So it’s that time of year again, where the Apple fans, like myself, rejoice at the fact that Apple have announced their newest iPhones.

For me, I enjoy hearing Tim Cook’s introduction where he says “Good Morning”. Surely I’m not the only who enjoys this?

This year it was the turn of the iPhone 15 and also for me, my two year upgrade cycle has arrived which means, I’ll be taking a lot of interest in this one because I’ll be upgrading to one of these phones from my trusty iPhone 13 Pro, which has served me well over the last two years.

Main points from the Apple event (from the iPhone point of view)

Firstly, those colours, the flamboyant and more adventurous iPhone 15 colours in pink, yellow, green, blue and black. I’m assuming that we will probably should expect to see another iPhone 15 colour at some point early next year when Apple does their regular thing and brings some mid season attention and sales back to the iPhone with another “out there” colour.

But meanwhile, the iPhone 15 Pro (and Pro Max) come in, what would be best described as less adventurous and more duller titanium colours in natural, blue, white and black. I sometimes wish they were as outgoing with their Pro phones as they are with the standard phones but I’m sure this year that the natural and blue colours will be popular.

The dynamic island, introduced on last years Pro models is now a feature on all models. I remember watching last years keynote when they first introduced the dynamic island and I was so close to upgrading to a 14 Pro (from my 13 Pro) just because of it, thankfully I made the sensible decision not to upgrade. So now it’s a feature of all models, hopefully going forward from this point, developers will now focus on making the dynamic island experience as good as it should be with loads more apps taking advantage of what the dynamic island can do.

I like to take photos and videos, so having a phone that is capable of taking really good, high quality photos and videos is a really important feature of a phone for me.

While the videos taken on iPhone’s are generally pretty good, for me historically it’s the photography side of some location based images that have let the iPhone down in the past, sometimes the sky gets blown out, night shots are under or over exposed, but never that perfect shot which arguably other phone brands are getting better at.

But hopefully with the new 48MP main camera and the improved machine learning that Apple is incorporating within their new phones to accompany the new hardware, this is going to make those sharp, richer images that are produced by these new iPhones like the ones that we saw in the keynote, the best by Apple so far, until the iPhone 16.

This years iPhone 15 Pro Max has a slight difference, other than size, weight and battery life compared to the iPhone 15 Pro and that’s the telephoto camera, instead of the 3x optical zoom on the Pro and the 2x optical zoom on the non pro models, the Pro Max has a 5x optical zoom thanks to the slightly more room that’s in the Pro Max that allows for what Apple calls a “Tetraprism”, which allows light to travel into the camera sensor giving an equivalent focal range of 120mm, so you’ll be able to get closer to your subject before you have to do any of that digital zoom, which I’ve never been a fan of, particularly on an iPhone.

I like the idea of the shifting focus in a portrait photo feature after you’ve taken the photo, but I remember when the HTC One M8 was doing something similar with their ufocus feature almost 10 years ago. But is it a feature that I’ll use going forward, only time will tell.

I think the iPhone always look like manufactured pieces of modern art, very symmetrical in their design finished to a very high standard as you would expect.

This year iterations are no different, the non pro’s feature the colour infused back glass surrounded by that aluminium enclosure with that ceramic shield protected super retina XDR display while the pro’s have the textured matt glass back, the same ceramic shield on the XDR display and the new brushed titanium enclosure, which looks so much better than the finger print magnet that was the stainless steel frame. Hopefully, the new titanium frame is less prone to fingerprints than this one.

All of these design features are intended to make the phone tougher and stronger then ever before and with the titanium on the pro’s making them lighter then their predecessors and hopefully more comfortable to hold as well.

Apple are giving it users the ability to customise something on the phone, first it was iOS 16 with it’s all new personalisation features and widgets, now it’s an action button.

Away with the mute switch (on the Pro’s only) and welcome the action button, a programmable button that when enabled allows you to, keep it as it was before as a silent mode toggle, change focus mode, enable the camera, the torch, initiate voice memos, the translate feature, the magnifier, any pre made shortcut, which essentially is almost any action of your iPhone and finally the accessibility feature. All from pressing and holding the action button.

Only on the Pro’s this year but I’m guessing the feature will be passed down to the non Pro’s next year.

The main change and the one feature so many of us have been waiting for, USB-C. How many of you would have thought you’d ever see the day that an Apple made iPhone would have a USB-C port.

I honestly thought that the threat from the EU may have pushed Apple to go straight to a portless phone first, but in truth, I don’t quite think the capabilities of magsafe is quite there yet.

I’m surprised that Apple played the whole move to USB-C thing quite low par, I was expecting some big fan fair and something where they talk about USB-C being the next big thing, similar to when they moved the iPhone over to fully adopt 5G, it was almost as if we’d never heard of the thing before, but with USB-C it was different.

USB-C is a great move, the endless possibilities, the accessories that will now be compatible with your iPhone, the charging cables that you can share with your android mates, the quicker speeds that I’ll be able to transfer ProRES footage from an iPhone to a Mac instead of using Airdrop, you’ll be able to charge a pair of the new (USB-C) case AirPods directly from your phone, connect external drives to phone so they can save directly onto the drive. Is the move to USB-C worth the upgrade to the iPhone 15 models alone?

There will be a lot of android users out there that wouldn’t move because of the fact that older iPhones used lightning but now what’s stopping them.

September 2023, the month of the new iPhone 15’s, better design, better build, better chips with the A17 Pro and the A16 Bionic, better cameras and of course, USB-C. But let’s not forget the little things like the potential transition of A list console games being playable on the Pro’s, the ability to be able to record spatial videos, compatible with the upcoming Apple Vision Pro, which are essentially 3D videos, which is pretty impressive. Those emergency SOS via satellite and the crash detection features carried over from the previous generation, all working with iOS 17 to give you the most complete Apple mobile experience that you’ll get.

As I always say, the generation to generation upgrades are never really worth it because of those incremental changes that those transitioning from a 14 to a 15 isn’t going to benefit from but users of phones outside of that should feel the benefit of upgrading if they are able to.

It seems like this year, every iPhone 15 model has it benefits that outweigh its negatives and is packed with amazing features that should make any owner very happy.

If you want to see the video version of this article, check out the below YouTube link: