iPhone 15: What To Expect Camera, RAM, Design
New year means new products in Apple’s product pipeline. The iPhone 15 lineup remains, as usually, the epicentre of all Apple products that we anticipate to see during the upcoming 12 months. This year we do have important reasons to believe that the iPhone 15 will be different than its predecessor.
According to Jeff Pu, tech researcher and Managing Director of Haitong International, the iPhone 15 lineup is expected to debut in September 2023 with some important changes.
These changes are unrelated to the display and device sizes of the iPhone 15 lineup. Two pro and two non pro iPhones at 6.1-inches and 6.7-inches will once again constitute the 2023 iPhone lineup. The big change comes with the material of the iPhone 15 Pro chassis. Apple is finally expected to replace the heavier stainless steel frame with a new one made out of titanium as we recently saw with the Apple Watch Ultra. Apple is expected to use once again a chassis made out of aluminium in the non Pro iPhones.
Another major redesign is related to the physical buttons of the iPhone 15 Pro’s or to be more precise the lack of those. Apple is rumoured to ditch the physical power and volume buttons of the upcoming pro iPhones. More specifically, Apple considers replacing these with solid state buttons, similar to the one that has been around in the Apple ecosystem since 2016. Back then, Apple replaced the physical home button with a new solid state button in the iPhone 7 lineup. These buttons do not physically move; they just replicate the movement of physical a button through haptic feedback when the device is powered on. The biggest advantage of this update would be the improved water resistance. This would also lead to changing the hard reset process.
The RAM of the pro iPhones is expected to be increased by 33% going up from 6GB’s to 8GB’s. The pro iPhones are also expected to be powered by the brand new A17 Bionic Chip based on TSMC’s 3nm node. The regular, iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus are expected to use the A16 Bionic chip that was released in 2022.
Moreover, all pro and non pro iPhone 15 models are rumoured to feature Qualcomm's Snapdragon X70 modem and a USB-C port. The latter is expected to replace the lightning port which has been the port of choice for all iPhones since the iPhone 5 launch back in 2012. This change is driven by an EU directive that makes it mandatory for all smartphone manufacturers to use USB-C as the proprietary charging port for wired charging in all new smartphones released as of January 1st, 2025.
On the camera side, Jeff Pu expects two major changes in the iPhone 15 lineup. The basic iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus are expected to use a new 48MP main wide angle lens similar to the one found in the iPhone 14 Pro. The iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max (or Ultra) could use a new periscope lens for improved zoom shots perhaps at 6X. The regular iPhone 15’s are not expected to be equipped with neither a zoom lens nor a LiDAR Scanner.
The design of the iPhone 15 lineup is expected to maintain the signature flat chassis, however it is rumoured to be somehow rounded in the back. All four iPhone models are expected to use the Dynamic Island that was introduced in 2022 with the iPhone 14 Pro.
These information are based on reports by individual analysts or leakers and should not be considered as verified / official information.
