The ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

s designed, developed, and marketed by

Apple Inc Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

. They are the seventeenth-generation flagship iPhones, succeeding the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. The devices were unveiled alongside the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus during the

Apple Event Apple events are the message-based interprocess communication mechanism in Mac OS, first making an appearance in System 7 and supported by every version of the classic Mac OS since then and by macOS. Apple events describe "high-level" events such ...

Apple Park Apple Park is the corporate headquarters of Apple Inc., located in Cupertino, California, United States. It was opened to employees in April 2017, while construction was still underway, and superseded the original headquarters at Apple Campus, ...

Cupertino, California Cupertino ( ) is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, directly west of San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 57,8 ...

, on September 12, 2023. Pre-orders began on September 15, 2023, and the devices were made available to the general public on September 22, 2023. Like the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus, the 15 Pro and Pro Max replaced the proprietary

Lightning Lightning is a naturally occurring electrostatic discharge during which two electric charge, electrically charged regions, both in the atmosphere or with one on the land, ground, temporarily neutralize themselves, causing the instantaneous ...

connector with

USB-C USB-C (properly known as USB Type-C) is a 24-pin USB connector system with a rotationally symmetrical connector. The designation C refers only to the connector's physical configuration or form factor and should not be confused with the conne ...

to comply with European Union mandates.

Design

The iPhone 15 Pro features the first major redesign of the outer shell of the device since the iPhone 12 Pro in 2020, featuring rounded edges, a slightly curved display, and back glass. The enclosure of the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max is made of grade 5

titanium Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...

, unlike the stainless steel frame of previous Pro models. The display bezels have also been reduced from 2.2mm to 1.55mm. The phone is available in four colors: natural

, blue titanium, white titanium, and black titanium. It is also the first premium iPhone since the

iPhone X The iPhone X (Roman numeral "X" pronounced "ten", also known as iPhone 10) is a smartphone designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is part of the 11th generation of the iPhone. Available for pre-order from October 27, 2017, it was re ...

to not come in the gold color option. IPhone Pro

Specifications

Hardware

Like the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus, the 15 Pro, and Pro Max replace the proprietary

connector with

to comply with the European Union mandating the use of this connector in smartphones with Directive (EU) 2022/2380 in 2022. Apple had already started to introduce USB-C to its handheld devices beginning with the third generation iPad Pro, released in 2018. The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max support

AV1 AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) is an open, royalty-free video coding format initially designed for video transmissions over the Internet. It was developed as a successor to VP9 by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), a consortium founded in 2015 that ...

video hardware decoding. In iOS 18, the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max will be the first iPhones to be capable of supporting the new Apple Intelligence AI features, due to the increased amount of

DRAM Dynamic random-access memory (dynamic RAM or DRAM) is a type of random-access semiconductor memory that stores each bit of data in a memory cell, usually consisting of a tiny capacitor and a transistor, both typically based on metal-oxid ...

in these models and their fast 35 trillion-operation-per-second Neural Engine. File:IPhone 15 Pro.jpeg, iPhone 15 Pro with 6.1-inch display File:IPhone 15 Pro Max.jpeg, iPhone 15 Pro Max with 6.7-inch display

Chipset

The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max feature the Apple A17 Pro

system on a chip A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memory ...

(SoC). It is built on

TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC; also called Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational corporation, multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is the world's most valuable semicon ...

's N3B

fabrication process Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to manufacture semiconductor devices, typically integrated circuit (IC) chips such as modern computer processors, microcontrollers, and memory chips such as NAND flash and DRAM that are pres ...

. It features an redesigned Apple

graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobi ...

(GPU) which adds hardware-accelerated ray tracing; during the reveal event, Apple announced that games such as ''

Death Stranding ''Death Stranding'' is a 2019 action game developed by Kojima Productions and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4. It is the first game from director Hideo Kojima and Kojima Productions after their split from Kona ...

'', ''

Resident Evil Village ''Resident Evil Village'' is a 2021 survival horror game developed and published by Capcom. It is the sequel to '' Resident Evil 7: Biohazard'' (2017). Players control Ethan Winters, who searches for his kidnapped daughter in a village filled wit ...

'' and ''

Assassin's Creed Mirage ''Assassin's Creed Mirage'' is a 2023 action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Bordeaux and published by Ubisoft. The game is the thirteenth major installment in the ''Assassin's Creed'' series and the successor to 2020's ''Assassin's Creed V ...

'' (all games originally designed for consoles and PCs) would come to

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

in the future.

Charging and transfer speeds

The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max use

with USB 3.2 Gen 2 transfer speeds (est. up to 10

Gbps In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...

