Apple launches iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max with USB-C and new cameras
Apple unveiled its new pro-grade smartphones at the annual Apple Event on Tuesday: The iPhone 15 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max. You can find the new flagship smartphone lineup here:
The 6.1-inch iPhone 15
The 6.7-inch iPhone 15 Plus
The 6.1-inch iPhone 15 Pro
The 6.7-inch iPhone 15 Pro Max
The new phones look roughly the same as last year: Two glass panes sandwiched in a metal frame, with the pill-shaped Dynamic Island as the only interruption on the displays. But the design has been refined in several ways.
The frame on the Pro models is now made of titanium and has a brushed look, as opposed to the shiny, stainless steel frame on last year’s models. Not only is titanium cool-looking, it’s also more durable, while making the phones slightly lighter. The displays are the same size — 6.1 and 6.7 inches — but the bezels are thinner, meaning that the iPhone 15 Pro is just a tiny bit smaller than last year's iPhone 14 Pro.
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There's also a new Action Button replacing the mute toggle switch. Its benefits: having haptic feedback and being more customizable.
The chip that powers the iPhone 15 Pro is Apple's new A17 Pro chip. It's a 3 nanometer chip, with 19 billion transistors, 6 main cores (2 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores), and the 16-core Neural Engine. The chip is 10 percent faster, and the Neural Engine is up to two times faster than last year's chip. The GPU, which has also been improved with a new 6-core design, is up to 20 percent faster than the one on last year's A16 Bionic.
The biggest improvement is the camera. On the iPhone 15 Pro Max (but not the regular iPhone 15 Pro), there’s a new telephoto camera, with a new tetra-prism design, increasing the zoom up to 5x. (The iPhone 15 Pro maxes out at 3x.)
But the main, wide camera, as well as the ultrawide camera (which are the same on both the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max) have received significant improvements as well.
Notably, the camera can now capture Spatial Video, which is designed to be watched on Apple's upcoming Vision Pro, though that's coming later this year. Other improvements include sharper and overall better portrait photos, improved Night Mode, and the ability to switch between three focal lengths — 24mm, 28mm, and 35mm — on the main camera.
The new iPhones also have Apple's second-generation Ultra Wideband chip, which should improve Precision Finding on Find My, making it easier to share your location, even in a big crowd.
The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max are available in four finishes: black titanium, white titanium, blue titanium, and natural titanium (yes, no more color names like Space Gray; it's all lowercase now).
The starting price for the iPhone 15 Pro is same as last year, $999. For the iPhone 15 Pro Max, it's $100 higher than last year at $1,199, though it now starts with double the storage, 256GB.
Both devices will be available for pre-order on Sept. 15, with availability starting on Sept. 22.
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
