People want more and more advanced features and capabilities. Is it a majority, nearly all, I have no way of knowing. Apple introduced many new features with iPhone 16 and people need to learn how those new features will affect many aspects of their photography.
I understand what Auto is for and a segment of users wanting everything to be like their last camera. But that has rarely, if ever, happened with successive iPhone models. Just look how the images changed in the 4 images another member posted. Each one was different.
No one will get to the bottom of this if examples aren’t shared with the EXIF data. Why? I need to know what the shutter speed is and ISO is because both have a direct impact on image quality. Everyone wants better looking images, why won’t anyone help by sharing the information needed to obtain better pictures.
The bottom line is, if you expect the latest and greatest iPhone model to deliver better quality images, change will have to happen. Those that truly want better image quality will learn and adapt to changing technology. Those that don’t want to learn and improve will be frustrated, as evidenced here.
If you want your images to look like an iPhone 13 Pro Max, then buy three or four and use them for a decade or more. That’s the real solution for I want this model to look like that old model. The way we did it in the old days was shoot film. It looked the same until Kodak changed the emulsion.
Happy to continue to help, the next step is a standardized test so we’re comparing apples to apples.