iPhone 15 Pro & iPhone 15 Pro Max Review: The Verdict
The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are a line in the sand dividing what iPhone was and what iPhone can be. The move to USB-C opens up a whole lot of potential, and when combined with the deep customisation the Action Button offers, the pair feel more like a traditional computer than prior Apple handsets. It's just a shame they're more expensive than ever.
What we love
- USB-C! USB-C! USB-C!
- Lighter, sleeker design
- Fantastic cameras
What could be improved
- Very expensive
- Short battery on the iPhone 15 Pro
- No high-speed USB-C cable in the box
The essentials
- Performance: The best you'll find on a phone.
- Battery: The iPhone 15 Pro is underwhelming, but should still last a full day per charge with standard usage. The iPhone 15 Pro Max should easily last a day-and-a-half.
- Screen: Gorgeous. No complaints.
- Camera: Speedy and versatile - you'll get stunning photos in almost any situation.
On one of my first nights testing the iPhone 15 Pro, I had a silly idea. I wanted to see if I could plug my guitar directly into the handset's USB-C port. I found an old Rocksmith USB-to-6.5mm cable, and a USB-to-USB-C dongle, and gave it a shot. To my genuine shock, the iPhone 15 Pro recognised my guitar as an audio input. I was able to record directly into GarageBand.
On one hand, this shouldn't be surprising. That's the kind of interoperability that most computing platforms allow. On the other, this has rarely been true on iPhone. Plugging in external devices has either not been an option or required a dongle. With the iPhone 15 Pro, it finally just works.
When you couple this with 10Gbps speeds on the USB-C port and the sheer customisability of the Action Button, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max feel a lot more open. Sure, there are still limitations to Apple's walled garden, but the perimeter is starting to crack.
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Endless portential
After over a decade, the Lightning port is all but dead. Thanks to new European Union regulations, Apple has swapped out its old proprietary connector for the universal USB-C.
While this might mean replacing a few cords or accessories, the change and its wider implications are for the best. To start, Lightning accessories tend to be more expensive than USB-C, as Apple requires manufacturers to pay for certification to use the port.
A single charging standard across iPhone, Mac, and iPad is also welcome. Mac and iPad have been using USB-C for charging and connectivity for years, so it makes sense that iPhone should too. And hey, your Android friends will be able to charge their phones with your USB-C cords and vice-versa.
On the connectivity front, USB-C on iPhone 15 Pro works exactly as it should. That's pleasantly surprising given Apple's love for proprietary formats. You can plug in a USB-C hub with an Ethernet port to your iPhone 15 Pro to use wired internet on your phone, if you really want to. If you can think of it, it will probably work.
As aforementioned, I was able to connect my guitar directly to my iPhone 15 Pro. I tested this again with an audio interface and it worked just as well - and honestly the more likely situation than using a cable from a somewhat niche mid-2010s video game. On the instrument front, I didn't have any issues with my MIDI keyboard either.
I plugged in a camera and was able to import thoughts straight into Lightroom without the need for an SD card adapter or a flaky app. You can shoot video directly to an external drive, if you don't want to take up space on your iPhone. You can even output your iPhone 15 Pro to an external monitor. (It wouldn't surprise me if Apple creates a desktop mode for iPhone down the line.)
Some of these tasks were already achievable over Lightning. You'd just need a specific, expensive dongle. Now they're so much simpler. And as more and more people spend time with the iPhone 15 Pro, I think we're going to see some really cool, creative use cases.
The USB-C port on iPhone 15 Pro supports transfer speeds up to 10Gbps. That's a big improvement over the 480Mbps you get on Lightning (and the standard iPhone 15 USB-C port), but you'll also need a faster USB-C cable. The one you get in the box is only rated for 480Mbps. Given the price of the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, it begs to reason Apple should have included a faster cable.
Apple sells a very expensive 1m Thunderbolt 4 Pro cable for $115 that meets those speeds, but you can get 10Gbps USB-C cables for as little as $25.
A button for the crazy ones
The Action Button is the iPhone 15 Pro's other big new feature. Replacing the Mute switch, the Action Button is ostensibly a button you can program to do anything. Yep, anything.
