SnapBack

I love taking photos with my iPhone, but all the other things on my iPhone distract me from taking photos. With the iPhone 16 Camera Control, I want a case that turns my iPhone into purely a point-and-shoot.

Prototyping

I created the simplest prototype I could think of—without the full functionality of the SnapBack, such as the color filtering on the camera, by literally hacking away at an old iPhone case. I had a friend’s unused iPhone 14 Pro case, which does not fit the 16 Pro or have Camera Control support, so I took a utility knife to its sides to add a notch for the new button.

After adding Camera Control capability to this collapsing case, I squeezed in the larger iPhone 16 Pro.

It works like a charm—because the buttons have shifted around on the new phone, none of them can be reliably pressed except for the notch around the Camera Control.

Ideally I’d add partial screen covers to only reveal the viewfinder, but I don’t have easy access to silicone.