Apple has introduced the new generation of iPhones: the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus series as well as the 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max devices.
iPhone 15 with A16 chip from last year
First of all: there were no really strong innovations. The design has remained pretty much the same. At least the iPhone 15 now also gets the Dynamic Island and no longer has a notch. There is also a new 48 MP camera and USB-C as a cable connection.
Like last year, inside there is simply the old A16 chip from the last generation iPhone 14 Pro. It’s still fast enough and Apple can save costs this way. But it doesn’t really provide an incentive to switch to the new device if you have an iPhone that’s a few years old.
The color choice for the iPhone 15 (Plus) series is very pastel and you can clearly see that Apple is targeting the target group up to 25 years old. For those who like something a little more classic, there is only one model in black. Apple also distinguishes between entry-level and pro devices and indirectly forces people to buy the more expensive devices with a fairly fashionable choice of colors.
iPhone 15 Pro loses practical mute switch
The iPhone 15 Pro models have a new material: titanium. The color selection here extends to titanium black, titanium white, titanium blue and titanium. It doesn’t look bad, but you can tell that everything has been there before. At least this makes the iPhone 15 Pro a little lighter. And less weight is always nice.
The camera can now do 5x optical zoom. There is also an A17 chip in 3 nm technology for better performance and of course USB-C – in this model with USB 3.0 speed. Very practical if the device is actually going to be your main video camera. This could be particularly useful if you wanted to take advantage of the new option to record spatial videos that you can watch with the Vision Pro (Apple will provide the function at some point).
Interestingly, Apple has replaced the mute switch, which you could easily click up and down without looking, with a new normal button that can be assigned different functions. But only one at a time. You can use it to start the camera or turn on the flashlight. Of course, you can also stay muted. However, there is a catch: the button must always be pressed and held to avoid false triggering. This means you can say goodbye to switching off the sound at lightning speed and always have to check the display again to see whether the function has actually been triggered. The mute button was one of the best solutions on the iPhone right from the start because it was unmistakably simple. Why Apple is now coming up with the idea of abandoning this established standard may be due to the fact that at some point the mechanical buttons will be completely eliminated.
An interesting advance seems to be support for the Qi2 wireless charging standard, which should also allow the iPhone to charge faster wirelessly.
Good iPhones, not earth-shattering
It seems that iPhones are overdeveloped. There are chips from last year, the design hasn’t really changed for years, significant changes concern the mute switch for the masses or spatial video recordings for users of a Vision Pro. Sure, USB-C had to be implemented due to EU law and of course the camera got better. But the bottom line is that the fascination for new devices is slowly waning. What do you all mean?
