Switching iPhones, what should I know?

Hi,

I currently use an iPhone SE 2022. Back in 2023, I upgraded from an iPhone SE 2020 to an iPhone 15 Pro. I will not go into detail here, as my old posts on the subject can be found elsewhere on AppleVis, but I did get to enjoy the newer designed iPhone for the equivalent of about five weeks, give or take. Of course, the first thing you will notice is that there is absolutely no home button. This really is not a huge deal, but it will definitely be something to get used to, if you have never used a device without a home button before. The size of the device is also something to consider. The newer iPhone models are much larger than the older SE models, and slightly thicker as well.

Next comes the screen itself. They call these edge to edge screens, because the actual area of the screen that responds to touch gestures is literally from edge to edge, corner to corner. This is both good and bad. It is good in that you have a lot more screen real estate to play around with, which is handy when doing things like BSI, for example. On the other hand, edge to edge screen means that if you're not careful, it is very easy to tap, or double tap, on the screen just by the way you are holding the device. You can somewhat negate this with the right type of case, however.

This next thing is optional, but by default will be enabled on your newer device, and is more of an aesthetic, but an aesthetic that you can interact with. That would be Spotlight search. On our older iPhone SE models, we typically have to do a three finger swipe down from an app icon on the home screen. On the newer model iPhones, Search is actually located between the dock, and the lower portion of the home screen. You can access it simply by double tapping on it, and either typing, or dictating, your search query. As stated this is optional, so you can disable this feature, to make it more like the iPhone SE. speaking of swipe jesters, I'm sure you have heard about accessing the home screen, but there are slightly new gestures for accessing the notification center, Control center, and reachability, if you use that last feature, that is. With regards to control center and notification center, you can still access these the way you do on your iPhone SE, that is to say swiping with three fingers up or down for control center or notification center, respectfully, from the status bar. The new gestures work as follows, a swipe down from the top left or right edge of your screen with a single finger until you hear a sound will get you control center, and swiping downward a little further until you hear a second sound will get you notification center.
With regards to reachability, I could never get this to work on my 15 Pro, but I believe the gesture is a single finger swipe up like you were trying to go home, then swiping back down and releasing.

The iPhone 16 models will have two new buttons for you, the action button, and the camera button. The action button replaces the mute switch, and by default is set to mute or unmute your device. However, you can go into settings, and reassign the action button to a variety of different action/gestures. Currently only exclusive to the iPhone 16 model phones is the camera button, located on the same side as your power button, but toward the bottom of the phone, by default this is used for camera controls, but can also be a reassigned to other applications and shortcuts.

One last thing that I can remember off the top of my head, all of the iPhones have the "raised to wake" feature, where when this is enabled simply picking up your device will wake it up from a sleep state. With the newer non-home button devices, you can also simply press on the screen with a single finger to wake it up as well.

I hope this at least answers some of your questions, of course I'm sure others will have more in-depth information for you than I. 🙂

Edited my above post to include the action and camera buttons. 😅

You can turn off raise to wake if you want, which I do. Also, pretty sure this turns off tap to wake, as I just tried it, and my phone did not wake up. I prefer it like this, as with raise to wake, it would wake up a lot of the time when I really didn't want it to do so.
Also, having both of the extra buttons is quite nice. I'm still not great at taking pics, but do like the button for that, as well as for Be My AI. I have the action button set to do a shortcut, where it will turn Voiceover on and lower screen brightness to 0, or turn VO off and raise brightness to 100%. Quite handy for those moments when I need to hand my phone to someone, for help scanning a check to deposit in my bank app, or for the occasional gym video.
I really like the size of the bigger phones, and while I used the 2022 SE for a bit, because it's what I could get my hands on, now that I have my iPhone 16, there's no way you could ever talk me in to going back to something as small as the SE.

Can definitely be disabled and I'd recommend this for blind people unless you have a case which folds over the screen. The new charge connector is nice because it makes it possible to charge other accessories like headphones with the same cable as your phone, the part that goes into the wall will usually still be fine if you replace the lightning cable with a type C one. This is also one less cable to carry if you travel or use a portable battery bank, so long as you don't use airpods or the magsafe battery pack.

I find the home gesture can be a little laggy at times compared to the old home button but YMMV. There's also the option to set backtap to act as a home function, double tapping on the back of the phone instead. The case can interfere with this but if you're dextrous enough you can double tap on the camera bump through the cut out in the case and it'll still work.

The camera button is very restricted in which apps it can open and this function can be disabled, useful if you tend to accidentally press it and find it opening the camera app. It's flush with the side of the phone instead of sticking out but its position makes this a possible frustration for some people.

A case with magsafe is a good idea, it isn't essential but it's a very nice to have. It makes wireless charging with compatible adapters or clip on battery packs a lot easier and it can be used for some mounts and stands even outside of charging use. A small magsafe tripod for example is convenient if you want to talk to someone while cooking, grooming a dog or other routine tasks which require your hands to be free.