Two 'New' Introductions No. 2: iPhone 16

Later this morning (or possibly early afternoon) I'll be heading into town to the Verizon Store to pre-order the new iPhone 16 Pro Max. ("New" in scare quotes because the 16 is similar to the 15, which was similar to the 14, and it's turtles all the way down.)

I have lots of cameras—mainly due to fetishism, nostalgia, and the fact that shopping is fun. But there are really only 2 1/2 in current rotation. The two main ones are my monochrome converted Sigma FP (unofficially called an FP-m) and my iPhone, which I shoot with every day, not too seriously. The half-camera is my old Fuji X-T1 from 2014, which I do bring out from time to time, mainly because I have a pretty full set of Fuji lenses.

An iPhone 13 picture—one of my neighbor's three new goats. One of his customers said he had some goats to give away, and he said sure. I asked him what one does with goats, and he said, "look at 'em?" They love to climb things. Note the tonal merger on the horn on the right, which is a photographic mistake.

My iPhone 13 Pro still works fine, and I love it. Completely satisfied. Last time, however, I waited too long to update. My iPhone 7 went kaput and I was forced to buy a 13 right before the 14 came out. And it was too late to get any trade-in for the 7 even if it had been working. I decided then to update every three cycles. That's now. The old one will pay for a third of the cost of the new one. Maybe a quarter.

Phones—portable hand computers with built-in cameras, customizable with the use of third-party apps—are astonishing devices that almost literally could not have been imagined as recently as 40 years ago (1984, once shorthand for the distant future). In combination with the internet, they're the single most significant technological advance of my lifetime...and I was alive for the moon landing. It's interesting to compare the Apple Watch to Dick Tracy's futuristic "wrist-radio." The Apple Watch is far, far more amazing and futuristic than the cartoonist could even imagine in 1946 (well before my own time, for you young-uns out there*).

There needs to be a camera upgrade for me to update, too. Another reason to pre-order today is that the new iPhone has a "Camera Control" button, meaning, they've actually put some thought into improving the UI for photography. I'm interested to see what they've come up with and whether it improves the traditionally slow and awkward iPhone camera interface.

But I'll leave a description of the new feature to a future post, when I have the new iPhone in hand.

Mike

*It's kinda hilarious to me that I can talk about the '50s, '40s, '30s, or even the '20s in, say, YouTube comments, and some youngsters will make the assumption that I'm talking about my own youth. Hey, it's all ancient history, isn't it? Well, yeah, I suppose, but I'm not quite old enough to recall the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, or WWII firsthand. My teen years began at the beginning of the '70s; I'm a member of "Generation Jones." As representative Jones-ers, Wikipedia uses Bill Gates (b. 1955), Madonna, Michael Jackson, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Barack Obama, Princess Diana, Diego Maradona, and Tom Cruise (b. 1962). They're my age cohort.

UPDATE Friday evening: The one employee at Verizon didn't realize it was the first day for iPhone 16 pre-orders. We looked it up on the computer; he apologized. Then, at considerable length, I got bombarded with a blizzard of baffling bullshit which included an avalanche of apparently contradictory information and paper charts. Paper. Good news! I could trade in my old iPhone for $1,000 in credit. All I had to do was lock into a plan which would cost me $1,080 over and above what my current plan costs over the next three years. Meaning, I would lose more than I gained and effectively net nothing for my old iPhone and still have to pay another $200 for the phone itself and $200 on top of that for AppleCare.

In effect I had two choices. In one, they would win and I would lose. The other alternative was that I would lose and they would win. But, I had a choice of which! Yay; choice is power. However, while I could choose whatever I wanted, the employee's advice was that it was not to my benefit to try to win, but to let them win.

Failure and retreat. No decisions made, nothing done. Next move: pilgrimage to Apple Store. They might have a plan whereby they win more than Verizon wins, such that I might lose a little less.

A fox is screaming in the darkness outside. If you have never heard the mating call of a fox, it is spooky—it sounds like a human being hurt.

