On Tuesday, Apple took to its stage in typical fashion from its Apple Park, Cupertino headquarters to finally launch its latest generation flagship smartphone, the iPhone 15 series. The iPhone 15 launch event has typically seen Apple use it to showcase a large collection of hardware. While yesterday’s event was shorter than usual due to the absence of any products from Apple’s Mac, iPad or TV lineups, we still have a number of talking points from the event. On this note, here’s looking at everything that Apple announced at its iPhone 15 launch event.
Apple Watch Series 9
The first of the new hardware announced at the event was the new Apple Watch Series 9, which Jeff Williams, chief operating officer of Apple, unveiled as the company’s first-ever carbon-neutral product.
The latest smartwatch from Apple comes with a new S9 system-in-package (SiP) chip, which the company claimed has a four-core Neural Engine for on-device machine learning applications.
New features include a new gesture control called ‘Double Tap’, a new ‘Smart Stack’ for displays apps and actions, ‘Precision Find’ to locate your iPhone, faster on-device Siri thanks to the new chip, an even brighter display, and the usual array of incremental improvements to the Watch’s health tracking abilities — including mental health.
Key features
- New Apple S9 SiP
- Double Tap gesture control
- Smart Stack app interface with WatchOS 10
- Precision Find
- 2000-nits display brightness
- Sizes: 41mm and 45mm
- Colours: Starlight, Midnight, Silver, Product(RED), Pink (for aluminium); Gold, Silver, Graphite (for stainless steel)
Price in India
- Aluminium, GPS only: from Rs 41,900
- Aluminium, GPS + Cellular: from Rs 51,900
Apple Watch Ultra 2
The new Watch Ultra 2 is also an incremental improvement over its predecessor and is also powered by the new S9 SiP. Key new features include more altitude range tracking, as well as advanced water adventure tracking capabilities for scuba diving and freediving. It also has a new watch face, called Modular Ultra, and offers 36 hours of regular usage and 72 hours of use in low-power mode. The Double Tap gesture makes it here too, thanks to WatchOS 10, while the display offers up to 3000 nits brightness.
Key features
- New Modular Ultra watch face
- Scuba diving tracking
- 36 hours of battery life
- New S9 SiP
- All other new features of Watch Series 9
- 49mm titanium case
- Alpine loop, Trail loop and Ocean band straps
Price in India
Rs 89,900
iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus
The product that received the most meaningful upgrade during the latest Apple event is the standard iPhone 15. The latter gets Apple’s new Dynamic Island notch — a feature first introduced with the iPhone 14 Pro lineup.
Other key upgrades include the introduction of the new 48MP camera sensor in the primary camera unit of the iPhone 15, which in turn has also helped Apple include a sensor-crop 2x telephoto zoom feature — bringing an optical zoom-like effect into the standard iPhone for the first time in its recent history.
Other key new features include the use of the A16 Bionic processor that the iPhone 14 Pro series used last year, contoured edges for an easier grip on the palm, and the use of Super Retina XDR OLED display panels on the 6.1-inch iPhone 15 and the 6.7-inch iPhone 15 Plus.
However, Apple did not mention anything about a fast refresh rate on the new iPhones. Finally, and most importantly, the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus has received the much-rumoured shift to featuring USB-C ports for connectivity and charging — including support for reverse charging of AirPods and Apple Watches.
Key features
- A16 Bionic processor
- USB-C port
- 48MP primary camera with 2x telephoto zoom
- Super Retina XDR OLED displays
- Dynamic Island notch
- Colour options: Pink, Yellow, Green, Blue and Black
- Storage options: 128GB, 256GB and 512GB
Price in India
- Apple iPhone 15: Rs 79,900 to Rs 1,09,900
- Apple iPhone 15 Plus: Rs 89,900 to Rs 1,19,900
iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max
The upgrades to the Pro iPhones this year appear less exciting than last year, but there are a number of them under the hood. The most important one is the introduction of the A17 Pro chip — which Apple showcased as the world’s first consumer-end 3nm processor.
This also enables the use of a class-leading GPU, using which Apple showcased a number of AAA games to be coming to the iPhone — thanks to the A17 Pro’s ray tracing abilities. The next major upheaval for the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max users is the switch to an all-titanium phone body, which Apple claims has helped it make its lightest pro iPhones to date.
The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max also get a new 48MP primary camera lens system, while the Pro Max also gets a new periscope lens for 5x optical zoom. Finally, the USB-C system on the Pro iPhones also comes with USB-3, enabling faster data transfers, and the ability for filmmakers to use compatible external storage media when filming with the iPhone 15 Pro series. The 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch Super Retina XDR OLED displays, with always-on and ProMotion fast refresh rates, remain unchanged.
Key features
- A17 Pro 3nm SoC, new GPU with support for AAA console games
- Super Retina XDR OLED ProMotion always-on displays
- New 48MP primary camera system
- 3x optical zoom on iPhone 15 Pro, 5x periscope optical zoom on iPhone 15 Pro Max
- All titanium body
- Colours: Black titanium, Blue titanium, White titanium and Natural
- Storage options: 128GB-1TB for iPhone 15 Pro; 256GB-1TB for iPhone 15 Pro Max
Price in India
- iPhone 15 Pro: Rs 1,34,900 to Rs 1,84,900
- iPhone 15 Pro Max: Rs 1,59,900 to Rs 1,99,900
AirPods Pro (2nd gen) – Refresh
While not showcased during the event, Apple also introduced a refreshed AirPods Pro 2nd generation — with a USB-C charging port in its case, largely due to the European Union’s common port regulations. The earbuds retain all the usual features, including new support for lossless audio with the Apple Vision Pro augmented reality headset.
Price in India
Rs 24,900