Out of the box, it's a little pedestrian. It effectively replicates the Mute switch, toggling silent mode. If like you, like me, perpetually keep your phone on silent, you can reprogram the button to turn on a Focus, open the camera, turn on the torch, start recording a voice memo, open the magnifier, or turn on a select accessibility feature.
Where things get really interesting is when you combine the Action Button with Shortcuts. The Action Button can trigger a Shortcut of your choice, ranging from simple to insanely complicated.
Basic Shortcuts allow the Action Button to trigger tasks like opening your favourite app, calling your favourite person, opening a Quick Note, Shazaming a song, or opening up the virtual remote for your Apple TV.
That's just scratching the surface. If you want to go deeper into the rabbit hole, you can build more complicated Shortcuts that control your smart home, take a screenshot and then extract the text from it, or even bring up a quick menu of actions if you can't pick just one.
The next level deeper is customising your Action Button Shortcut based on factors like your device's focus, whether it's connected to WiFi, or the time of the day. For example, you might want to the Action Button to open a camera most of the time, but turn on the torch if you've got your iPhone in sleep focus.
The one downside to this is that building Shortcuts is an arcane process. Programming and scripting experience helps, and even then, it can take a while to get your head around how the Shortcuts app works. Thankfully there are plenty of online tutorials that make it a little bit easier.
There's also an element of choice paralysis. Given my Action Button can do anything, it's hard working out what that thing should be. For now, I think I'm going to stick with it toggling orientation lock.
Insert a David Guetta feat. Sia pun here
Apple's headline design change for the year is swapping out stainless steel for titanium. The big benefit from this is the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are lighter than their predecessors. This is especially noticeable with the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which is 19 grams lighter than last year's model. It's still a behemoth of a phone, but the weight reduction makes the iPhone 15 Pro Max's stature a bit more manageable.
In addition to being lighter, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are just a little smaller. Their displays still measure in at 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch, respectively, but there's less bezel surrounding the display. While it's certainly sleek, it doesn't really make a difference in day-to-day use.
Lastly, every iPhone 15 now has a gentle curve on its frame, and it's a big improvement. Apple has found a happy medium between the pillowy design of the iPhone 11 and the squared-off design the iPhone 12 reintroduced. The new design still looks good, but feels so much better in your hand. Anyone brave enough to use their iPhone 15 without a case will love this change.
A lean mean gaming machine
The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are powered by the new A17 Pro chipset, which naturally, is Apple's fastest mobile chip to date. For many, this won't be too big a deal. Apps might open just that little bit faster than on your old iPhone - especially if you're on an iPhone 11 or older - but Apple has done a good job of making the day-to-day usage feel silky smooth for quite some time.
Where the new chipset has bigger implications is gaming. A number of console games are exclusively launching on iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max later this year, and Apple is chalking that up to its new chip. I tried a demo of Resident Evil Village, and the fact a phone can smoothly run an AAA-quality console game is wild.
Your iPhone 15 Pro isn't going to replace your PlayStation 5 anytime soon, but the fact it can play the same games at a reasonably high quality is no small achievement. I think Apple fans are in for an interesting few years on the gaming front.
Conversely, Apple hasn't done much when it comes to battery this year. On paper, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max have identical battery life to their predecessors. My testing backs this up, and that’s both good and bad.
In the case of the iPhone 15 Pro Max, this is great news. You can expect around seven hours of screen when connected to a 5G network. That's about a day-and-a-half of standard usage. The iPhone 15 Pro Max battery isn't quite as good as the iPhone 15 Plus, but is better than any other flagship phone we've tested this year.
In the case of the iPhone 15 Pro, it's a disappointing development. It only gets around 4.5 hours of screen time per charge when connected to a 5G network. That's still about a full day of usage per charge, but you won't have much of a buffer at the end of the day. You might even find yourself needing to top up if you're planning on being out at night. Given the new $1,849 starting price, I'd expect better from the iPhone 15 Pro.
Doing more with more megapixels
Apple's move to a 48MP primary camera on the iPhone 15 Pro feels a lot more meaningful than it did on the iPhone 14 Pro thanks to some added versatility.
