It’s the “most Pro iPhone we’ve ever created,” according to Apple. The body is built from grade 5 titanium, which is stronger and lighter. The bezel, meanwhile, has been shrunk. The screen remains the same size, while losing a little width. The front now features stronger ceramic glass.
Yes, Lightning is now officially gone. The Pro models now feature USB 3 transfer speeds, by way of the new USB-C port. The Dynamic Island returns, of course (it’s now available across the line). There’s no Thunderbolt support this time out, however. USB-C offers throughput to 10 GB — though you’ll have to purchase an optional cable for that.
The company says the back glass is “more repairable,” in keeping with Apple’s recent shift to supporting right to repair legislation. The new Action button replaces Mute, which has been around since the first iPhone. The feature, borrowed from the Apple Watch Ultra, is now programmable. You can map features like shutter, allowing you to take images with a single click.
The iPhone is also taking a cue from Macs (for once!) with the addition of the new A17 Pro chip. The chip is featured with a 3-nanometer process. The chip features six cores with two “high-performance” cores that are 10% faster than the other. Those four “high-efficiency” cores are more efficient.
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There are now six GPU cores, and the handset now supports Ray Tracing, for improved graphical performance.
The camera array offers a similar pixel binning technology as the iPhone 15, using the 48-megapixel camera to merge images down to a high-res 24 megapixels. Or you can just go ahead and shoot 48-megapixels HEIF shots, if that’s your bag.
The premium handset offers a 5x telephoto, for much-improved zoom capabilities, which don’t degrade the image as you get closer (i.e., up to 5x). A new 3D sensor module offers vastly improved optical image stabilization — a must for those aforementioned zoomed shots.
There’s also a new macro feature, for extra close-up shots. That’s a broad range of different image capture for the handset — pretty impressive. So that’s macro, 13 mm, 24 mm, 28 mm, 35 mm, 48 mm, and 120 mm. The video still peaks at 4K capture, but it’s now able to do that up to 60 frames a second.
A new “Spatial Video” capture feature is designed specifically for creating content for the upcoming Vision Pro. That will arrive at some point later this year.
The iPhone 15 Pro starts at $999. The Pro Max will be $1,119. Preorders start Friday. They will hit Apple Stores on September 22.
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