IPhone 15 Pro

The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are smartphones designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. 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 at Apple Park in Cupertino, California, 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 connector with USB-C 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, 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 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.



Hardware
Like the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus, the 15 Pro, and Pro Max replace the proprietary Lightning connector with USB-C 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 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 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 (SoC). It is built on TSMC's N3B fabrication process. It features an redesigned Apple graphics 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 iPhone 15 Pro Max use USB-C with USB 3.2 Gen 2 transfer speeds (est. up to 10Gbps / 1.25GBps), an improvement over the iPhone 14 Pro and the iPhone 15/15 Plus base models which only have USB 2.0 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.

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 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 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.

Overheating
Some owners claimed that their iPhones were suffering from overheating issues, reportedly reaching temperatures as high as 47 C. 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 USB-C 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 chip in charge of Apple Pay and also digital car keys can stop working correctly. Apple has attempted to fix these issues with iOS 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. 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, 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 from 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.