iPhone 15 Pro with USB-C, titanium frame and Action Button

This year's iPhone line-up once again consists of four devices: 15, 15 Plus, 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max. While the two regular iPhones receive a lot of technology from last year's Pro model, Apple is giving the new flagships a few completely new features and a revised design.

Rumours about a higher price have not materialised. Instead, another expectation from the run-up to the launch: all new smartphones are switching to USB-C. The AirPods Pro will also receive a new case with this connection. The old Lightning port is expected to gradually die out completely. This change is probably due to the EU stipulating a standardised connection from 2024.

The new iPhones will be available from 22 September and can be pre-ordered from Friday 15 September. Here are the official sales prices:

• iPhone 15, 128 GB: 849 francs / 949 euros
• iPhone 15 Plus, 128 GB: 949 francs / 1099 euros
• iPhone 15 Pro, 128 GB: 1079 francs / 1199 euros
• iPhone 15 Pro Max, 256 GB: 1299 francs / 1449 euros

Design: titanium for the luxury models

The regular iPhones look very similar to their predecessors. The only physical difference is that they inherit the Dynamic Island of the iPhone 14 Pro. The pill-shaped recess houses the front camera, speakers and sensors. It can expand virtually to display small widgets and notifications. The display is also brighter and can achieve up to 2000 nits. iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus come in the colours pink, yellow, green, blue and black. These are pastel colours. The back of the smartphone is no longer mirrored like the iPhone 14, but matt.

The Californians have given the design of the expensive models a major overhaul. iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max are slightly rounder at the edges than before. This should make the housing more comfortable to hold. A titanium frame now adorns the casing around the smartphones, making the iPhone Pro lighter than last year's version.

As always, the colours of the Pro are kept in subtle tones. Interestingly, the gold version has been omitted this year - although this is very popular in China. Instead, the smartphone comes in titanium black, titanium white, titanium blue and titanium natural. The latter is reminiscent of the colour of the Apple Watch Ultra.

Action button: an atypical amount of freedom

The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max do away with the previous silent switch. It is replaced by an action button that you can configure in different ways - including the following functions:

• Switch between loud and silent
• Direct access to the camera
• Record a voice memo
• Enable accessibility feature
• Enable shortcut
• Enable flashlight

This much freedom is historically atypical for an Apple product. But it fits in with the trend of recent years. While the lock screen and home screen used to have a completely rigid design, you can now add widgets or choose the font of the watch yourself.

Camera: longer telephoto lens for iPhone 15 Pro Max

The upgrades of the camera modules are very different. The 6.1-inch iPhone 15 Pro makes the smallest leap. The hardware of the three cameras does not change. Apple is keeping the same main camera with 24 mm, ultra-wide-angle camera with 13 mm and telephoto camera with 77 mm focal length. However, the image processing is said to have improved. The main camera now shoots with 24 megapixels as standard. In 48 megapixel mode, images can now also be saved in HEIF format as well as raw.

This year, the Californians are reserving the real innovation for the large iPhone 15 Pro Max: Its new telephoto camera offers a focal length of 120 mm (optical 5x zoom). At the same time, the sensor is 25 per cent larger than the old telephoto camera. The aperture is f/2.8. To achieve these specifications, the iPhone 15 Pro Max guides the incoming light through a tetraprism in which it zigzags backwards. This trick is necessary to achieve the longer focal length without a strongly protruding lens. It's basically Apple's own kind of periscope camera, which was rumoured in advance.

In comparison to last year, the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus are probably the biggest step forward. Their main camera now also has a 48-megapixel sensor, albeit a slightly smaller one than the Pro model. This also means the familiar 2x digital zoom. The main camera of the regular iPhones also normally saves photos with a resolution of 24 megapixels.

USB-C sold as a new feature

It was foreseeable that the Lightning port would be replaced by USB-C. The change was not entirely voluntary, but due to a new EU law that comes into force in 2024. It was therefore remarkable that Apple still talked about USB-C for a long time at the keynote. It was sold as a veritable new feature so that customers could finally use just one cable for all devices - the fact that this would have been possible much earlier was irrelevant.

What transfer speed do the new iPhones achieve? Apple didn't say a word about this for the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus. A look at the data sheet reveals why: The connection only supports the USB 2.0 standard. This means the same snail's pace as Lightning - 0.5 gigabits per second (Gbps). Things look better with the Pro models. Here, the speed is 10 Gbps. Accordingly, Apple showed application examples such as taking photos with direct transfer to Capture One.

Apple's first 3-nanometre chip

The chips in the iPhone have not been in the spotlight for some time, as they have long been fast enough. This year is a little different. The new A17 Pro chip in the flagship models is Apple's first 3-nanometre chip. This allows for greater efficiency - meaning more performance and less energy consumption. Vice President Sribalan Santhanam spoke at length about the heart of the new iPhone Pro.

In concrete terms, the performance increase of the CPU is around 10 per cent and that of the GPU as much as 20 per cent. The chip also comes with hardware-accelerated ray tracing. According to Santhanam, this enables more graphically demanding games with better frame rates, among other things. "Assassin's Creed: Mirage", for example, is set to be released natively on the iPhone next year.

The iPhone 15 and 15 Plus will also benefit from a chip upgrade. They will receive the A16 Bionic from last year's iPhone 14 Pro.

You can pre-order the iPhones from 15 September in Switzerland here. A test report will follow in the next week, and we'll also be talking about the new devices in the A Tech Affair podcast. If you want to watch the keynote, you can find the recording here: