The tech world is abuzz about Apple’s September 12, 2023 Wonderlust event, during which the iPhone 15 was announced. This iPhone 15 launch isn’t merely a spectacle for enthusiasts; it’s also a pivotal moment that could reshape the tech industry with changes to camera systems, mobile CPU/GPU design and connectivity.
Let’s delve into the iPhone 15’s cutting-edge features, enhanced performance and revamped design, as well as the tech powering these devices, prices and availability. And, we compare the newly released iPhone 15 models — iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max — to help you decide if one of these devices is ideal for you.
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The iPhone 15 features a new contoured design that Apple says is easier to hold. In addition to the case design, the iPhone 15’s new colors are sure to intrigue some users wanting to upgrade. The new colors are a pink, yellow, green, blue and black, and the devices have a new glass material on the back (Figure A). The screen and back glass are also water and dust resistant and built with a tougher ceramic coated material compared to previous iPhone models.
Figure A
The iPhone 15 Pro also received a design shift: The enclosure of the flagship iPhone is now being made from “Grade 5” titanium material that’s brushed and comes in black, white, blue and a natural raw silver look (Figure B).
Figure B
The biggest shift to the design with the iPhone 15 Pro is the ringer/silence switch. It’s now a haptic button that can be customized to a predetermined set of actions or assigned to a Shortcut workflow that you can build yourself in the Shortcuts app, similar to the Action Button on the Apple Watch Ultra.
One of the biggest changes to the iPhone lineup is that Apple has removed the Lightning connector on all the iPhone 15 models in favor of USB-C (Figure C). While this has been rumored for a while, Apple made an unexpected change: The iPhone 15 Pro has a new USB controller that can support up to 10GB/s transfer speeds over USB-C 3.0. This also allows near-instant transfer of 48MP camera images to a connected Mac, and the ability to connect an external drive to an iPhone 15 Pro and expand recording options to external media when recording in large file formats like 4K60. While the Pro models will receive this upgraded connection speed, other non-Pro iPhone 15 models will still be limited at Lightning USB speeds.
Figure C
The iPhone 15 received an upgrade to an OLED screen with Super Retina XDR support and support for Dolby Vision with a peak HDR brightness of 1,600 nits. The screen comes in a 6.1″ (iPhone 15) and 6.7″ (iPhone 15 Plus) version.
The iPhone 15 Pro design features smaller bezels around the screen, leaving users with a smaller phone that doesn’t change the screen size of 6.1″ for iPhone 15 Pro and 6.7″ for iPhone 15 Pro Max. Both of the iPhone 15 Pro models feature the Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion support for up to 120Hz adaptive refresh rates. The Pro models are also the only iPhone 15 models that feature an always-on display that can fully support the always-on Standby feature in iOS 17.
The Dynamic Island feature was only on the iPhone 14 Pro, and now it’s available with the standard iPhone 15. Dynamic Island is the small adaptive portion of the screen near the top that adapts to alerts, calls, and push notifications.
Apple has always touted upgraded cameras in the iPhone models that can match professional setups; this year, Apple has improved the camera systems on the iPhone 15 and the iPhone 15 Pro (Figure D).
Figure D
The iPhone 15 has a 48MP main camera with sensor-shift optical image stabilization. A new 2x telephoto option digitally crops the center 12MP camera without losing detail or blurring the photo to give you a telephoto lens in a smaller package. Videos can also use the continuous zoom option this provides with 4K cinematic mode.
Where Apple really put the work into the camera system is in the iPhone 15 Pro: Between the two models, there’s an equivalent of having seven camera lens options at all times. The main camera of the iPhone 15 Pro is a 48MP camera with a new nano-scale coating that can reduce lens flare and provide better low-light performance; this allows users to shoot in 48MP HEIF format for RAW photos. There’s a new option that lets users shoot in 24mm, 28mm and 35mm focal lengths. New to the iPhone 15 Pro Max — the largest version of the iPhone 15 Pro — users get a new 12MP 5x (versus the 3x zoom on the iPhone 15 Pro) telephoto lens that has a tetraprism design to bring a 120 mm, ƒ/2.8 aperture lens to the iPhone.
In addition, both models of the iPhone 15 Pro can create spatial videos that can be brought to life on the upcoming Apple Vision Pro.
Apple always blows other phone manufacturers out of the water when it comes to specs of its custom silicon. This year, Apple has brought the A16 Bionic chip that was previously in the iPhone 14 Pro, to the standard iPhone 15 lineup. This features a 5-core CPU for faster graphics and gaming and a 16-core neural engine that can handle machine learning tasks and on-device processing of voice, video and images.
Saving the best for its flagship device, Apple introduced a new A17 Pro chipset for the iPhone 15 Pro models. This is the industry’s first 3-nm chip that contains 19 billion transistors that improve performance and efficiency. There are two high-performance cores, and 16 cores for the neural engine that can handle 35 trillion operations per second. It also supports ProRes codec, AV1 decoder, which can improve video performance for rendering and exporting videos. There’s a new 6-core GPU design that’s 20% faster than the previous iPhone 14 Pro model and includes new shaders that adds gaming performance and hardware-based ray tracing.
The Ultra Wideband chip has been upgraded and can connect from up to 2x the distance, which is great for being able to track down a lost Apple Watch, AirPods or AirTag. iPhone 15 also has a new machine learning model that can prioritize your voice on phone calls to help make those calls much clearer.
