And while I personally do believe Apple's whole event this year could have been an email, there are a few subtle improvements on this 16 Pro Max that we should take a look at.

There's a braided USB-C cable inside the box. This included cable can only transfer data at

USB 2 speeds and not the USB 3 speeds that the iPhone 16 Pro Max is capable of. Kind of a bummer getting throttled right out of the box like that, but Apple fans are used to it. The shade is aptly named Desert Titanium. Desert's the right word since it's definitely the color of dehydration.

The singular new physical feature that Apple has graced us with this year is the sapphire-plated camera control button on the right side of the phone. Apple has gone out of their way to not call it a button, even though it most definitely is. The coolest part about this button is not its ability to act as a shutter button or control the camera zoom, it's that it's supposedly covered with an actual sapphire crystal since not only is the button clicky, but also capacitive. Meaning it can sense full presses, half presses, and subtle strokes of your finger. I imagine Apple is using sapphire because one, it's smooth and slick, but also because of its thermal conductivity.

The watts per meter kelvin of glass is around a one. Watts per meter kelvin is just the units used to measure thermal conductivity and not something you have to remember. It's not going to be on the quiz. But the watts per meter kelvin of sapphire crystal is a whopping 35, a huge increase in sensitivity. Not to be confused of course with diamonds though, which have over 2,000 watts per meter kelvin thermal sensitivity. I don't think we'll see

Apple rolling out any diamond covered capacitive buttons anytime soon though. They can barely give us the right cable in the box. The sapphire Apple is using though is the same sapphire that Apple has always been using. Although subtle, I do see marks at levels 5, 6, 7, and 8. While pure sapphire would only scratch at levels 8 or 9. It might be due to the micro fracturing of whatever cutting process Apple is using to extract the button shape from the large sapphire bools. You can see that even with my gem tester, the sapphire button barely registers as a gemstone on the digital readout.

My Casio F91W has a glass screen which obviously doesn't move the meter. But if we take a look at pure sapphire on a Tissot watch or an actual brick of sapphire – don't ask where I got it – the reading goes off the charts. Apple's sapphire has always been a bit of a letdown, but it's cool to see them trying something new with the camera control button. I do hope someday Apple perfects the sapphire manufacturing process enough to create entire screens from the material.

But for now it appears as if they are sticking with the ceramic infused glass once again.

Wobbling seems rather excessive. They said their ceramic shield this year is 50% tougher than the first generation ceramic shield, and two times tougher than any smartphone glass found in any other smartphone. But it still scratches at a level 6 with deeper grooves at a level 7.

Glass is glass, and no matter how many adjectives are added in front of the word, it will still break. And Apple is charging a whopping $379 to repair broken screens.

If you want to preemptively save your screen for a fraction of that cost, but the idea of applying a screen protector gives you anxiety, my channel sponsor dbrand has you covered with their all new Prism 2.0. This recyclable tray has a screen protector suspended inside, precisely positioned for the perfect alignment on your screen. When the clear liner is pulled out, it statically charges against the glass of your device, pulling away any particles for a clean, dust free installation. Just swipe down the middle and give a few seconds for the adhesive to work its magic, and just like that, a perfectly installed screen protector, protecting against scratches while also being a buffer layer for impacts. Each order comes with two protectors so you'll have a spare for later. I'll drop a link down in the description for you to get a pair for yourself. The upper front facing 12 megapixel camera is protected by that same front glass with an itty bitty razor thin earpiece slit between the glass and the titanium frame. Speaking of which... The PVD coated grade 5 titanium exoskeleton can indeed be scratched just as easily as anodized aluminum. Obviously the camera control is sapphire, but the raised buttons themselves feel the same to my jerry rig knife as the frame does.

And based on the fact that the buttons survived the furnace last year and blued the same way as the titanium frame, I would say the buttons as well are also titanium. The top of the iPhone 16 Pro Max is also titanium, along with the left side, volume buttons, and action button.

The bottom has our stereo loudspeakers and our USB-C 3.0 port that you'll need to buy a new cable for to fully take advantage of. Coming around to the back side we find our soft touch matte texture all over the back glass, except for the Apple logo itself which is super smooth.

This texturing process usually starts with a smooth glass slab and uses a cream applied through a stencil or silk screen to eat away the glass, leaving a frosted texture behind.

It's interesting though that the stencil Apple used on this particular 16 Pro Max is misaligned just enough to give a perfectionist out there some PTSD. And I'm sorry for that. The main 48 megapixel Fusion camera lens is slightly raised out of a metal ring, which is slightly raised out of a glass plateau, which is slightly raised out of the back glass panel. The 48 megapixel ultra wide camera is perched just above the first one, and the 12 megapixel 5x telephoto camera sits alone off to the right. The cameras are lined up this way to film in spatial video for the three people who own Vision Pros. I would admit that filming at 120 frames per second in 4K would also be extremely impressive if Samsung hadn't already done it first in their S24 Ultra. But you know how it is over at Apple. Yesterday's tech for tomorrow's prices. Another subtle improvement this year is the slightly smaller screen borders, making this 6.9 inch screen look even bigger. It's an OLED display, which we could normally show by the flame turning the pixels white, but there is no reaction to the heat this year. The flame definitely burns away the oleophobic coating, so I wouldn't recommend trying the flame test at home, but it's still pretty cool to see. I would also not recommend bend testing your own device. I am a professional after all.

Lucky for Apple though, even with a substantial portion of the titanium frame removed to add that camera control button, the iPhone 16 Pro Max has hardly any flex. There are no cracks, creaks, or bends this time around. Much better than last year. Thumbs up for that. The iPhone 16 Pro Max survives my durability test. However, all that being said, iPhones do have the highest resale value of any smartphone, but not if it's scratched up or dinged. And as we've seen, titanium is obviously still susceptible to damage. I always keep a dbrand grip case on my own phone, and this one has dbrand's new 3D printed topographical map of Area 51 that you can actually feel and hear.

I've been using the dbrand grip case for years now, usually with an x-ray or a teardown skin installed, and it's kept my phone safe from all kinds of accidents. If you want the same protection for your own iPhone, I'll leave a link down in the description. Subscribe to not miss the teardown. And thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.