As a lifelong Apple fan, I used to be excited to lastly improve to a more recent iPhone after my beloved however worn iPhone 11 died. There’s loads to love concerning the newer fashions, together with the iPhone 16, with one main exception. One function frequently harassed me and made my cellphone tough to make use of. Disabling this one function has made all of the distinction for me to take pleasure in utilizing my cellphone once more, and it may well for you, too.

Coming from an older iPhone mannequin, I used to be stunned to see two new buttons on the 16: the motion and digital camera management buttons. The motion button is a small button above the amount adjusters. It was launched with the iPhone 15 Professional fashions and is a customizable button that may do something from turning your ringer on to ordering coffee from Dunkin’ to go. It is small, demure and minds its personal enterprise. It is the digital camera management button that precipitated all of the chaos.

Camera control is a brand new button on the iPhone 16 lineup that does what precisely the identify suggests: It controls your digital camera. It is meant that can assist you shortly snap images and serves as a shortcut to launching your digital camera app. You’ll be able to slide your finger on a mini settings menu to regulate digital camera zoom, amongst different settings. However there’s one true motive for its existence: AI. The entire iPhone 17 fashions have this button as properly.

Like each different tech firm, Apple is closely investing in synthetic intelligence. Apple Intelligence has been the driving drive behind a lot of the corporate’s innovation, with a number of AI updates within the new iOS 26. However there isn’t any greater signal of Apple’s deep dive into AI than the digital camera management button. It is the bodily pathway to Visual Intelligence, a brand new AI-powered function that permits you to use your digital camera to scan objects in the true world to get extra data on them. It sounds snazzy, however that is fully pointless to me, and it is a function I’ve by no means been enticed to make use of.

There are other use cases for the digital camera management button, together with methods to customise button settings, as my colleagues have discovered via their testing. However that does not change the truth that my digital camera management button is so fully annoying.

It is a lengthy button, concerning the dimension of the ability button, positioned on the decrease proper aspect of the machine. And it is very, very straightforward to faucet accidentally. I’ve opened my digital camera whereas placing my cellphone in my pocket, whereas I am driving and utilizing navigation apps and as soon as as I used to be turning off my cellphone for the evening, which left the digital camera app open the entire evening and drained my cellphone’s battery.

And if that wasn’t annoying sufficient, each time I truly supposed to open my digital camera through digital camera management, it took a number of faucets to take action. Go determine. Whereas I had digital camera management enabled, my digital camera roll included beautiful photographs like these:

My query: What’s the level of a button that works when you do not want it and would not work while you do? There are already three alternative ways to entry your iPhone digital camera from the lock display that take  simply seconds to make use of. Digital camera management is a really costly and really unreliable addition to the newer iPhones, all for the sake of AI features that many individuals do not want or use. And there hasn’t been one second since I turned digital camera management off that I’ve missed it.

I understand that my gripes with digital camera management are minor complaints amongst what has been an general constructive expertise with a brand new cellphone. However as an AI reporter, I am unable to assist however see this as a troubling signal. So many tech firms have overhauled their software program and units to be AI-friendly, whether or not it is Google spamming us with Gemini pop-ups in each single Google app, the brand new Copilot button on Microsoft Home windows laptops or Apple’s digital camera management button.

Tech firms too desperate to get on the AI practice and have not given sufficient thought as to whether these options improve or simply derail our expertise utilizing their merchandise. And never sufficient supply opt-out choices. Fortunately for me and my digital camera roll, Apple does. However I hope sooner or later, such drastic measures will not be mandatory as firms develop into extra intentional with their AI-enabling options.

If you wish to be part of me in making your digital camera management button out of date, navigate to your iPhone settings and choose digital camera. Then, faucet digital camera management. Inside digital camera management, choose accessibility, then toggle off digital camera management. In case you’re additionally experiencing the hyper-sensitivity, you’ll be able to regulate what number of faucets (and the strain wanted) to set off the button in that very same accessibility web page underneath light-press drive.

For extra, try our hands-on expertise with the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max.