📱 The New iPhone 15 Lineup!
Issue 41 — Technology
Hello again, it’s great to be back writing these articles after a long break! That being said we’re starting off with a banger, the new iPhone 15 and 15 Pros have been released! This event was actually on September 12 and called the “Wonderlust Event”, but the phones came out on the 22nd so they’ve been in reviewers’ hands and my hands for a couple of days now. I’ll take you through all the changes made this year, and the main question: is it worth upgrading this year?
New Apple Watches
Now the iPhones weren’t the only products released at the event, the new Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 were released! There aren’t any big upgrades here so this is going to be a short section. The new watches have a higher max brightness, 2000 nits for the Series 9 and 3000 nits for the Ultra 2. In other words, this means that they’ll be visible in direct sunlight, and fun fact, 3000 nits is the brightest screen Apple has ever put in a watch. Okay, next is the new Chip called S9. This allows for a performance upgrade and allows for more performance and increased battery life, allowing for a better watch experience. Another upgrade is this new “double tap” feature. It’s just a baked-in feature for the Apple Watch and it allows you to use the gesture across the operating system. Interestingly, this is an accessibility feature on older Apple Watches, but it just doesn’t work across the whole OS. The major new thing that doesn’t benefit us, but still is impressive, is that new Apple Watches that are shipping are now CARBON NEUTRAL! This includes using recycled materials for all the parts of the Apple Watch, and it’s also considered Carbon Neutral even when you use electricity to charge the watch. So it’s now considered Carbon Neutral for the life of the product. Now technically, Apple doesn’t have control over your electricity, and so the way this works is that they invest in other projects to make the world cleaner. By the way, this is all part of their goal to make all their products carbon-neutral by 2030.
Also, I just wanted to throw this in here, but in some of the major Apple stores they have these little White cube stool things that you can sit on, and currently, these are made of real leather. Now they’re going to throw all these out and replace them with their own Vegan Leather. Just a thought that crossed my mind — isn’t it less sustainable to throw things out and remake something? Just saying…
To answer the upgrade question, no, I don’t think that it’s worth upgrading if you have a Series 4 or later. All the watches for that point on basically have the same feature set and look the same. They all have the always-on display, adequate battery life, mostly the same health sensors, all support the latest software, etc. Maybe next year they’ll do a bigger redesign or something, but right now, Apple’s just making small, incremental updates.
iPhone 15 and 15 Pro
So as usual for the past couple of years, four new phones were released: iPhone 15 and 15 Plus, and 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max.
Let’s start with the normal 15’s. So the normal 15 has a screen size of 6.1 inches and the Plus has a 6.7 inch screen. They also now both have a matte finish on the back of the phone which makes it feel more premium and more high-end overall. They also made the phones slightly more rounded from last year which makes it slightly more comfortable to hold. Flipping over to the front of the phone, the devices now have Dynamic Island, the new form of the notch that Apple introduced last year with the 14 Pro’s. The phones also adopt the new A16 bionic chip from last year’s Pros, an upgrade from the A15. This brings extra performance and better battery life to the new phones which is always welcomed. They also brought a better camera to the normal phones which is a 48-megapixel primary sensor, which you guessed it, also came from last year’s Pro phones. They’re also adding in some new algorithms that help enhance portraits, focusing on objects, and depth control which are good incremental improvements. The screen is also brighter this year with a max brightness of 2000 nits meaning that it’ll now be viewable in direct sunlight which is a huge upgrade from the 1200 from last year. Now the big change for all the new phones is the introduction of USB-C which is now the industry standard for all phones. Apple mainly did this because starting in the next year or two, the EU is forcing that all phones that are sold there need to have USB-C, and Apple wasn’t about to lose a huge portion of sales, so they added it. Interestingly though, the normal 15s have USB 2 which is a little on the older side, and the charging speed is still the same. Speaking of charging, the battery life has gotten a little better on the phones thanks to the new chip, and the 15 Plus is now the king of the battery according to some tests online. Both will easily be able to last a day or two depending on your use case. The 15 starts at $799 and the 15 Plus is at $899, both at 128 GB of storage but can be configured up to 512 GB.
