We may earn a commission when you buy through links in our articles. Learn more.

Apple’s new iPhone 16 button could give you the edge in mobile gaming

With the addition of the Camera Control button on Apple’s new iPhone 16 series, I'm wondering why we can’t use it for mobile gaming.

Custom image with an iPhone 16 Pro running a racing game on the left of the screen with the Apple Glowtime logo on the left

The new Camera Control button might be the most revolutionary of all Apple’s design changes for the iPhone 16 series. While it’s great news for amateur photographers, I’m hoping that future software updates could give the new button a feature fit for iOS 18’s fresh Game Mode.

For those who don’t know, Apple‘s Camera Control feature is a capacitive button that makes it easier to take pictures on the fly. However, its placement on the iPhone 16’s chassis has me asking why we can’t use it as a shoulder trigger, especially in FPS games. Shoulder triggers on phones aren’t exactly unprecedented now. Just look at some of the entries on our list of the best gaming phones, like the top-dog ASUS ROG Phone 8.

YouTube Thumbnail

It’d make a lot of sense to alter the functionality of Camera Control. While it might be too close to the middle of the device’s chassis to be a perfectly placed shoulder trigger, it’s certainly better than nothing. I can’t tell you how many times my trigger finger has obscured my view in PUBG Mobile, and if there was a shoulder button, I might actually have a chance of winning a game. It’d still be a small chance, yes, but a chance nonetheless.

The problem is that to make the Camera Control button work as a shoulder trigger, Apple would have to give mobile game developers access to the feature. We’ve seen the brand do just that for Snapchat and Instagram, working Camera Control functionality into the apps. This is where it gets tricky, though, as almost half of the titles on our list of the best iPhone games could utilize a shoulder trigger feature, so it’s unclear where Apple would start or if it would be open to giving so many developers access to the iPhone 16’s inner workings.

With all that in mind, it seems unlikely that Apple will make this change. The Californian tech giant is pretty clear in its design language, and if it calls a button ‘Camera Control,’ you can bet it doesn’t want you to use that button for anything else but zooming and snapping. That means you’ll have to make do with using touchscreen controls or your phone controller for the foreseeable.

Of course, nothing’s ever certain with Apple, so we’ll keep an eye out for any updates relating to the Camera Control feature and whether you might one day be able to utilize it for gaming. If you want to level up your gaming experience in the meantime, our guide to best phone controllers has plenty of options for different needs and budgets. Or, if you’re looking for something new to play, our list of the best Apple Arcade games is full of fantastic picks.