Commentary: "Camera Control" on the new iPhone is no revolution

"One button to rule them all." Apple invented it again - the button - the part of the tool on a camera that we call the "shutter release" on the camera body that manages the exposure. Mechanical exposure handling has been around for a long time, since the 1860s, with rotatable and tiltable discs that were removed and placed in front of the lens to start or end the exposure.

In terms of buttons, they became designed a few decades later, adapted to be used by one finger, usually the right index finger. That was about 140-150 years ago. Now, the button has evolved, gained a certain tactile feel, and become both electronic and more sophisticated.

But it is still a button.

Although it's "just a button," one should not underestimate its importance. If you google the design of buttons, the feel of buttons, tactile function, and how they are designed, you will (if you haven't already thought about it) as a photographer realize that the shutter release is of great significance for the feel of photography.

A properly designed exposure button gives you a sense of precision, a sense of knowing when you've taken the picture within a millisecond, and that you've nailed the shot. A good button communicates with you so you know where you are in the photographic flow, perhaps by offering a bit of resistance when you focus, half-pressed, and then taking the picture.

Therefore, the design of the button should not be underestimated, even if it sounds like a joke. And Apple has understood this. They are onto something when they try to integrate the crucial feeling of handling and ergonomics that a photographer needs when taking pictures, into the button they call Camera Control button now available on the new iPhone 16 models.

By having the button be pressure-sensitive in various ways like a tactile sensor, one can create different ways to perform an action on the mobile through different types of presses. For example, a half-press may be focusing, a full press to take a picture, and a full press held down to start recording a video.

Smart. That's exactly how it works on ordinary cameras. And that's also exactly what is available on other mobile phones, such as the Sony Xperia models. These features are of course something that has improved the use for those who take photos with a mobile phone, it is both faster and easier.

But the Camera Control button also seems to have another functional possibility, namely to be used to, for example, zoom or adjust settings by dragging your finger across the surface to the sides. When you do so, you switch between functions, or change something in a setting, such as the mentioned degree of zoom.

Smart. That's exactly how it worked on Canon EOS R when it was released in 2018 and had a so-called "touch-bar". It had the same functionality, and was used by the thumb to adjust the settings. This is what I wrote in my test:

"Innovative is the touch-bar on the camera. It has the advantage of being set to many different functions, to then make adjustments on a scale, up or down. The idea is better than its execution."

We never saw that button again, and it can almost be considered a brave attempt at development that didn't really catch on with photographers - it was simply too inaccessible, complicated to use, misplaced, and difficult to manage.

The question is what will happen with Apple's own button. Those who have tested it at the time of writing seem to think that it follows roughly the same feeling I had with Canon's touch-bar, that it is too tricky to use. But who knows - maybe it will get better over time. And maybe it will get better with AI - Apple Intelligence (oh right, Artificial Intelligence that's what it meant) - how AI can improve a button more than just being a button.

The touch-bar was incidentally something that existed on Apple's MacBook computers as an addition to have a more dynamic handling of functions in the programs one worked with, to give an example. A touch area like a row, which could receive tactile input.

Smart. Maybe. Opinions were divided, and three years ago the touch bar feature disappeared from the Pro models, and now they are not there at all.

How long can Camera Control remain?

What strikes me is that Apple's founder Steve Jobs, who is also considered to have been a koumpounophobe, meaning he had a phobia of buttons - might not have liked this idea at all. His thoughts on buttons also influenced the design of Apple's products, with an ambition to make the usage and design as simple and distraction-free as possible.

In an interview with journalist Walter Isaacson, who is also the author of the biography about Steve Jobs, he is said to have pondered death, his cancer, and God:

"Perhaps it's because I want to believe in an afterlife, that when you die, everything doesn't just disappear. The wisdom you've accumulated somehow lives on. Yes, but sometimes I think it's like an on and off button. Click, and you're gone. And that's why I don't have on and off buttons on Apple devices."

But it's not just Steve Jobs who thinks about buttons.

Leica is also well-known for adhering to minimalist design, stemming from the idea that distractions in the form of too many buttons, too much technology, and other factors that affect the photographer should be kept far away.

A recent example is the release of the new Leica M11-D where the importance and values of the image are prioritized and technology becomes secondary. The Leica M11-D has neither regular buttons on the back if you disregard the ISO setting dial, nor a screen for you to look at - which means that you as a photographer can avoid chimping, pondering, thinking about various adjustments - and just focus on the image. Here and now.

What I am afraid of is that Camera Control is trying to solve a basic problem in mobile phones with technology that makes it too complicated, in order to make the mobile phone more like a camera. Camera technology and the shutter have been refined for well over a hundred years, while mobile phones with decent cameras have been around for ten years.

If we follow Leica's thoughts on photography, it's not about the button. It's about the picture you take. That's what matters, that's what holds the real value in what is created.

Apple's Camera Control button on the new iPhone 16 is therefore no revolution, and will probably not change the way we photograph with a mobile phone in such a way that it gives us better pictures. Perhaps the handling will be faster and better - but in the worst case, it will make photography more complicated by making it more cumbersome than the "aim - shoot" approach that has largely been the strength of mobile phones over a more advanced camera.

There is also a possibility that the button may be gone after a few generations, a thought that might align with both Steve Jobs and perhaps Leica's product developers, in the same way as Canon's. Or it may persist and evolve, be refined, and step into the promised land of AI technology with a power few could have imagined:

"One button to rule them all."