During its annual September launch event yesterday, Apple announced its new iPhone 15 lineup, featuring titanium bodies on some models and USB-C connectors rather than the usual Lightning ports (a long-overdue change required by new EU regulations), as well as a pair of new watches.
iPhone 15
The new iPhone 15 comes in four models.
The basic iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus come with the A16 Bionic Processor, a 48 megapixel (MP) main camera with up to 2x optical zoom, and the Dynamic Island feature that was only found on Pro models last year. The main difference between the two is screen size: 6.1 inches for the iPhone 15, and 6.7 inches for the Plus. Both have aluminium bodies, and the USB-C connection supports the USB 2 standard’s speeds (up to 480 Mbps). They can be configured with 128, 256, or 512 GB of memory.
The phones come in pink, yellow, green, blue, and black.
Prices start at C$1,129 for the iPhone 15 and C$1,279 for the Plus.
The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max up the ante, with titanium bodies, an A17 Pro chip, USB-C supporting the USB 3 standard that offers up to 20x faster transfers (5 Gbps), and an additional camera – a 12 MP telephoto – in addition to the 48 MP main and 12 MP ultra wide cameras on the more basic models. The Pro will give you up to 3x optical zoom, and the Pro Max, 5x. These models also offer additional camera features such as macro photography and Apple ProRAW, as well as the ability to record videos to an external storage device. In addition, they add a LIDAR sensor to the gyro, accelerometer, proximity sensor, ambient light sensors, and barometer found on the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus.
Screen sizes are 6.1 inches for the Pro, and 6.7 inches for the Pro Max.
The iPhone 15 Pro can be configured with 128, 256, 512 GB or 1 TB of storage. The iPhone 15 Pro Max offers 256 or 512 GB or 1 TB of storage. The colour scheme for these models is more muted: natural titanium, blue titanium, white titanium, and black titanium.
All of the phones come with a USB-C cable, but no power adapter – that will cost an additional C$25.
Prices start at C$1,449 for the Pro, and C$1,749 for the Pro Max.
All four phones can be pre-ordered starting at 8 am EDT on Sept. 15, and will be available in stores on Sept. 22.
Apple Watch
Apple also launched two new watches: The Apple Watch Series 9, starting at C$549, and the Watch Ultra 2, starting at C$1,099. They can be pre-ordered now, and will be in stores on Sept. 22.
The Apple Watch Series 9 comes in two screen sizes: 41mm and 45mm. It is powered by the new S9 SiP chip, which Apple says is efficient enough to allow 18 hour battery life, and runs watchOS 10. The Series 9’s always-on Retina screen is twice as bright as that in the Series 8, Apple says.
Thanks to the new chip, Siri requests, such as starting a workout or setting a timer, can now be processed on the device rather than in the cloud if they do not require information from the internet.
The Apple Watch Ultra 2‘s 49 mm always-on Retina display is even brighter than that on the Series 9, at 3000 nits vs the Series 9’s 2000 nits. It is powered by the same S9 SiP chip, and has a 4 core Neural Engine that can process machine learning tasks up to twice as fast as the original Apple Watch Ultra.
The Ultra 2, like the Series 9, also runs watchOS 10.
