Apple unveils iPhone 15 with USB-C, camera upgrade & dynamic island

Apple has just announced the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus, and the big news is a USB-C port. Finally! We’ve been waiting for the day that the iPhone would switch to the widely used USB-C standard instead of Apple’s proprietary Lightning connector.

Apple confirmed last year that it would make the change to USB-C to comply with the European Union’s upcoming regulations, and the iPhone 15 is now the first iPhone to make the switch.

The iPhone 15 is priced starting at $799 for a 128GB model, and the iPhone 15 Plus starts at $899 for a 128GB version. Both will be available on September 22nd, with preorders starting this Friday.

USB-C is good news, but if you were hoping for a totally new iPhone 15 design, well, that’s not happening this year. This year’s iPhone looks largely the same as the iPhone 14 before it, with the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus continuing to use 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch displays, respectively.

All models of the iPhone 15 will also come with the Dynamic Island. That’s the pill-shaped cutout that first debuted on the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max, providing a new way to see certain notifications and interact with apps. The iPhone 15 also has an OLED Super Retina display, which supports Dolby Vision content with 1,600 nits of brightness. The peak brightness of this display is 2,000 nits in sunlight, double that of the iPhone 14.

The biggest noticeable upgrade to the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus outside of the visible USB-C and Dynamic Island changes is an improved camera system. The main camera sensor is moving to a 48-megapixel one, up from the 12-megapixel one found on the previous iPhone 14. There’s also a 12-megapixel ultrawide that’s capable of telephoto, and improvements to the portrait mode mean you won’t have to manually switch to portrait mode anymore.

Apple is also improving the night mode, Live Photos, and action mode in the iPhone 15 camera. And if you’re a fan of selfies, the front camera has autofocus and portrait lighting.

Inside the iPhone 15, Apple is also upgrading the chip to the A16, the same one found in last year’s iPhone 14 Pro models. Apple is also promising “all-day battery life” with the iPhone 15 thanks to a larger battery. The iPhone 15 also includes a second-generation ultra wideband chip, just like the new Apple Watch Series 9. This improves connectivity to other devices that are further away, and it can enable precision finding in Find Me so you can find friends more easily if they have the latest iPhone 15 models.

Last year’s iPhone 14 preserved much of the iPhone 13’s design, too. There was no Mini option last year, and one of the bigger iPhone 14 additions was Emergency SOS, an emergency messaging system that works via communication satellites when you’re out of range of a cell signal.

Apple is launching its latest iPhone 15 models alongside a new Apple Watch Series 9, which includes an upgraded chip with improved GPU performance, a second-generation ultra wideband chip, a “double-tap” feature, and more.