10+ things you may have missed in Apple’s iPhone 15 event

Apple has introduced new iPhones, new Apple Watch and Apple Watch Ultra models and reinforced its commitment to a carbon neutral supply chain. Here are ten smaller details that may have slipped underneath your radar.

iPhone for spatial video

You can create spatial video with IPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. Those models also support USB-3, which gives you throughput of 10Gbps between your iPhone and another device, including storage drives and displays. In other words, they just became movie cameras.

Now with Thread inside

The iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max are the world’s first Thread-enabled smartphones. Thread is Matter’s fast and energy-efficient networking protocol that connects smart home devices together – and now also connects your iPhone. Those Eve Systems products rarely looked so good.

Lighter than before

Last year’s iPhone 14 Pro weighed 206 grams, but this year’s equivalent is around 9% lighter at  just 187 grams. Despite a bigger screen, the Pro Max weighs 8% less than last year’s model, 221 grams compared to 240g.

Water usage is fast reducing

Apple plans to be 100 percent carbon neutral across its entire manufacturing supply chain and all product life cycles by 2030. With this in mind it is truly significant that Apple has reduced water usage by 63 billion gallons. No wonder Mother Nature seemed impressed, just as she was by Apple’s intention to save the African Savannah.

AirPods are made for Vision Pro

A stealth Apple Vision Pro announcement tells us that AirPods Pro (2nd generation) with MagSafe Charging Case (USB‑C) will enable Lossless Audio with ultra-low latency to deliver true wireless sound with Apple Vision Pro for “exceptional entertainment, gaming, FaceTime calls, and so much more.”

You get more time with USB-C

USB-C fast charge is exclusively available only on iPhone 15 Pro models. What’s good about it? You’ll get 50% charge in 30-minutes – but you’ll need the right cable. You can use your old Lightning cable to recharge your USB-C iPhone 15, but you will need to invest in a $29 dongle to make it work. Following the event, Apple began selling the adaptors on its site

Better networking

The new iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max are also the first iPhone models to support Wi-Fi 6E for up to 55% faster wireless speeds.

A new image format

The Phone 15 carries a new 48-megapixel wide lens that was only in the Pro range before. Apple has also implemented a new “HEIF Max” option in the Camera app that lets users capture images in 48-megapixel resolution to save in a compressed file.

More Apple Watch storage

Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 are the first to offer 64GB storage. This hasn’t increased since v.5.

One more thing

Francisco Jeronimo, VP, Data and Analytics, Devices at IDC seems really optimistic concerning the new iPhones. “Apple is tackling the long tail of 600 million iPhone users out there that will be due to upgrade at some point,” he said.

He anticipates Apple will sell 150 million of the new iPhones in the first 12 months, similar to last year’s cycle. “Consumers are holding onto their devices for longer durations, on average 36 months in many countries,” he said. “There is a substantial opportunity for Apple to encourage upgrades among those who have owned the iPhone 11, iPhone X, XR, XS, or even older models for more than four years,”  he added.

In other news, iOS 17, iPadOS 17, watchOS 10, tvOS 17, and HomePod 17 will be available as free updates on Sept. 18; macOS Sonoma ships a little later, on Sept. 26.

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