Emergency SOS via satelite (Figure E) is getting an upgrade by expanding to more countries and continents, including Spain and Switzerland later this month. The service is also getting a new Roadside Assistance via satelite feature through the roadside assistance provider AAA.
Figure E
| iPhone 15 | iPhone 15 Plus | iPhone 15 Pro | iPhone 15 Pro Max | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capacity | 128GB 256GB 512GB |
128GB 256GB 512GB |
128GB 256GB 512GB 1TB |
128GB 256GB 512GB 1TB |
| Size | Width:
2.82 inches 5.81 inches 0.31 inch |
Width:
3.06 inches Height: 6.33 inches 0.31 inch |
Width:
2.78 inches Height: 5.77 inches Depth: 0.32 inch |
Width:
3.02 inches Height: 6.29 inches Depth: 0.32 inch |
| Weight | 6.02 ounces | 7.09 ounces | 6.60 ounces | 7.81 ounces |
| Display | Super Retina XDR Display
6.1‑inch OLED display |
Super Retina XDR Display 6.7‑inch OLED display 2796‑by‑1290-pixel resolution at 460 ppi |
Super Retina XDR Display 6.1‑inch OLED display 2556‑by‑1179-pixel resolution at 460 ppi |
Super Retina XDR Display 6.7‑inch OLED display 2796‑by‑1290-pixel resolution at 460 ppi |
| Always-on display? | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Chip | A16 Bionic chip 6‑core CPU2 performance4 efficiency cores 5‑core GPU 16‑core Neural Engine |
A16 Bionic chip 6‑core CPU2 performance4 efficiency cores 5‑core GPU 16‑core Neural Engine |
A17 Pro chip 6‑core CPU2 performance 4 efficiency cores 6‑core GPU New 16‑core Neural Engine |
A17 Pro chip 6‑core CPU2 performance 4 efficiency cores 6‑core GPU New 16‑core Neural Engine |
| Camera | 48MP Main: 26 mm, ƒ/1.6 aperture12MP Ultra Wide: 13 mm, ƒ/2.4 aperture and 120° field of view12MP 2x Telephoto 52 mm, ƒ/1.6 aperture2x optical zoom in, 2x optical zoom out; 4x optical zoom range Digital zoom up to 10x |
48MP Main: 26 mm, ƒ/1.6 aperture12MP Ultra Wide: 13 mm, ƒ/2.4 aperture and 120° field of view12MP 2x Telephoto 52 mm, ƒ/1.6 aperture2x optical zoom in, 2x optical zoom out; 4x optical zoom range Digital zoom up to 10x |
48MP Main: 24 mm, ƒ/1.78 aperture12MP Ultra Wide: 13 mm, ƒ/2.2 aperture and 120° field of view12MP 2x Telephoto 48 mm, ƒ/1.78 aperture12MP 3x Telephoto: 77 mm, ƒ/2.8 aperture 3x optical zoom in, 2x optical zoom out6x optical zoom range Digital zoom up to 15x |
48MP Main: 24 mm, ƒ/1.78 aperture12MP Ultra Wide: 13 mm, ƒ/2.2 aperture and 120° field of view12MP 2x Telephoto 48 mm, ƒ/1.78 aperture12MP 5x Telephoto: 120 mm, ƒ/2.8 aperture, 3D sensor‑shift optical image stabilization and autofocus, tetraprism design5x optical zoom in, 2x optical zoom out10x optical zoom range Digital zoom up to 25x |
| Battery | Video playback up to 20 hours Video playback (streamed) up to 16 hours Audio playback up to 80 hours |
Video playback up to 26 hours Video playback (streamed) up to 20 hours Audio playback up to 100 hours |
Video playback up to 23 hours Video playback (streamed) up to 20 hours Audio playback up to 75 hours |
Video playback up to 29 hours Video playback (streamed) up to 25 hours Audio playback up to 95 hours |
The innovations in the iPhone 15 are relatively small compared to the iPhone 14 models; as a result, it’s possible many users won’t upgrade unless they want a better camera system and/or to have a single connector (USB-C) for all their devices. The iPhone 15 is mainly geared towards early adopters and users who are using an iPhone 13 or earlier model and are looking for a two-year upgrade path to a newer device that’s better all around.
The business-focused features of the iPhone 15 Pro models might entice iPhone 14 Pro users to upgrade. In particular, those features include the ability for the increased data transfer rates on iPhone 15 Pro over USB-C 3.0 and the ability to record in 4K60 files directly to attached external storage.
The iPhone 15 starts at $799 for the 6.1″ display and $899 for the 6.7″ display and comes in 128GB ($799), 256GB ($899) and 512 GB ($1,099) capacities.
The iPhone 15 Pro starts at $999 for the 6.1″ model and $1,199 for the 6.7″ model, with capacities up to 1TB ($1,499 for the 6.1″ model and $1,599 for the 6.7″ model in this capacity). The 6.7″ model of the iPhone 15 Pro is a higher price than the standard size because of the additional telephoto zoom lens.
The iPhone 15 lineup will be available to preorder on Friday, September 15, 2023 with availability for delivery and in stores on Friday, September 22, 2023 in more than 40 countries and regions, including Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, the UAE, the U.K., and the U.S. On September 29, 2023, the iPhone 15 will be available in Macao, Malaysia, Türkiye, Vietnam and 17 other countries and regions.