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Jack Mac: "Mike, Congratulations, you have unraveled the well-hidden truth of Carrier Confusion. Apple nicely offers an interest-free loan over 24 months. The Carriers undercut the monthly Apple payment and can offer a bigger trade in. But they require you to buy a more expensive monthly service plan across all your phones, as you smartly noticed. The Carriers want you to be confused. I’m as you are attracted to the new camera button that I believe finally puts the control on the correct edge. I think I will go to the Apple Store to see if it’s all I think it is. They should have done this years ago."

Comments

[John Krumm]

I'm sure you will like it, except perhaps for size (I wish my 15 Pro Max was a little lighter and less chunky). The image quality is great for a point and shoot. For me, setting it to jpeg (not heif) and leaving it at the stock 24 mp is good. Have not seen a need for raw, since your choices are 12 mp unprocessed, or 48 mp overprocessed. There is no 24 mp raw option, and the jpegs are nice "hdr" like files anyway. Apple also does not seem to allow third party camera apps to offer the 24mp files.

One thing I've taken to doing is ordering prints straight from the device. Mpix has an app and probably has some of the most accurate color. Snapfish gives you 100 free prints a month, and offers the no-crop size phones need. Getting some prints in the mail kind of completes the circle.

[Aaron]

Not sure about Verizon but some service providers give even better deals. I was not planning on updating my 11 Pro Max last year to the 15 Pro Max. The new phone/camera looked great, but I could have happily waited another year.

Turns out my service provider had a deal such that trading in my 11 pro max resulted in me getting the new phone for under $300--it covered roughly 3/4 of the total cost. Given the trade in offers this year, had I waited just one year I would have 'lost' nearly $700 in trade in value. The 16 pro max would end up costing me something like $8-900.

Given that I knew I would upgrade eventually, it made sense to do it earlier. My service provider really seems to want users to upgrade at least every 3 years.

[Tom Burke]

I'm currently using a 14 Pro Max which is fine. The camera/photo upgrades in the last two generations have been significant, however, and as a result I do feel tempted by the the 16 Pro. I shall have to have a good play with the Camera Control before I take a decision.

I do have a big reservation about this one, however, and that's the 5x telephoto lens. That's seems to leave a very big gap between the 2x (cropped to 48mm equivalent) and the 5x (120mm equivalent). I've often found the 3x (72mm equivalent) on the 14 Pro Max a bit shorter than I really wanted - when I was using 25-105 standard zooms I frequently shot at 105mm - but 120mm equivalent might be too long. I really want a 4x lens - that would be 96mm equivalent which would be perfect.

The one thing you can't do with a fixed focal length lens is get anything wider, of course. You can crop but you can't expand...

[Rex]

Nothing to do with photography, but here we go...

I have always hated "pre-order". What makes an order "pre-"? "Order" serves the purpose perfectly well.

I guess it's marketing: by "pre-ordering" something that is ostensibly not yet available, you feel are ahead of the pack, along with all those thousands of other people who also pre-ordered.

To belabour the point, I used to work for a company that required "pre-registration" for specific events at the annual customer conference. The "pre-" implied to me that there would also be "post-registration", where you express a desire to attend the event after it has happened.

[Albert Smith]

Madonna, Jackson, N.D. Tyson all born in 1958 (same as me) not '62.

[I only gave birthdates for two of the people...the oldest and the youngest. --Mike]

[Howard Slavitt]

I agree Mike that, the iphones are astonishing. . . . In addition to the amazing functionality and quality of the cameras (the quality isn't as good as my DSLRs, but it's close enough for almost all uses), the new hearing aid function of an iphone paired with the Earpods Pro is exciting (to me). I'm 63 and pretty sure I'm suffering from mild hearing loss, and this is much easier way of addressing it (at least as a first step) than audiologist visits, hearing aids, hearing aid adjustments, etc.

[Dean Johnston]

Hi again.

> The old one will pay for a third of the cost of the new one.
> Maybe a quarter.

The last two I’ve bought have been second hand. Two generations behind. Which makes them, nowadays, still pretty good. And significantly cheaper. Once I looked at that price difference, I just could no longer spring for a new one.

And this isn’t any sort of judgement of course, it’s more that I find it interesting observing how my priorities change.

Cheers,
Dean

[K4kafka]

That goat looks like he’s getting ready to jump…Strong fences make good neighbors…

[Hank]

At the mention of "Generation Jones", the song "Basketball Jones" by Cheech and Chong (both Baby Boomers, but much beloved by Generation Jones) popped into my head.
The human mind is weird, sometimes.

