iPhone 15 will have the USB-C cable, not Apple’s proprietary Lightning cable.
The iPhone 15 series and Apple Watch Series 9 took center stage during the tech giant’s Wanderlust presentation on Tuesday. Apple also highlighted the company’s sustainability efforts to become carbon neutral by 2030.
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iPhone 15 line’s features include USB-C cord
Apple announced the iPhone 15, which will retail starting at $799 for the 128GB model, and the iPhone 15 Plus, starting at $899 for the 128GB model.
They also revealed the iPhone 15 Pro, which features a tougher, lighter titanium enclosure and upgrades to the camera and performance compared to the base or Plus models. The iPhone 15 Pro will start at $999, while the iPhone 15 Pro Max starts at $1,199.
All editions of the iPhone 15 will be available on September 22.
USB-C
Both the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro include the USB-C, replacing the proprietary Lightning port.
“USB-C has become a universally accepted standard,” said Kaiann Drance, vice president of iPhone marketing at Apple.
The USB-C port can either charge the phone or transfer data. AirPods Pro Second Generation and other modern Apple devices will also switch to USB-C.
Camera and battery life
The iPhone 15 boasts a 48 MP main camera and HDR photo enhancements for portraits. The A16 bionic chip, the same used on the iPhone 14 Pro, with a custom signal processor enables the improved camera. A 16-core neural engine assists with photography or other features such as voicemail transcriptions. Underneath are a 5-core GPU and 6-core CPU, plus four high-efficiency cores intended to allow for all-day battery life.
A17 Pro chip
The Pro feature runs on the A17 Pro chip, giving it an array of 19 billion three-nanometer transistors. Inside is a redesigned GPU, a 6-core design that is up to 20% faster than the previous generation.
Dynamic Island
The Dynamic Island, a UX feature that displays app alerts and was previously exclusive to the iPhone 14 Pro, will now be available on the iPhone 15 series. An adaptable bar on the top of the screen showing alerts and live activities, the Dynamic Island allows for a quick glance at alerts.
The iPhone 15 Pro features customizable actions on the toggle that are usually used to silence the phone; users can use the toggle as a shortcut to a variety of actions, and the toggle interacts with the Dynamic Island UX feature.
iPhone 15 is equipped with iOS 17
iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus will run the upcoming iOS 17, Apple said. It adds real-time transcription for voice mail, a “check in” feature on Messages, contact information sharing through NameDrop (an upgrade for AirDrop) and enhanced private browsing and passkey sharing capabilities.
Apple Watch Series 9 available September 22
The Apple Watch Series 9 will be the next product in the flagship wearable line. Apple continues to push its proprietary silicon, noting that the S9 SiP chip enables processing Siri requests on the device instead of in the cloud or over Wi-Fi. The 4-core neural engine makes processing machine learning tasks twice as fast as the previous-generation Apple Watch. The S9 CPU has 6.5 billion transistors, and its GPU is 30% faster than the previous generation.
Apple Watch Ultra 2, the premium version, features more rugged materials and more precise measurements on the watch function, such as altitude and depth.
The Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 will be available on September 22 and can be ordered now. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 will retail for $799.
Apple’s efforts toward a carbon neutral 2030
Apple continues to work toward a goal of net-zero carbon impact by 2030. The iPhone 15 line includes 75% recycled aluminum in the enclosure, 100% recycled cobalt in the battery and 100% recycled copper in the logic board and charger. The iPhone 15 Pro features 100% recycled aluminum.
The Apple Watch Series 9 is totally carbon neutral when certain case and band options are selected, according to the company.
Apple’s market position
Apple held 16.9% of the worldwide smartphone sales to end users market share in 2022, Gartner said. That marks a 1.6% increase over the 2021 market share.
B2B marketplace DesignRush’s Customer Loyalty Index found Apple is the tech company with the third-strongest customer loyalty, after Alphabet (Google) and Intel. Apple ranks number one among tech companies in DesignRush’s rankings of financial performance and social media engagement.
