And just like that, Apple has announced its new line of high-end iPhones, the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max. Both models are made out of titanium, have Action Buttons, and look like the most powerful smartphones Apple has ever created.
The iPhone 15 range looks to build on everything the iPhone has unveiled up until now and revolutionise the entire experience – including its gaming capabilities thanks to hardware-based ray tracing.
The iPhone 15 Pro is powered by Apple’s A17 Pro chipset, the fastest ever in a handset, allowing it to have a 20% faster overall performance.
Sribalan Santhanam, Apple’s VP, had this to say about it:
“The groundbreaking innovation of A17 Pro9 is a brand new GPU, with a new Apple-designed shader architecture, our biggest redesign in the history of Apple GPUs.
This is a Pro-class GPU that expands what’s possible on iPhone even more. We focused on three things: improving performance and efficiency, running complex applications, and adding new rendering features.”
One of those new features that Sribalan Santhanam spoke about includes mesh shading, which combines vertex and primitive processing into a single pipeline, enabling games to create more detailed environments while drawing less power.
The iPhone 15 Pro is the first to provide hardware-based ray tracing capabilities, a feature that even iMacs don’t yet have access to.
All this means that the iPhone 15 Pro is ushering in a new generation of mobile gaming and will see full versions of Resident Evil Village, Resident Evil 4, Death Stranding and Assassin’s Creed Mirage released on the device in the coming months.
Both models also come with a new USB-C port on the bottom rather than the old Lightning port, but this time, the port is for more than just charging. Apple announced that the 15 Pro will be the first smartphone with 10Gbps transfer speeds, making transferring large files off the phone a more effortless and quicker experience.
The new line will also be fitted with an Action Button to replace the ringer switch on the left side of the iPhone. This button can run shortcuts, bring up accessibility features, open the camera, turn on the flashlight, and more.
The phones will also have Super Retina XDR displays with ProMotion and support for the always-on display and the new StandBy mode in iOS 17.
The cameras have also significantly improved and have the equivalent of seven distinct lenses. Both phones have an upgraded 48-megapixel camera that can change the default focal lengths and shoot at 24mm, 28mm, and 35mm, respectively.
The 5x optical zoom most iPhone users use changes to a 120mm focal length.
For video, you’ll be able to shoot 4K60 ProRes video on the devices or even shoot directly to an external drive through the USB-C port, and users will be able to capture 3D spatial videos using the phones.
Both modes go on pre-order this Friday and will officially be available from the 22nd of September. As of writing, the South African pricing has yet to be announced, but in America, the 15 Pro starts at $999 or R18,918 with 128GB of storage, and the Pro Max at $1,199 or R22,706 with 256GB of storage.
What do you think about the latest iPhones? Let us know in the comments.