[robert e]

New phone day! I look forward to your impressions and samples. Maybe I should finally upgrade my iPhone 7. I won't go for the latest, though; more likely a used example from a couple of generations ago.

[Craig Yuill]

I refuse to buy new models of electronic devices when they first come out. I got a copy of a new model of BlackBerry (Remember them?) that had solid early reviews. It turned out that the design of the phone’s trackball (Remember those?) was critically flawed. Given that the trackball was the phone’s main pointing device, that was a real problem. Unlike BlackBerry models that preceded it, the trackball was not user replaceable - a repair facility had to do it. I eventually replaced it with a model that had both a touch screen and a trackpad - and had been on the market for at least six months, and had proven to be reliable.

My current phone is an iPhone 11. I bought it a week before the iPhone 12 appeared on store shelves. The phone before that one (a Sony Xperia 2) had died. I wasn’t too unhappy that I had missed out on having the latest and greatest. My iPhone 11 has been my best, most-reliable phone yet. I likely won’t replace it for another year. I might splurge and get a Pro Max model next time.

[Stephen Jenner]

I am still using my iPhone 7, it is the lightest and slimmest phone that Apple ever made, so pocketable in any weather.

I would like a new carry around camera, and I have been trying to decide whether to replace the 7 with a whizz bang new iPhone with multiple fancy cameras, such as the new 16 pro, or to stick to the direct descendant of my 7, which would be the latest version of the iPhone SE (3rd), and then look for a nice pocketable digital camera?

Initially, I was still thinking that the SE route is the way to go.

However, I recently bought a Leica iiic with a Summicron both in A+ condition, and returned it within a couple of days, because I could not see without glasses, any of the controls on the camera, and I could not see with glasses, my current composition. Yes, I realise that it is not digital, but there is whole lot of fun in mixing cocktails of chemicals and developing rolls of film.

Currently, following the above experience, I am leaning towards the smaller more pocketable iPhone 16pro, at least I can see the soft controls along with the composition, and feel the button controls.

I would still have various stand alone mechanical and digital cameras to hand, for when I want to go somewhere with an actual camera, specifically to take pictures, since I still have the Rollei TLR and the Leica Q2, for that. The downside being that neither are pocketable, however deep the pockets :-).

I thought for a while that the new Leica D-Lux 8, might be appropriate, but on reading my other favourite Mike’s column (Macfilos), it would seem that Leica, in its wisdom, have moved the standard controls all over the shop.

Perhaps a compromise is in order, find a new or nearly new Leica D-Luxe 7 (pocketable or light enough to carry on the wrist), and buy one of the new iPhone pro models.

Brandy new is not necessarily the best way!

Mike’s column today may prove to be very useful for making my decision.

[Jozef]

It is called Sigma fp. Sigma does not use the letters fp in capitals, Mike, you as a writer and lover of the written word, should read your text more carefully.

[Niels]

Re: Update

I get the feeling many people get a subsidised phone that legitimatise the carrier to charge a lot for a service package the customer may not necessary need - and at the same time lock them in to that expensive package for a long time.

I have bought all of my private iPhones online directly from Apple for two reasons; I can get the exact model, color, storage configuration I want right away, and I get it without being locked-in to any subscription - other than Apple Care if I choose to add that (which I don't).
The minimum 2 years EU guarantee and 90 days complimentary Apple technical phone support is enough for me (combined with at protective case of good quality).

BTW. You don't need physical help cloning your old iPhone to your new one- you just put them next to each other and they do it automatically when you turn on the new iPhone.

By buying directly from Apple, I am free to shop subscription at any carrier, and since my iPhone wasn't subsidised by the carriers, they cannot hold me to any scheme more than to the end of a given month.

My current very basic 5G subscription is €7.90/month for 3 hours outgoing calls + 10GB data anywhere in EU + Free unlimited text/image messages. (Same carrier offers a free call+50GB+txt plan for €13.50/month).

The carrier is a major player with excellent 5G network, but I buy from their budget brand that only sells online and has no physical shops. My subscription is "hidden" in the "For Kids" section on their website.

