IPhone 15: Design, Specifications, & Repairability.

The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max are smartphones designed, developed, and advertised through Apple Inc. They are the seventeenth-era flagship iPhones, succeeding the 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max.The gadgets had been unveiled along with the iPhone 15 and Plus at some point during the Apple Event at Apple Park in Cupertino, California, on September 12, 2023.Pre-orders started out on September 15, 2023, and the gadgets were made available to the general public on September 22, 2023.

History

Many rumors had stated that the iPhone 15 Pro Max might have been renamed as the iPhone 15 Ultra, as Apple had previously introduced the Apple Watch Ultra; however, shortly before the event, new rumors suggested that they would stick with the “Pro Max” name for the 6.7-inch model.

Design

Face and back of iPhone 15 Pro series
The iPhone 15 Pro is the first major redesign since the 12 Pro, featuring rounded edges, a slightly curved display, and back glass. The enclosure of the Pro and Pro Max is made of grade 5 titanium, unlike the stainless steel frame of previous Pro models. The display bezels have also been reduced from 2.2 mm to 1.55 mm. The phone is available in four colors: natural titanium, blue titanium, white titanium, and black titanium. It is also the first premium iPhone since the iPhone X to not come in the gold color option.

Specifications

Hardware

Like the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus, the 15 Pro and Pro Max replace the proprietary Lightning connector with USB-C to conform with the European Union mandating the usage of this connector in smartphones with Directive (EU) 2022/2380 in 2022.Apple had already begun to introduce USB-C to its hand-held gadgets, starting with the 1/3-era iPad Pro, launched in 2018.
The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max support AV1 video hardware decoding.

Chipset

The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max feature the A17 Pro system on a chip (SoC). It is built on TSMC’s N3B fabrication process. It features an Apple-redesigned graphic processing unit (GPU), which adds hardware-accelerated ray tracing. During the reveal event, Apple announced that games such as Death Stranding, Resident Evil Village, and Assassin’s Creed Mirage (all games originally designed for consoles and PCs) would come to iOS in the future.

Charging and transfer speeds

The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max use USB-C with USB 3.2 Gen 2 transfer speeds (est. up to 10 Mbps or 1.25 GBps), an improvement over the model 14 Pro and the 15/15 Plus base models, which only have USB 2.0 transfer speeds (est. up to 480 Mbps / 60 MBps).

Video output

All iPhone 15 models have support for DisplayPort Alternate Mode over USB-C video output with HDR up to 4K resolution.
Previous iPhone models (from iPhone 5 until iPhone 14 Pro) had a maximum supported resolution of 1600 x 900 (slightly less than 1080p) with the Lightning Digital AV Adapter due to technical constraints of the Lightning connector.

Action button

The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max feature an action button, replacing the mute switch.The characteristics of the action button may be configured with the aid of 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.

Software

The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max launched with iOS 17 and will continue to receive major software updates until 2029.

Repairability

The new iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max heavily advertised repairability as being a strong suit of theirs. Apple has shifted the components from below the back glass to below the screen, essentially flipping the internals of the phone. This would make access to repairability much easier, allowing people to open the screen rather than going through the back glass.

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

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