Every model in the iPhone 16 lineup comes with a Camera Control, the new camera button that’s pressure- and touch-sensitive. It offers an entirely new way to access and adjust your settings in the Camera app by clicking and swiping. But what kind of iPhone case works best with the Camera Control?
Most cases come with a cutout, exposing the Camera Control on the side of the iPhone. Other cases cover the new button completely, but feature a capacitive sensor that conducts your finger’s swipes through the case.
In evaluating which cases work best with the iPhone 16’s new Camera Control, I considered a few questions. Is it any harder using the Camera Control through a cutout? Do third-party iPhone 16 cases with a capacitive sensor work as well as Apple’s cases?
Here’s what I found out — you’ll definitely want to know before you make a decision. Keep reading below or see the results for yourself in our video.
How iPhone 16 cases work with new Camera Control
Every year, third-party iPhone case manufacturers face a dilemma. How do they produce cases ASAP based on the new designs? The addition of the widely rumored Camera Control in the iPhone 16 lineup made things trickier than in the last few cycles, when the iPhone design barely changed.
I tried several options to compare the way different iPhone 16 case designs work with the innovative new Camera Control.
Cases with a Camera Control cutout
Photo: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
Most of the OtterBox cases I tried, along with most third-party cases I’ve seen, come with a large opening in the side of the phone. This lets you click and swipe along the Camera Control as originally intended.
On slim cases, the Camera Control cutout looks innocuous. On thicker, more protective cases like the OtterBox Commuter, Defender Pro and Defender Pro XT, the cutout looks a little goofy. You have an industrial looking rubber-on-plastic design — with a giant opening in the side of the phone.
The more rugged the case, the weirder the Camera Conrol cutout looks
Photo: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
The ergonomics of using the Camera Control with a heavy-duty case aren’t great, either. My instinct was to grip the right edge of the phone with my palm, but then I realized I was entirely covering up the bottom microphone. Instead, you must pinch the phone along the top and bottom edges with your middle finger and thumb.
This type of large cutout does offer an unexpected advantage, though. Because I hold my phone left-handed, the gap in the side serves as a convenient pocket where my middle and ring fingers can sit. As a result, I can hold my iPhone 16 Pro more easily.
The downside with this sort of large cutout is that your phone has an Achilles’ heel. It’s pretty unlikely that a drop would land exactly on the exposed edge in the middle, but it’s still possible. I understand why the case manufacturers took a conservative approach in leaving the entire edge open. But now that the phones are out and broadly available, I think we’ll see cases in a couple of months that cover the whole edge.
Cases with a Camera Control capacitive sensor
Photo: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
All of Apple’s official cases cover the Camera Control entirely. However, they come with “a sapphire crystal coupled to a conductive layer to communicate finger movements to the Camera Control,” the company says. You can click the button and swipe along it just as if you were using the Camera Control naked. The haptic feedback isn’t quite as strong, but it’s strong enough to feel.
I directly pitted an OtterBox Lumen series case against Apple’s own Pro Clear Case for iPhone 16 Pro and found absolutely no difference in functionality between them. If you prefer the colors or the design of the Lumen case (it also completely covers up the iPhone’s bottom edge), you don’t need to worry about a subpar Camera Control experience.
The trade-off with this style of case is that it doesn’t offer quite the same degree of protection across the rest of the phone. Neither of these cases offer full protection for the truly accident-prone — and I don’t know if a passthrough capacitive sensor would work well on a super-thick, rugged iPhone case.
The best of both worlds, for maximum protection and Camera Control functionality, would be a hybrid of both designs. A bulky, protective case that gets a little thinner around the Camera Control, but still offers a capacitive cover. I wouldn’t be surprised if third-party case manufacturers come out with a design like this in the coming months.
Shop cases
Thin cases:
- OtterBox Symmetry case for iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, 16 Pro Max
- OtterBox Symmetry Cactus Leather case for iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, 16 Pro Max
- OtterBox Symmetry Soft Touch case for iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, 16 Pro Max
Protective cases:
- OtterBox Commuter case for iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, 16 Pro Max
- OtterBox Defender Pro case for iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, 16 Pro Max
- OtterBox Defender Pro XT case for iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, 16 Pro Max
Capacitive Camera Control cases:
- Apple Clear Case for iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, 16 Pro Max
- OtterBox Lumen case for iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, 16 Pro Max