My chosen plan will not fit everyone's need, but I never talk on the phone unless I have to call the doctor or give a quick message.

I do listen to streamed podcasts and audio books, as well as radio for a few hours a day away from home, yet I always have left over data at the end of the month.
At my home, work and friends, wi-fi takes over of course.

My past two iPhones (5S and 8) lasted 5 years each. I expect the same for my current 14 ProMax.

At €95 a year for the plan, plus cost of the iPhone divided over the life of use, gives a very competitive annual cost structure compared to any subsidised plans I have seen.
Also, I am free to up/downgrade the plan or sell my phone any time.
I check the competitiveness of my plan once a year (as I do with all my other subscriptions/insurances etc.)

This approach makes it very easy to calculate the relevance of price reductions on phones.
For example, the price of an iPhone 15 has to be at least 20% lower than an iPhone 16 because the 15 will likely be outdated (for my usage) after 4 years rather than the 5 years of the newer iPhone 16.

[Speed]

At the Apple website there are nine "special" deals from well-known providers -- all very long and in very small print. Those are after Apple's own cautioned, "Available for Qualified Purchasers Only" special deal.

Let the buyer beware. Maybe best to wait a few months until the buyer feeding frenzy cools a bit and buyers are relatively scarce.

These always remind me of the old used car dealer scam where they sold based on the monthly payment rather than the selling price. The monthly payment was adjusted to the buyer's satisfaction by adding or subtracting months to the length of the loan -- never by lowering the price of the car.

[Ben]

Save the gas money. Order on the Apple website, or on the Apple Store app on your phone. You can sort out the trade in there, and you only pay the difference.

They'll send you the new phone and then you send your old one back after you set up the new phone (in a box they send you), and you can pay monthly for the new phone over two years without interest. No need for human contact whatsoever, or for carrier shenanigans.

The only reason for you to go to the store would be to share here an impromptu portrait of the lovely employee who helps you get all this sorted. Bring the Sigma—I’m curious if they'll let you use it in the store.

[Tom Burke]

Do you get your phone from your network provider or direct from Apple? Here in the UK 35% of network contracts are ‘sim-only’; in these cases the customer must therefore already own the phone. Of the rest, 43% were handset & minutes contracts, and the rest were pay-as-you-go.

I started off getting my phone through contracts, but then ran into the data roaming problem. I’ll hazard a guess here and suggest that this might be more of an issue in the UK than in the USA - it used to be that whenever we went abroad on holiday, using the phone required you to pay roaming charges. Anecdotally, I hear that not so many Americans go abroad, so roaming charges aren’t so much of an issue, so there’s one less reason to actually buy your own phone. Is that a fair guess?

Back in the UK if you have your own phone and it’s unlocked from a network, you can buy a local sim (or these days, a travel sim) when on holiday which saves on roaming charges. For a blissful few years there was EU legislation that said “No Roaming Charges anywhere in the EU!!”, but then we left the EU and hey presto, roaming charges for UK phone owners travelling to Europe reappeared. And of course roaming charges were always present when I travelled outside the EU. So I’ve had strong reasons to buy my phone direct from Apple and then chose a suitable sim-only contract.

[ASW]

Just one guy's opinion here, but consumerism is the ruin of society. Will a new phone be better than your old phone? Probably. Will you notice? I don't know, I've never had a mobile phone.

Alternatively, spend that $1000 on a trip to see your grandchild. You can't buy any more time than you're given and you can't get it back. Spend it wisely.

[David Brown]

The trade in "deals" offered by carriers are not good deals except for the carriers. Apple will give you a trade in for your 13 and you can just continue your current plan with Verizon or whoever. I am mixed about the iPhone 16. Almost bought a 15 two months ago but decided to wait. And now the 16 is only marginally better. I do admit that the camera button is a big deal (to me), but the "you'll get all the wizbang AI features sometime in the future" is not reassuring. I don't even care about the AI, but they're charging me for it in advance. Meanwhile, the 12 keeps working.

[David Drake]

I bought a re-conditioned iPhone 12 Pro last winter. I've been living out in the 'sticks' and seeing more wildlife, so having a multiple lens option was enticing. But I've been quite disappointed with the images. The sharpening being applied is way too much. And there seems to be no way to control the amount? And that's with turning off the 'View Full HDR' in settings. Is this what people like?

