translate between languages and events and more i personally um use be my ai or pixie bot um just for you know descriptions of things but we will certainly give this a try continue button siri all right here we go for siri siri is an intelligent assistant that helps you find information and get things done just speaker type or request using your own words all right apple stores transcripts about siri continue button continue speak to siri say siri or a siri or hold the side button to talk to siri okay continue button that's how we talk to siri continue type to siri double tap the bottom edge of the screen to type your request okay if that is not how you do it with voiceover i believe it is a i'll have to research the gesture it is not that it is a four finger gesture all right it is a four finger swipe down with voiceover it is a four finger swipe down continue button to type to siri welcome to iphone welcome to iphone welcome to iphone all right yeah let's swipe up to get started alert the phone settings changed the phone voice line changed and cellular data plan changed okay that's fine i've got two esims i'll sort that out later settings okay so now we are on the settings kind of our home screen here my my um first app on my home screen is settings and now it's kind of time to just kind of take a look at the device and how it navigates so i am going to kind of swipe around the screen this is with the speaker at what appears to be full volume this is on the iphone 16e it's still a lot of these apps are still waiting down so i can't open messages what mail no unread safari mail message phone search let me now grab the 16 pro max we can compare it this is with volume all the way up same type of the same test all right so here now i have the iphone 16 pro max obviously much much much bigger device this is full volume we're going to test the same okay now what i'm going to do is i'm going to kind of take the volume down a little bit and one thing i can tell you just putting it up to my ear is that the kind of like the 15 pro was this 16e even at lower volumes the audio still has some bass i know it's kind of hard to tell in a podcast okay back with the 16 pro max okay okay so that is going to be about it for this podcast the iphone 16e will be available starting friday february 28th 2025 starts at us 599 us dollars and that is for 128 gigabytes of storage you can also get larger storage capacities as well comes in white or black again it's got that a18 processor so same same kind of basic same internals as some of the higher end iphone 16 models but at a lower price point be on the lookout here in the next few weeks i'm going to have a blog post out as i kind of live with this thing and see what i think of it and if you have any questions or comments or things that you want to know feel free to drop it in the comments here on applevis or you can send me an email at michael that's m i c h a e l at applevis a p p l e v i s dot com until next time