Pre-orders for the new iPhone 15 series have gone through the roof, especially with the festive season slowly unfolding across India. There are a number of important changes to the camera system in the new series but we will keep those for another day. Besides the camera, there are plenty of other reasons why the new iPhone 15 series rocks and may make you pre-order the phone.

Dynamic Island across iPhone 15 series

Last year, the Dynamic Island was featured on the Pro iPhones; now we’ve got it on every member of the iPhone 15 series. It doesn’t change the way you use your phone but the free-floating notch makes information more accessible.

When you start a timer you can see the progress of the timer, when you order an Uber, it’ll tell you how many minutes till the Uber arrives, during a flight, it can tell how much longer left to landing time… all this makes you switch fewer times between apps, ensuring you stay focussed on what you are currently working on.

The other perk of it is that it persists even when you move to other apps. Even though the Dynamic Island isn’t physically creating any new screen space, what matters is the way Apple makes the software around it behave like a secondary display within your main display, allowing you to do two things at once.

Action Button on the iPhone 15 Pro

The ring/silent switch, which has been on the iPhone since Steve Jobs announced the first one in 2007, is making way for the Action Button on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max hits it out of the park with camera updates as well as Action Button and titanium chassis

The concept of Action Button started with last year’s Apple Watch Ultra; it can activate workouts, among other abilities. Over the last one year, it has proved successful and has made the Ultra easy to work around with.

Action Button on the iPhone 15 Pro looks promising. On the one hand, it’s not taking away anything I never really used: the ring/silent switch is something I didn’t use when I didn’t want to be disturbed. I’d rather just go all the way into Do Not Disturb mode.

You can use the new Action Button to silence your phone but it’s just that you can now also use it to open the camera, start a voice recording or whatever is really appealing to you. You can also use it to trigger any of your Siri shortcuts which basically means trigger any function on your phone.

By default, it does what the switch slider earlier did — move between the two states of ringer-on and silent. You can even feel a haptic feedback when you switch between the modes.

What you can do more now is choose a function for the button. I know what I will use it for: Auto launch the camera and choose the mode it opens in.

In case you still want the old ring/vibrate switch, the regular iPhone 15 still has it.

titanium on the Pro

Apple has swapped materials on the Pro models, from stainless steel to titanium. There’s still the ceramic shield on the front but what has changed is the enclosure.

The Action Button is found on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone Pro Max

Titanium is stronger than stainless steel. I have dropped my iPhone 14 Pro Max (I don’t use a case) a couple of times but it has zero scratches or cracks. With the iPhone 15 Pro Max, things will become stronger and it obviously offers peace of mind.

In fact, I think the biggest benefit for the consumer picking one of the Pro models is that the material is just more scratch-resistant.

I already wear the titanium Watch Ultra from last year and it has hit against a bunch of things, even metal and stone surfaces, yet, there are no scratches. The material is very durable and I imagine the same would be for the new titanium iPhone Pros.

In terms of the design, they still have the iconic iPhone look that has been running for the past few years. Apple’s very proud of their new titanium housing replacing the glossy stainless steel, giving us a very sexy new matte brushed metal frame. It has the added benefit of not showing smudges or fingerprints.

Users will also appreciate the fact that titanium is lighter. The Pro iPhone for a while has been slightly weighty for its size. So the reduced density that these phones have takes them to that really nice sweet spot where they still feel substantial like any Pro phone should but without becoming heavy. The weight: 221g for the iPhone 15 Pro Max down from 240g last year.

Titanium also means better thermal conduction.

The gap between Pro and non-Pro

The new Pro modes will be powered by Apple’s A17 Pro chipset. The word ‘Pro’ is new to the chipset naming process and it only means that the gap between Pro and non-Pro model gets wider.

It’s the first chip in the world to be based on a three-nanometer process. Why is this a big deal? Every other top chip in the world is based on a four-nanometer process and basically the smaller that number, smaller the transistors that make up the chip. If the transistors are smaller then they consume less power and you can have more of them and the cool thing about this is that, proportionally speaking, the jump between the four-nanometer process and the three-nanometer process is actually bigger than the last major jump which was between five nanometer and four nanometer.

The new CPU is up to 10 per cent faster with microarchitectural and design improvements, and the Neural Engine is now up to 2x faster, powering features like autocorrect and Personal Voice in iOS 17.

The GPU is up to 20 per cent faster and unlocks new experiences, featuring a new six-core design that increases peak performance and energy efficiency. With hardware-accelerated ray tracing — which is 4x faster than software-based ray tracing — iPhone 15 Pro offers smoother graphics, as well as more immersive AR applications and gaming experiences. The iPhone 15 Pro will be perfect for gamers, allowing users to play console titles never before seen on a smartphone, like Resident Evil Village, Resident Evil 4, Death Stranding, and Assassin’s Creed Mirage. Apple is also pushing the power efficiency angle.

The iPhone 15 Pro models go big on gaming

Phone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max now support Wi-Fi 6E for greater wireless performance, including up to 2x faster speeds, and introduces the first Thread-enabled smartphones, opening up future opportunities for Home app integrations.

Slimmer bezels

All iPhone 15s benefit from slimmer bezels and a new contoured edge around the screen. It’s kind of remarkable how different these feel from previous iPhones. They’ve kept the same 6.1 inch and 6.7 inch screen sizes but they have managed to squeeze in thinner bezels.

USB-C technical details

You have already heard and read about the shift from Lightning port to USB-C starting with the iPhone 15 series. The new iPhones come with USB-C to USB-C cable in the box.

USB-C charging is on all the new iPhone 15 models

To get fast charging speeds on an iPhone 15, get a 20W USB-C charger, which probably is lying around the house. And remember, use a good quality charger.

The iPhone 15 Pro models support USB 3 at up to 10Gbps, so you’ll need a cable that’s rated for at least 10Gbps. The USB-C port on the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus caps things at USB 2 speeds, which limits transfers to 480 megabits per second or the same transfer rates as all of the Lightning iPhones.