[Sean]

I leapt from an iPhone seven to an iPhone 13 Pro max (500GB) on my 50th birthday in Sep 2021. I bought it outright and got a sim-only 30-day rolling contract. Call allowance, texts and data aren't the draws they once were, so I’m fine with the allowance my £6 monthly contract provides. Upgrading to a 16 is tempting, but I’m only halfway through my upgrade cycle, so roll on 2027

[Ed Hawco]

My iPhone is an XR (iPhone 10 essentially) and I still think of it as my “new iPhone.”

[Bruce Moseley]

Check out an unlocked iPhone from apple and Consumer Cellular for service.

[John Shriver]

You may need to switch phone carriers to get a good deal. They are willing to spend a lot to poach a customer, as there aren't many new ones available. Switching carriers may not be practical depending on coverage in your area...

[Chris Kern]

Mike: Phones—portable hand computers with built-in cameras, customizable with the use of third-party apps—are astonishing devices that almost literally could not have been imagined as recently as 40 years ago. . . .

Ahhh, actually Nikola Tesla almost literally imagined something very similar to today’s cellphones nearly a century ago:

“We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.”

And more than half a century ago, when a computer typically was composed of several racks filled with equipment assembled from discrete electronic components (i.e., B.C. a.k.a. Before Chips), Alan Kay of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center conjured up the laptop.

By the way, I’m working on a few interesting ideas of my own. Check back with me in 2049.

[Bob Casner]

Here’s what I did to make my iPhone photography about as easy to use as a DSLR and MUCH more portable, for about $40 “all in.”:
On Amazon I bought
JJC Magnetic Phone Grip
YKOOE Nylon belt case, mine is the 5.5” black

Next I’ll be trying the free version of the Leica Lux app, I’ve always liked their tone and color “look.”

“The best camera is the one that’s with you” indeed!

[Roger Lambert]

You may want to be sure the iPhone 16 camera system is worth the upgrade. I have seen at least one respected reviewer say it is a step backward:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwLQOIlSzno

[Steve Rosenblum]

Yeah, the "free phone" from the wireless carriers is a scam--it hooks you into the carrier and then you basically pay off the phone in installments. I would buy an unlocked phone from Apple. You can either trade your old phone into Apple (you can find out how much you will get for it on trade if you go to their website and start the process of buying a new phone and then you will be offered the option of doing a trade in and then they tell you what it is worth. You don't have to complete the sale to get that far), or you can sell your old phone on Ebay, FB marketplace, etc.. You can then use whatever wireless service you want with your new phone, and still have the right to change services whenever you want.

[DavidB]

I always buy my iPhones directly from the Apple online store. No change in phone plan required.

[Basil Steinle]

A fox is screaming? Maybe it’s the sound of your soul, after your Verizon experience.

[Rick]

"In effect I had two choices. In one, they would win and I would lose. The other alternative was that I would lose and they would win. But, I had a choice of which! Yay; choice is power. However, while I could choose whatever I wanted, the employee's advice was that it was not to my benefit to try to win, but to let them win."

This is brilliant, just saying.

[jp41]

Regarding the (virtual) camera control button, DPReview says: "The button also has haptic feedback, which the company says "emulates the feel of a DSLR camera shutter." Later this year, on the Pro models, it will have a 'two-stage' action that will lock focus and exposure, similar to a half-press of the shutter button on most dedicated cameras."

If I were an iPhone person, I would get the Pro model just for this feature. However, I am an Android (PC/Coke/Beatles) person.

[Dan D]

This last December, my iPhone 13 just quit receiving calls and couldn't dial out. I went to the Apple store after no luck with T-Mobile. After switching sim cards,no luck. The sim card worked fine in a XR model I use for a remote for different things. Apple's diagnostics couldn't find anything wrong. So I ended up trading it in for a 15 Pro. After reviewing plans, I found it was best to just keep the current plan and pay the difference for the phone. It seems at this point in time in the market, it is best to lock in your current plan now and just trade in phones.

[Ol' Boomer]

Consumer Cellular & a flip phone... and a Ricoh GR!