Last year, the 48MP primary was pretty inflexible. You could take a standard 12MP photo, or a 48MP ProRAW image that would take up as much as 100MB on your phone. This time, Apple is leveraging the larger sensor size in a much more interesting way.
For the most part, taking a photo with the primary camera will now give you a 24MP image out of the box. This naturally gets you a more detailed image, and even without pixel peeping, there's a pretty clear difference. When combined with better HDR, images just look nicer. You still have the option of shooting 48MP ProRAW images, as well as 48MP images in a compressed file format if you want a larger shot. (Night mode still always defaults to 12MP, however.)
The 48MP primary lens still acts as 2x optical zoom lens by cropping the sensor, but the iPhone 15 Pro primary lens can also emulate three different focal lengths. You start with 24mm (1x), and can move up to 28mm (1.2x) and 35mm (1.5x). Tapping the 1x lens icon cycles through them, and is pretty handy for framing up a shot.
Apple says the software pipeline it uses to take these photos effectively makes the zoom optical. If there's any loss in quality from punching into 1.5x, I haven't noticed it.
Here's a 35mm photo from the primary lens:
One nifty feature across the entire iPhone 15 family is the ability to make a photo a portrait while editing it after the fact. As long as the device can identify a subject - a person, cat, or dog - when taking a photo, it will also capture the depth information needed to apply portrait mode afterwards. I've found this especially useful when taking photos of my dog. Whenever Billie is doing something cute, I want to capture the photo as quickly as possible, rather than fiddling with settings on my phone.
I added a portrait effect this photo after it was taken:
The new big camera feature exclusive to the iPhone 15 Pro Max is a 5x zoom lens. Apple's a bit late to this, with manufacturers like Huawei, OPPO, Samsung, and Google having offered long-range zoom on phones as early as 2019. But as tends to be the case with Apple, the implementation is pretty good.
The lens is faster than the competition. Faster shooting time helps address the fact that camera shake is more pronounced at longer zoom ranges. It also means you can still use the 5x zoom lens at night. In most cases, rival phones fall back to digital zoom in low light, because the long-range zoom is too slow to be useful. The iPhone 15 Pro Max will still do this in very dark environments, but not all of the time.
Here's 1x photo from the iPhone 15 Pro Max:
And here's the same shot from 5x zoom:
5x zoom isn't quite as ambitious as the 10x zoom you can get from the Galaxy S23 Ultra. You can push as far as 25x digital zoom on the iPhone 15 Pro Max, but even 10x digital zoom is noticeably choppy.
The standard iPhone 15 Pro still has a 3x zoom lens this year.
All in all, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max cameras are very fun to shoot with, thanks to the versatility on offer. The competition does also have its strengths, however. Samsung has an edge in portrait mode in the Galaxy S23 family and the Galaxy S23 Ultra bests iPhone for optical zoom range, and the night mode on Pixel 7 pops just that little more than Apple's implementation.
Apple's key advantage is speed. The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max shoot faster than their Android rivals, so you're more likely to get the shot you're after. I've been able to get surprisingly sharp photos of my dog in low light with the iPhone 15 Pro, which just isn't something I've been able to achieve as consistently with Samsung or Google's flagship phones. As someone who predominantly uses their photo for taking photos of their rambunctious dog or bands at concerts, the extra speed is invaluable.
iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max camera samples
Check out these camera samples taken on the iPhone 15 Pro family. Click or tap on any photo to see a larger version.
Max phone, Max price
Phones sure are expensive these days, and every single iPhone 15 model got a price hike when compared to their predecessors. The iPhone 15 Pro costs $1,849 outright, which is $100 more than what you'd pay for an iPhone 14 Pro last year.
You're looking at spending even more for an iPhone 15 Pro Max, as Apple no longer offers a 128GB model. $2,199 for a 256GB model is the new starting price.
These changes make the iPhone 15 Pro family some of the most expensive non-foldable phones you can buy in Australia. The 256GB model of Samsung's Galaxy S23 Ultra sells for $1,949, while a 512GB model of the Pixel 7 Pro sells for $1,599. The only phone more expensive than the base-model iPhone 15 Pro Max is the Galaxy Z Fold 5 at $2,599.
