It is pretty much outdated by today’s standards anyway
During yesterday’s Wonderlust event, Apple was expected to reveal the new iPhone 15 series, including the new Watch Series 9. Before the event, it was highly speculated that the company would ditch the Lightning connector in favour of USB-C after pressure from the European Union Parliament. Well, it finally happened! The outdated, clunky, and cumbersome Lightning port is officially dead. May it rest in peace. However, Apple can be sneaky. The iPhone 15 and 15 Plus use an older USB-C 2.0 with slower transfer speeds and charging rates. That’s one way to show saltiness.
The new iPhones aren’t just about the USB-C though, there are other exciting things to talk about the phones, starting with the Apple A17 Pro chipset with a 6-core Apple GPU. This officially makes it the world’s first (for a long time, Apple) 3nm chipset to be mass-produced. It also brings hardware ray tracing to the iPhone for the first time, and console-based games like Assassin’s Creed would soon be available to play on a phone you sacrificed your soul with.
iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus
When Apple was designing the new iPhone 15 and 15 Plus, they took the looks of the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus and replaced the tub notch with a dynamic island… And pretty much, at first glance, is the only difference in terms of design. The new iPhones also got newer colours, albeit more muted. We’re guessing the printer ran out of ink.
These colours include Black, White, Green, Yellow, and Pink. Product (RED) is surprisingly nowhere to be seen when it’s usually announced alongside whenever a new iPhone is launched.
Just like the iPhone 14 Pro/Pro Max, the iPhone 15/15 Plus has a new 48MP camera, now runs off USB-C (again we have the EU to thank), a ceramic shield design, and a second-generation chip for satellite communications. Now with Roadside Assistance, which may or may not be limited to the United States. The only other phones to have satellite communications are the Huawei Mate and P series.
The difference between the two is again its display size. The iPhone 15 uses a compact 6.1″ Super Retina XDR display while the iPhone 15 Plus uses a 6.7″ screen.
The two new phones also use the A16 Bionic chip, the same one used for the iPhone 14 and 14 Pro, manufactured using a 4nm TSMC process. It’s safe to say that the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus are the iPhone 14 and 14 Pro without the tertiary ultrawide camera.
In the Philippines, the new iPhone 15 and 15 Plus start at PHP 56,990 and PHP 63,990 respectively. The top-of-the-line model (512GB ROM) is priced at PHP 75,990 and PHP 82,990 respectively. With that amount of money, you can get yourself a nicely-packed gaming PC or even the ROG Ally and Steam Deck.
Source: Apple
iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max:
Tim Cook introduced the new iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max with a Titanium build, and a certain Chinese company got really salty about it, to the point they created a meme saying that Apple “copied” them. These games sound quite immature, so it’s best companies stop doing it. It makes them look inferior.
Small rant aside, the iPhone 15 and 15 Pro are truly well-designed phones. Well, because they are very similar, if not identical, to last year’s iPhones albeit with a Titanium build and muted colours. We’re not 100% fond of the new colour options as we prefer the usual bright ones Apple provides, but the Titanium finish might have something to do with it. These two phones have the same internals. Their main difference lies in the size of the display, something Apple has traditionally done since the iPhone 6.
These two phones are currently Apple’s pinnacle iPhones… until the iPhone 16/16 Pro Max that is. The phone uses the all-new 3nm A17 Pro chip with a hexacore CPU and has 4x faster ray tracing because it is now hardware-based instead of software-based. It also has an updated GPU also with 6 more cores and Apple said that it is faster than the A16 Bionic by 20%. You’ll also notice that Apple decided to drop the “Bionic” subtitle for a “Pro” one, suggesting that this one is truly intended for hardcore gamers and productivity users alike.
The phones come with a triple camera setup consisting of a 48MP 24mm primary camera made by Sony with a 2nd-gen Sensor-shift OIS, a 12MP 120mm Telephoto camera with 5x optical zoom, and a 12MP 13mm Ultrawide camera. The 120mm focus length normally requires a really big sensor as seen on DSLRs but Apple achieved this on the new iPhone by using a tetraprism design that reflects light rays over four times as much.
Unlike the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus, the new iPhone 15 and 15 Pro use a newer USB-C 3.0 port allowing for faster transfer speeds and 4K@60fps native support for projecting videos. The way Apple presented this new port, despite them being totally against it, is pretty convincing and feels innocent as if Apple genuinely wanted this move. They said that the USB-C port is now shared among all other Apple products and that they have been using the port for years, allowing for an easier, more seamless connection to Apple’s environment.
It comes in four colours: Black, Blue, White, and Natural Titanium.
The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max with the base 128GB ROM and 25GB ROM option respectively, are priced at PHP 70,990 and PHP 84,990. Meanwhile, the top-of-the-line 1TB option costs PHP 101,990 and PHP 108,990 respectively. The phones are definitely much more reasonably priced in the US at $999, or approximately PHP 55K.
With the price of the base iPhone 15 Pro Max, you can get up to 28 years of Disney Plus Premium, 2,360 pieces of potato chips weighing 85 grams, or a PC with at least one game complete with DLC. Also, you have a higher chance of getting every character in Fontaine with that money, or that one waifu you desperately want to have while not touching grass and playing Blue Archive.
Instead of the 1TB iPhone 15 Pro Max, you can get 38 pairs of Lightning McQueen Crocs, 54 pieces of a 170mm tall Pop Up Parade Ai Hoshino Figure, 108,990 pieces of Mentos Candy, and a MacBook 15″. You can also supply yourself with at least 5 years‘ worth of grocery items or 637 orders of a Solo Big Mac.
Source: Apple