Apple has held its "Wonderlust" event at its headquarters in Cupertino, California, annoucing new iPhones and Watches.
They include:
- iPhone 15 and 15 Plus, starting at $1499 and $1649 respectlvely;
- iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max, starting at $1849 and $2149 respectively;
- Watch Series 9, starting at $649 (aluminium case) and $1199 (stainless steel);
- Watch Ultra 2, $1399.
Availability of the new devices is from September 22.
New system-on-chip, cameras, USB-C port, titanium finish for iPhone 15 Pro
Apple has built the 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch screen iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max around the new A17 Pro chip set, made with a 3 nanonmetre process.
The A17 Pro includes a graphics componentry redesign, with 20 per cent better performance from its 6 cores, and support for fast hardware accelerated ray-tracing supported by games such as Resident Evil Village, Resident Evil 4, Death Stranding and Assassin's Creed Mirage.
A 10 per cent processor speedup and a Neural Engine that's twice as fast as its predecessor are other A17 Pro improvements, Apple said.
As expected, Apple is moving to the industry standard USB-C port for the new iPhone 15 range, following regulatory pressure in the European Union.
The USB-C connector offers USB 3 data transfer speeds of up to 10 gigabit per second, and video output of 4K at 60 frames per second.
A refreshed camera system with a 48 megapixel main imager has been added to the iPhone 15 Pro range, defaulting to 24 Mp pictures.
The smaller iPhone 15 Pro has a 3X telephoto camera, and the larger iPhone 15 Pro Max a new 5X tetraprism lens that provides the 35 mm equivalent of 120 mm focal length.
Apple's new camera system automatically captures depth information when people, dogs or cats are in the frame, allowing users to change the focus for portrait photos.
A new option for Log encoding and support for the Academy Colour Encoding System (ACES) standard is also included.
On the iPhone 15 Pros, the single-function switch to toggle between ring and silent has been replaced with an Action button for quick access to more features, using press-and-hold gesture and haptic feedback.
Apple has introduced four new titanium finishes for the iPhone 15 Pro range, with black, white, blue and natural options.
iPhone 15 and 15 Plus
The more affordable new iPhone 15s both use last year's A16 Bionic chipset, and come with a 48 Mp main camera and a new 2X telephoto unit.
They also use USB-C connectors, Super Retina XDR displays with peak high dynamic range of 1600 nits; outdoors, the displays can go up to 2000 nits.
All the new iPhone 15 and 15 Pro devices support Apple's Emergency SOS via satellite service, MagSafe and Qi2 charging pads, plus the Ultra Wideband chip that lets users connect to each other.
The new devices also use eSIMs as with earlier iPhones, and run the updated iOS 17 operating system.
Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2
Apple has introduced a new chip set for the Series 9 Watch, the S9 SiP which has a four-core Neural Engine for better machine learning performance, and 18 hour battery life.
The S9 SiP also supports a double-tap gesture with index finger and thumbs of their watch hand to control the device.
A brighter, 2000 nit display is also built into the Watch Series 9, along with Ultra Wideband, and the watchOS 10 operating system.
Apple's sports-oriented Watch Ultra 2 also gets the S9 SiP chip, with battery life staying at 36 hours with regular use, or 72 hours in low-power mode.
The Ultra Watch 2 also supports the double-tap gesture feature, and has an even brighter display at 3000 nits than the Series 9 Watch.
It is also water proof up to 40 metres for recreational scuba diving, with a new Depth app.
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