Apple launched four new models of the iPhone 15 series in the fall: the vanilla iPhone 15 and 15 Plus, the smaller iPhone 15 Pro, and the Pro Max. They all have new features, with the USB-C port being the most notable one. The Pro phones have been treated with even more new features, which we will discuss in this post.
The new Pros have USB 3.0 with speeds of up to 10 Gbps. You can use the charger and cable from your iPad Pro, MacBook Pro, or Galaxy to charge the new phones. However, faster charging is not supported.
These new Pros have a number of design upgrades, including contoured edges and the thinnest bezels ever on an iPhone. The overall dimensions of the phones have been shrunk, even though they have the same display sizes as last year.
The frames are made of titanium, which is also used on the Mars rover. Aluminum is encased in the substructure of the titanium using a new thermomechanical process. This helps with thermal dissipation.The frames have a brushed texture, which is achieved through a 14-hour-long process that includes machining, sanding, brushing, and finally blasting the phone’s titanium exterior. The new Pros come in four finishes: black, white, blue, and natural titanium.
The mute switch is now an action button. By default, pressing and holding it will put the phone in silent mode. However, you can assign one of a set of actions to a press or double press, such as quickly opening the camera.
The new iPhone 15 Pros have Ceramic Shield glass on the front. The display size is 6.1 inches for the iPhone 15 Pro and 6.7 inches for the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Both models have an adaptive 120Hz (ProMotion) refresh rate, HDR10, Dolby Vision, and a peak brightness of 2,000 nits. Always-on display has been expanded to include Stand-by, a landscape always-on mode for when you’re charging.
The camera system on the new iPhone 15 Pro is completely new. It starts with a 48MP main camera with a bigger sensor and second-generation sensor-shift stabilization. The lens is a 24mm f/1.78.
The main camera allows you to capture 48MP HEIF images alongside 48MP ProRAW. The new bigger sensor also allows for 28mm, 35mm, and 48mm digital zoom modes.The iPhone 15 Pro Max debuts the first periscope camera on an iPhone. Thanks to the folded optical design, the Pro Max zooms past 3x and up to 5x, or 120mm in 35mm equivalent terms.
The optical design is unique and Apple calls it a tetraprism. It reflects light four times from the pupil opening of the lens to the folded sensor. The lens itself is an f/2.8, the brightest on a 120mm camera on a phone. There’s also optical stabilization, which Apple says runs 10,000 micro-adjustments per second to neutralize blur. The iPhone 15 Pro makes do with a 77mm 3x zoom camera. Both models share a new 13mm f/2.2 1.4µm ultrawide with 100% focus pixels and macro focusing abilities.
The A17 Pro chip powers the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. It’s the first industry chip that’s built on a 3nm process. It has a 6-core processor with 2 performance cores, which Apple says are 10% faster than in the A16 Bionic, and 4 efficiency cores.
Apple claims that the A17 Pro chip’s 6-core GPU is 20% faster than its predecessor during peak performance. It also enables hardware-accelerated Ray Tracing, which is supposedly 4 times faster than the software-based Ray Tracing on last year’s chip.
Company showed console games like Resident Evil Village and Assassin’s Creed Mirage running on the new iPhone 15 Pros. Both titles will launch on the new iPhone Pro models next year.
Apple says that the 16-core Neural Engine in the A17 Pro chip is twice as fast as last year’s chip for machine learning models.
The A17 Pro SoC features a Display Engine with a dedicated AV1 codec and a ProRes codec. This allows the new iPhone 15 Pro models to capture 4k 60fps in ProRes RAW, along with support for the industry standard ACES color profile.
The iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max are up for pre-order this Friday. The 15 Pro starts at $999/€1,199/₹1,34,900 for a base model with 128GB of storage, while the 15 Pro Max starts from $1,199/€1,449/₹1,59,900 but the base model now has 256GB of onboard storage. These are the same prices as last year.
Both models will start shipping next Friday, September 22.