What Is a Memory Worth?
On the past couple episodes of Connected, Federico Viticci has spoken about a change he's noticed since switching from the iPhone 16 Pro Max to the iPhone 16 Plus: he's taking significantly fewer pictures than before. Although he thought giving up the telephoto camera lens wouldn't be a big deal day-to-day, it turns out that it did impact the way he was documenting his life – so much so that he's now back on the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
Listening to Federico speak about this really resonated with me. There's a tension between using the device he likes best and capturing moments from his life consistently. What's more important: your phone's color and weight or the photos you take with it? That's a tough question to answer in theory; in practice, it starts to become clear.
When the iPhone 16 line was announced and the consensus seemed to be that the non-Pro phones made more sense for most people this time around, I feared that I was selling myself short by sticking with the Pro Max. The colors on the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus are so compelling. Just look at that ultramarine! Like many, I wondered if the enhancements offered on the Pro line were worth the tradeoffs.
The deciding factor for me really was the camera. Taking pictures is one of the most important things I use my phone for – if not the most important thing – especially since my son was born last year. I can send texts from my iPad, take calls on my watch, and check social media on my Vision Pro. But none of those devices can replace the iPhone when it comes to giving me access to a high-quality camera everywhere I go. It's the phone's "killer use case" in my book.
To be clear, I'm not a mobile photographer. I don't know that the pictures I take are "good" in an objective sense; that's not really my concern. What I care about is capturing memories. I want to flip through my Photos app and be reminded of times I had with my wife, son, family, and friends.
Because I care so deeply about getting the best pictures possible in the most scenarios possible, I opted for the iPhone 16 Pro Max this year. (I also like unreasonably big phone screens for some reason.) Even though the colors were tempting, even though it felt like I was going against the trend, even though I knew some of the pro features would be wasted on me, I went for the iPhone with the best camera available.
Almost instantly, any doubt I had in that decision evaporated. Here's a photo and caption I shared less than a month after my phone arrived:
I took that picture standing on the far side of a sandbox my son was in at a pumpkin patch. He was playing with his uncles and some other kids, having the time of his life, and I didn't want to get too close and risk distracting him. So I pulled my phone out of my pocket, zoomed in to 5x using the telephoto lens, and snapped this shot with the Camera Control.
Is this an objectively good photo? I don't think I'm qualified to judge that. But to me, it's an incredible picture that represents a memory of my son that I never want to forget. It's a moment in time that I'll cherish for the rest of my life. And if I didn't have the Pro Max's camera system available to me in that moment, I might have missed it.
Buying tech is a complex process that's different for everyone, and I'm privileged to even have the ability to ponder such questions. But in my circumstance, considering what I would be willing to give up to take pictures of my son like that one, it's a lot. I'm happy to make tradeoffs on price, weight, thickness, and – yes – even color options if it means I can keep capturing memories in the best way possible.
In 20 years, I won't care what color my phone was, or what model. I'll probably forget which number the iPhone was even on this year. But I'll still have the pictures I took with it. I'll still have that photo of my son's smile to look back on. I'll still have the memories, because they last forever, and to me, they're worth everything.
