Apple today announced the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, its latest flagship smartphones. The devices sport an array of new features, including a titanium frame, the A17 Pro chip, an Action Button, and more.
The new titanium chassis has a brushed finish. It makes the iPhone lighter than any previous Pro model, while enhancing durability. The frame has a contoured edge for a more comfortable feel in the hand. The bezels around the display are also substantially slimmer.
The iPhone 15 Pro features an Action button in place of the mute switch. With a press and hold, users can toggle between ring and silent, with haptic feedback to indicate a change of state. Users can switch between different actions, allowing them to start recording in voice memos, launch the camera, activate a favorite accessibility, feature, or run a Shortcut.
The new devices feature Apple's A17 Pro chip, made with a first-of-its-kind 3-nanometer process. The A17 Pro has a six-core CPU, for 10% faster CPU performance and 20% faster GPU performance. It has a two-times faster 16-core neural engine to accelerate machine learning such as more accurate autocorrect or pulling a subject from an image. It can process up to 35 trillion operations per second.
The A17 Pro contains a brand new GPU with an Apple-designed shader architecture. Apple says it is the biggest redesign in the history of Apple GPUs, with a focus on performance and efficiency, running complex applications, and new rendering features. It offers hardware-accelerated ray tracing and new Mesh shading capabilities. Console games like Resident Evil 4 can now be played on the iPhone.
The iPhone 15 Pro features an improved camera system. The main camera has a larger sensor, a new coating to reduce lens flare, better low light performance for Portraits and Night mode, a range of focal lengths, a new 24MP super-high-resolution default mode, and more. The iPhone 15 Pro Max's telephoto camera offers 5x optical zoom at 180mm focal length with a 25% larger sensor. This is combined with optical image stabilization and an autofocus 3D sensor-shift module, which Apple says is its most advanced stabilization system yet. The Ultrawide camera has a new anti-reflective coating, as well as improved Night mode and Smart HDR.
The iPhone 15 Pro models feature a USB-C port for charging and data transfer. The A17 Pro supports up to 10Gbps transfer speeds with a USB 3 cable. Using a cable, users can instantly transfer 48MP ProRaw photos to a Mac or record ProRes video directly to an external storage drive. Higher quality recording options are available for external drives, with support for 4K60 for the first time, plus Log encoding.
The iPhone 15 Pro, like the standard iPhone 15 models, has a next-generation Portrait mode that automatically detects when there's a subject in the frame, allowing you to switch to Portrait mode after an image has been taken. There is also new focus and depth control tools, allowing you to switch focus from one person to another after the photo has been taken. Night mode is also improved, while and Smart HDR allows the device to capture the sky and subject simultaneously.
The iPhone 15 Pro has Apple's second-generation Ultra Wideband chip, allowing other devices with the chip to connect from up to 3x as far away and friends that share their location with you to be located directionally like an AirTag. The devices also support Wi-Fi 6E, Qi2 charging, and Thread, opening up future opportunities for Home app integrations. Building on Emergency SOS via Satellite, it is now possible to connect to a satellite for roadside assistance. Audio quality for calls has been updated with a more advanced machine learning model that prioritizes your voice.
The iPhone 15 Pro models are available in Black Titanium, White Titanium, Blue Titanium, Natural Titanium. The iPhone 15 Pro starts at $999 for 128GB of storage, while the iPhone 15 Pro Max starts at $1,199 for 256GB of storage.