[darlene]

I'm still using an iPhone 12, but I changed my service provider this year after using Verizon for about a decade. I switched to T-Mobile because it was time to look for a less expensive option, and T-Mobile saves me about $15 a month with no contract. As far as I can tell, the service and options are the same. I don't like being tied to a contract, so this suits me better. I will upgrade from the 12 sometime in the future. I believe you don't save money by buying through a service provider; I did that last time and had to agree to a 2-year contract, and in the end, I don't think I saved anything. My next phone will be the larger screen version since I watch Netflix when camping. Having the nicer camera will be great, but it's the larger screen I'm really after.

Love seeing the goat. Reminds me of the time I saw one casually munching on a vinyl car roof—talk about a taste for luxury! I have never been able to forget it. :)

[Michael]

As a BOOMER without question, born in 1946, I can reflect back a few years further than you can Mike. Having solid memories of mid-50s until now, the progress in everything that was and is considered everyday necessities, i.e. phones, cars, televisions, airplanes (spacecraft), the list goes on and on.
Your reference to 1984 being the catch-phrase for the future was well timed.

I was reminiscing recently with my younger brother, who is turning 71 next month, about the books and movies that showed us a glimpse of what the future had to hold.

Not in chronological order;

The Day the Earth Stood Still
1984
2001
Soylent Green (there is now a meal replacement product)..look it up!!
Contact
Don't Look Up

There are others that come close to being maybe not prophetic, but certainly thought provoking.

Make your own list and discuss it with someone

Keep TOP healthy...please. I need your wit, banter, and insights.

KSOT

[Terry Burnes]

I preordered an iPhone 16 Pro on Friday to replace my 13 Pro. It will arrive this coming Friday. Like you Mike, I'm on a three year cycle. That usually means enough improvement to make it worthwhile. Updates I like this time: the 5X telephoto instead of my old 3X and the camera button. And of course other less notable improvements. (The longer telephoto was previously limited to the Pro Max; I prefer the Pro).

I stay away from my carrier, Verizon. I like their coverage when traveling but don't trust their marketing. Instead I just use the Apple store, paying the retail price and perhaps getting some value by trading my old phone (not this time though, my wife will get it).

Marketing isn't a fair fight. Verizon has armies of MBAs trying figuring out how to trick you into giving them more money. I don't stand a chance. I'll take Apple's straight-forward deal instead, just paying up front for the phone, getting whatever trade-in they offer and when I'm done I know exactly what it cost.

Those "free phone" offers are really just installment purchases. If that's important you can purchase from the Apple Store with monthly payments instead of paying the full price, I believe at zero percent interest. You can also use Apple's new every year plan, where you pay a higher fixed monthly amount and get a new phone every year.

My iPhone has become my main camera, using my other cameras, which I still love, only on dedicated photo outings. I suspect that will become moreso with the 16 Pro, assuming the camera control works MOL as advertised.

Good luck with your purchase Mike.

[Mike Plews]

Do you have T mobile where you live? We left Verizon a few years back and like T mobile to the extent you can like a phone company.
Mrs Plews got an iPhone 14 and I got a Google Pixel 8 pro and it did not break the bank.
Felt like minimal fast talk at the dealer and the phones were dirt cheap. Might be worth a look.

[Ian Seward]

What's your take on Tony Northrup's analysis of the iPhone 16. Particularly 3x vs 5x zoom?

"https://youtu.be/kwLQOIlSzno?si=qKTZUgCweJ5E-FQ1"

[Peter Wright]

A fox is screaming in the darkness outside. If you have never heard the mating call of a fox, it is spooky—it sounds like a human being hurt.

Or someone trying to get a phone deal out of Verizon!

[Kye Wood]

For the frankly obscene price of any iPhone, they should include a fantastic case for it.

I could buy a great laptop for less money. But sadly I can't drop a laptop into the toilet or break its screen without even trying to.

But the real kicker is the technical difficulties involved in simply uploading images and videos to the phone if you don't want to use the cloud. Something that's trivial on an Android phone.

[Dennis Ng]

Not sure about this in us. But take note of the spec especially the storage. If you are too low on those many app will be unloaded. And you will find yourselves always download app.