/ 1.25GBps), an improvement over the

iPhone 14 Pro The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max are smartphones designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. They are the sixteenth-generation flagship iPhones, succeeding the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max. The devices were unveiled alongs ...

and the iPhone 15/15 Plus base models which only have

USB 2.0 Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad v ...

transfer speeds (est. up to 480 Mbps / 60MBps).

Video output

All iPhone 15 models have support for DisplayPort Alternate Mode over USB-C video output with HDR up to

4K resolution 4K resolution refers to a horizontal display resolution of approximately 4,000 pixels. Digital television and digital cinematography commonly use several different 4K resolutions. In television and consumer media, 38402160 (4K Ultra-high-definitio ...

. Previous iPhone models (from

iPhone 5 The iPhone 5 is a smartphone that was designed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is the 6th generation iPhone, succeeding both the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, and preceding both the iPhone 5S and 5C. It was formally unveiled as part of a press e ...

until

) had a maximum supported resolution of 1600 x 900 (slightly less than

1080p 1080p (1920×1080 progressively displayed pixels; also known as Full HD or FHD, and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the screen vert ...

) with the Lightning Digital AV Adapter due to technical constraints of the Lightning connector.

Action button

The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max feature an Action button, replacing the mute switch that was present on every iPhone. The function of the Action button can be configured by the user. By default, the Action button toggles silent mode. Other options include opening the camera, recording a voice memo, or toggling a focus mode and more.

Software

The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max launched with

iOS 17 iOS 17 is the iOS version history, seventeenth and current major release of Apple Inc., Apple's iOS operating system for the iPhone. It is the direct successor to iOS 16, which was released one year earlier. It was announced on June 5, 2023, ...

and will be compatible with the upcoming iOS 18 due to be released in late 2024. Consistent with the UK Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure regulations, it will continue to receive major software updates for a minimum of five years to at least 2028.

Detailed specs

Hardware issues reported

Overheating

Some owners claimed that their iPhones were suffering from overheating issues, reportedly reaching temperatures as high as . Apple has also said that the phone's titanium frame "does not contribute to the heating issue." In addition, Apple stated the cause of iPhones overheating was a software bug. Apple has attempted to address the overheating issue with iOS 17.0.3.

Power bank reverse charging

Some owners have found that power banks designed for

devices are not working correctly with the iPhone. Some banks will not charge the iPhone at all or the iPhone will attempt to charge the power bank instead.

NFC

Some owners of BMW vehicles using its wireless charging system with the iPhone have found that the

NFC NFC may refer to: Psychology * Need for cognition, in psychology * Need for closure, social psychological term Sports * NFC Championship Game, the National Football Conference Championship Game * NCAA Football Championship (Philippines) * Nati ...

chip in charge of

Apple Pay Apple Pay is a mobile payment service by Apple Inc. that allows users to make payments in person, in iOS apps, and on the web. It is supported on these Apple devices: iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac. It digitizes and can replace a credit ...

and also digital car keys can stop working correctly. Apple has attempted to fix these issues with

17.1.1 and 17.2.

Durability

A durability test video for the iPhone 15 Pro Max showed that the back glass was more prone to cracking after the content creator JerryRigEverything applied pressure on the back glass, which caused it to crack, saying that it was unexpected. A later video, published by the same YouTuber, cited that the possible reason for this was that the back glass is no longer glued to a metal plate, this change, and the hollow spots on the phone may cause the back glass to crack if pressure was applied on those hollow spots, on the durability test video, in some angles, the glass is noticeably caved in to the phone, further proving that it broke due to a hollow spot on the phone. A review b
Techable
praised the iPhone 15 Pro Max for its exceptional performance and sleek design, noting that despite some concerns about the back glass, the overall user experience remained top-notch. Additional testing by Consumer Reports found that the durability of the iPhone 15 Pro Max was generally excellent, with the back glass not breaking after 50 drops.

Repairability

The new iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max heavily advertised repairability as being a strong suit as the glue used to secure the back glass is much weaker meaning that a heat plate or gun can soften it without the need of a laser machine, similar to the

iPhone 14 The iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus (also stylized as iPhone 14+) are smartphones designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. They are the sixteenth generation of iPhones, succeeding the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Mini, and was announced during ...

, and unlike the 14 Pro. However, a September 2023 report by iFixit found that repairability on the new iPhones was much worse compared to the 14 series due to various software locking issues, forcing people to buy new parts and repair machines specifically by Apple.

Critical reception

''GSMarena'' gave the phone 4.5 out of 5 stars. While its display, camera and speakers were praised, its high price was noted as a weak point. ''NotebookCheck'' gave it 91 out of 100 and praised its durability.

References

External links

* * – official website {{Apple Inc. hardware * Mobile phones introduced in 2023 Mobile phones with 4K video recording Mobile phones with multiple rear cameras Flagship smartphones