If you're not an Apple loyalist, opting for a cheaper Android flagship could start to look appealing. And even if you're committed to Apple, the high prices beg the question of whether it's worth upgrading this year, and whether you actually need a Pro.
FineWoven is just fine
Alongside the iPhone 15, Apple announced it will no longer offer leather products, such as cases. Instead, it's using a new material called FineWoven for its high-end cases. It's almost like suede and I don't mind the feeling, but it damages very easily. My iPhone 15 Pro Max case has a big scratch on it and some subtle discolouration. It almost feels like you need to baby the case, which isn't what you want from a product designed to protect your phone - especially when it costs $89.
If you're looking for an Apple-made case for your iPhone 15 Pro, the silicon is easily the better option. Alternatively, check out our guide to the best iPhone 15 cases.
Last year's features on this year's phone
If you're buying an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max, there's a pretty good chance you're not upgrading from an iPhone 14 Pro. As such, there are a couple of big features from last year that will be new to you.
The first is Dynamic Island, Apple's interactive replacement for the notch. The Dynamic Island is a pill-shaped cut-out that houses the selfie camera and tech needed for Face ID, but also acts as a UI element. It will expand and contract to show extra information. For example, if you're listening to music or a podcast, the Dynamic Island highlights the album art and gives you a little waveform. Long pressing it gives you access to quick controls, while tapping it takes you back to your music app of choice.
By and large, the Dynamic Island is designed to foreground background tasks. Timers, Uber wait times, and directions can all utilise it. A year on, it hasn't changed how I use my phone, but it's still a useful addition that makes certain tasks a little quicker. I do love the little Dynamic Island flourish you get when you connect your AirPods however. It shows you their battery life, which has saved me from going to the gym with almost flat earbuds more than once.
The other key new feature from last year's Pro models is the always-on display. While Android phones have had always-on displays for ages, Apple's implementation is slightly different. Instead of just getting a black background with the time, you still see rich notifications as they come in and a dimmer version of your background. I actually found the dim background too distracting, so I set up my lock screen to just be black.
Either way, I quite like having access to glanceable information without needing to tap my phone. I've got widgets set up with the chance of rain, and that's saved my laundry more than once.
iPhone 15 Pro & iPhone 15 Pro Max - Final Thoughts
Our phones are already the most important computers in our lives, but the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro take the next step forward in feeling like a genuine computer. The interoperability of USB-C combined with the customisability of the Action Button make the iPhone 15 Pro feel powerful in a way past iPhones haven't.
I'm not talking about pure performance, but potential.
Filmmakers have already been using iPhones in a professional setting, and being able to record directly to external drives will be a boon for those specific workflows.
iPhone has always been a great platform for gaming, but the potential to run current generation AAA titles is a whole new thing. And if you've got a USB-C to HDMI cord and a Bluetooth controller, your iPhone 15 Pro can effectively be a console.
And while Apple's platforms are already the common choice for musicians, the way in which USB-C allows you to just plug in instruments without any fuss is a win. I can see the iPhone 15 Pro becoming a recording tool, in the same way the iPad already is.
Obviously the iPhone 15 Pro is also a great phone with a great camera, but interoperability offered by USB-C expands the potential of what it can be. Between the new connector and the endless tinkerability of the Action Button, we're going to see some interesting workflows emerge over the next year. I can’t wait to see the kind of nonsense people pull off.
For some power users, the flexibility offered by USB-C will alone be enough to justify an upgrade. But for most, there's no avoiding just how expensive the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are.
You still get most of the benefits of USB-C on the standard iPhone 15 models, as well as the Dynamic Island and a solid camera upgrade over previous models. For many, it will be a more pragmatic purchase - especially in this economy.
And of course, it's worth asking if it's even worth upgrading to a newer model. Unless you're on an iPhone 12 or older, you can probably hold out for at least another year.
The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max have me excited about the future of iPhone and a more open mobile ecosystem, what the devices represent is more important than the devices themselves. But hey, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are very good phones, and a great buy if you're ready (and have the means) to upgrade.
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