Now let’s get to the Pro phones which also had some pretty cool upgrades. The first thing I noticed when I got my Pro Max is that the camera has gotten slightly thicker from last year, and the sides are more curved making it more comfortable. However, more importantly, the phone is noticeably lighter than last year thanks to the new brushed titanium sides which are new from the old stainless steel. On paper, the phone is something like 10–15% lighter than last year’s phones. Apple claims that this is Grade 5 Titanium, in other words very high-end, but it still does collect fingerprints. Also, quick sidenote, if you’re thinking about getting one of the Pro phones, I’d recommend you get the Natural Titanium color which is like a gray/sandstone depending on the lighting. The reason is that, if you want to use this without a case, Natural Titanium is just straight Titanium with no coating. The other phones have coatings on the side of them to make them different colors. So when you drop the phone, it may scratch and you may see that Natural Titanium color underneath. If you’re using a case though, you should be okay with any of the color options. I still think Natural titanium is the way to go though, just because of how cool it looks. Okay moving ahead, Apple removed the mute switch above the volume buttons and replaced it with an Action Button which was previously featured on the Apple Watch Ultra. This can be used as a shortcut button, which can turn on the flashlight, take photos, act as a ringer/mute switch, you can map it to open an app, or do a shortcut through one of your favorite apps. This is a nice feature, because a lot of people have smartwatches these days, and so it’s not necessary to have your phone on the ringer mode because your watch will alert you. Plus, I don’t think most people tend to switch back and forth between vibration and ringer very often. Going inside the phone now, Apple released a new 3 NM chip which is a new technology that’s promised to be a lot faster and more battery efficient, and they’re calling it the A17 Pro Chip. They demonstrated its abilities in the presentation by showing that many console games are now coming onto the iPhone. The Pro phones also get that new portrait, focus, and depth control like the regular phones as well. They’re also adding a new 2x zoom to the family of .5, 1x, and 3x. Also specifically on the bigger Pro Max, Apple made use of the extra space and added a 5x in and removed the 3x. I find this interesting because it does help with Zoom when you may want to take a far portrait or something. It does remove the 3x, but you have the 2x to compensate, which is fine. The phones also have better battery than last year which is always welcomed as well. Apple released the USB-C port with all the phones, but with the Pro phones, they have a newer USB-C technology called USB 3. This allows for higher data transfer rates, so maybe you want to export footage from the phone or record directly to an external drive, you can now do that. Apple did this because it’s more of a “pro” workflow thing that’s nice to have. The Pro starts at $999 for 128 GB of storage. Interestingly, Apple increased the price of the Pro Max from 1099 to 1199, but they give you 256 of storage. You could get 128 GB of storage on the Pro Max last year, but this year they got rid of it, probably so that it fits in with the “ultra high-end” group of smartphones.
Something else that I wanted to throw in here is that Apple refreshed the AirPods Pro so that they now have USB-C in them, so you can use the same cable to charge your iPhone, Mac, Airpods, and iPad. Also, Apple announced the new Vision Pro Augmented Reality Headset in the summer and it’s supposed to ship in the Spring of 2024. When you pair these new USBC Airpods Pro with the Vision Pro, they will now play audio in Lossless, which is a very good high-end audio codec, but they won’t do it if paired to an iPhone or anything yet. Funny because almost Apple’s whole music library and Apple Music supports Lossless.
To answer the upgrade question, if you’re looking for a new phone that’s older than an iPhone 12, I think it’s worth getting the new iPhone. Something to note: You may be thinking that the new iPhone 15s are just re-packaged versions of the 14 Pros, and the answer to that question is, yes you’d be right. However, if you’re thinking about upgrading, and thinking about saving some money, and getting a 14 Pro, I don’t think that’s the right choice, because we’re kind of entering a new era with USB-C, so I’d just go for the 15s. As for the Pro phones, yes I think it’s worth the upgrade from anything older than a 12 as well.
Anyway, that’s it for this week. I hope you enjoyed this article about the new phones. It’s great to be back to writing these again, I’ll talk to you next week!
— Luke Rapaka
