Yesterday Apple introduced the iPhones that will carry us into next year: the iPhone 15 (in regular, Max, Pro, and Pro Max varieties). On the whole they include Apple’s typical improvements – better chips, better cameras, thinner bezels, and new colors. There is one big change this year, which will be impactful to everyone: USB-C.

After 11 years, Apple is saying farewell to the Lightning connector. First introduced with the iPhone 5 in 2012, Lightning replaced the original iPhone’s 30-pin connector with something smaller that couldn’t be inserted incorrectly. The USB-C connector was introduced in 2014 with similar advantages and Apple has slowly adopted it across its products. This started in 2015 with the 12″ MacBook, continued to the iPad Pro in 2018, and trickled down to the regular iPad last year. Now USB-C comes to the iPhone.

What does that mean? New cables, mostly, and faster transfer speeds in certain cases. USB-C and Lightning are very similar looking (in fact, Apple helped design USB-C) with the advantage that USB-C can be used on everything from phones, to computers, to lighters, to camera lenses. The disadvantage is that none of your existing Lighting cables will work and you’ll need to purchase new ones.

Apple supplies a USB-C to USB-C adapter in the box, but you’ll still need new cables unless you already had USB-C charging bricks. As the majority of us are probably in that situation (I certainly am), I suggest buying some quality USB-C to USB-A cables like these (or these).

Now that the elephant is out of the way, we can talk about the big new features.

iPhone 15 / 15 Max

The iPhone 15 is basically last year’s iPhone 14 Pro minus the always on, high refresh rate screen. It’s a pretty nice upgrade.

The major changes are:

• Blessings from last year’s iPhone Pro, including:
  • The thinner-bezeled, slightly more pixel, higher brightness, Dynamic Island fancy screen. It’s the exact same screen as the Pros without the always-on or high refresh rate capabilities. A nice upgrade for the base iPhone.
  • The 48 MP main camera. This adds a high-quality 2x optical zoom in addition to the 0.5x and 1x from the iPhone 14
  • The matte glass back (an “upgrade” from the 14’s regular glass back)
  • The A16 SOC which provides a small performance boost
• USB-C running at USB 2.0 speeds (480 Mb/s). Same speed as Lightning, different connector.
• A 1mm taller body that might make your existing case incompatible
• New colors in pastel shades: pink, yellow, green, blue, black
• Prices remain the same as last year. Preorders start Friday and ship a week later.

iPhone 15 Pro / 15 Pro Max

The 15 Pros are a minor iteration over the 14 Pros. The major features, outside of USB-C, are a customizable action button in place of the mute switch and a 5x optical zoom (Pro Max only). The other changes are minor adjustments to the screen, new materials that drop some weight, and a minor performance bump. There are several software tweaks shared with the regular iPhones that should improve quality of life.

The major changes are:

• Thinner screen bezels
  • The screen is not physically larger as in last year’s Pro; instead Apple shaved a few millimeters off the top of the case. The glass is also curved at the edges to “fade away”, similar to the Apple Watch
• New A17 Pro chip (that’s Pro, not Bionic like the A16)
  • The latest cutting-edge manufacturing process adds an extra GPU core and faster CPU cores for 10% better CPU and 20% better GPU performance with the same battery life. Hardware accelerated ray tracing and AI upscaling are also included, which is pretty interesting as they appeared on desktop-class GPUs only five years ago. I expect the same cores to show up in the M3. The Neural Engine performs AI operations twice as fast.
• USB-C running at up to USB 3.2 (10 Gb/s) speeds, a 20x improvement over Lightning (and the regular iPhone 15)
• 33% more RAM (from 6 GB to 8 GB)
  • The Pro now has more RAM than the regular iPhone, which fits its “Pro” price a bit better
• The same cameras as the 14 Pro with some software tweaks
  • Computed 24 MP photos by default, automatic portrait mode, Live Photos in portrait mode, improved color rendition, a better low-light mode, and the ability to shoot spatial videos that can be viewed on the upcoming Apple Vision Pro.
• A new 5x zoom in the 15 Pro Max
  • It uses mirrors that fold light to provide the capabilities of a full-size zoom lens at a cell phone’s size. It requires a bit more space, so it’s limited to the Pro Max. This is a first for the iPhone, but not for the industry – Samsung already has similar lenses in some of its phones.
• The Action button
  • Replaces the mute switch, inspired by Apple Watch Ultra. It can perform specific actions like running a Shortcut, turning on the flashlight, opening the camera, or muting the phone like the switch used to.
• Brushed titanium edges, which shave off some weight
• Slightly smaller height / width and larger thickness making your iPhone 14 Pro case incompatible
• New colors: some of the dullest and most boring ever – natural titanium, blue titanium, black titanium, and white titanium. Ugh. Apple please inject some fun into your boring Pro models. Gimme (PRODUCT) RED at least!
• Prices remain the same as last year. Preorders start Friday and ship a week later.

Other Stuff

• New cases – Leather cases are gone, replaced with a suede-like material called FineWoven that is better for the environment (and animals)
• A USB-C version of the AirPods Pro 2 so you can rid yourself of Lightning cables forever! You have to buy an entire new set though – Apple doesn’t sell the case separately like it did for the wireless AirPods case.
• A $29 USB-C to Lightning adapter to keep your accessories compatible. If you just need a cable, buy a new one – it’s cheaper.

What it Means for Me

Since we’re in the iPhone Upgrade Program, we’ll be getting the new 15 Pros. The upgrades year-to-year aren’t always huge, especially this year. Smaller bezels are nice, but there are no functional improvements to the screen. I’ll take a faster chip, but I don’t need it. The titanium case is fine but I don’t know if I’ll notice the weight difference. Even USB-C won’t be much of an improvement as I rarely plug in my phone to transfer files. When I do, I transfer to a slow hard drive that’s lucky to saturate USB 2.0. We will also have a bunch of Lightning-based devices for years, delaying the “everything uses the same universal connector” utopia for quite a few years.

While the camera hardware isn’t improved, the software is, and I’m looking forward to that. The action button is also nice and might be good to assign to open the camera. If I were not part of the upgrade program, I’d skip this generation. If I didn’t love the triple lens camera and pro display so much, I’d save some money and drop down to the regular iPhone since it has inherited many of the great features of the Pro in this generation.

That said, I’m still upgrading. I’ve chosen the Blue Titanium model, which looks a helluva lot like the Sierra Blue iPhone 13 Pro I owned two years ago. It was the only color that wasn’t boring. I bought a FineWoven case in Evergreen just to be a bit different. My preorder is setup – all I have to do is press “purchase” on Friday morning at 8 AM ET.