Confession time. When Apple announced that its new rugged and pricey smartwatch was named the Apple Watch Ultra rather than the Apple Watch Pro, this writer wondered whether Apple was hinting about a change it was planning to make to the Apple iPhone lineup. In my mind, I thought that perhaps next year Apple would release an even pricier iPhone 15 Ultra that would feature specs topping those on the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
Apple could replace the iPhone 15 Pro Max with the iPhone 15 Ultra
But before I could start typing, it dawned on me that this would require Apple to use the Ultra name for an iPhone, a name already used by its top rival Samsung. Apple wouldn’t do that I thought; so yeah, yours truly 86’d the idea and moved on.
Twitter tipster LeaksApplePro tweets about Apple’s rumored new iPhone naming scheme
You know you want the Dynamic Island! Buy the iPhone 14 Pro now!
We already know, or at least it is rumored, that all four 2023 models will sport the latest amazing Apple feature that you didn’t know that you needed, the Dynamic Island. Apple is expected to put this year’s 4nm A16 Bionic inside the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus while the 3nm A17 Bionic powers the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Ultra. That would make the iPhone 15 Pro and Ultra models the first iPhone models to use chips made using TSMC’s 3nm process node.
Apple iPhone 15 line could replace the Lightning port with a USB-C port
The smaller the process node, the larger the number of transistors that can fit in a small dense spot like a chip. And the higher a chip’s transistor count, the more powerful and energy-efficient that component is. Apple is also reportedly testing a way to move the components of the True Depth Camera (used for Face ID) to underneath the display using a hole-punch for the lens.
We’d be remiss if we failed to mention that all iPhone 15 models could probably replace the Lightning port with a USB-C port at long last. But that change could wait for the iPhone 16 since in the EU (that’s European Union to you and me) all devices using a wired charging platform must have a USB-C charging port by the fall of 2024.