By Ronald Samonte
July 24, 2023
iPhone 15 - Rumors and Leaks...
If you have an urge of buying an new iPhone or upgrading your old iPhone, you might want to wait for a few more months. Yes Folks, Apple is again gearing up to unveil the best and greatest iPhone that Apple has designed and built at least for this year. If you're like me who hates Apple's lightning port and swear not to buy an iPhone unless we get a USB-C port as part of the upgrade. The time for my iPhone upgrade might be coming this year as the rumors and leaks of the iPhone 15 lineup turns out to be quite interesting and positive.
1
Goodbye Lightning and Hello USB-C - Apple is finally ditching the lighting port in order to comply with EU regulatory requirements. The rumored USB-C upgrade have been in the news since last year.
Image from Twitter by leaker Unknownz21
A leak was shared on Twitter by leaker Unknownz21 revealing image of an iPhone with a USB-C port. On a positive note, the transition to USB-C would be welcomed by many iPhone users. But I would keep my fingers crossed for Apple not to messed-up this upgrade. There are rumors that Apple may add some of their propriety technology to lock the USB-C to their MIFI ecosystem. This could mean your generic USB-C cable lying around in your table might not fully work on the new iPhone 15. Hopefully Apple does include a USB-C cable as part of the iPhone 15 package. But I won't be surprised if they don't include it either as they make a fortune of selling accessories which should have been included in the first place.
iPhone 15 camera upgrade - According to a report from Nikkei, the upcoming iPhone 15 lineup would be using Sony's latest image sensors. Recent leaks seem to confirm that the main camera would likely be
Sony's new 48MP 1 inch sensor IMX903. The full range of iPhone 15 models are expected to have the IMX903 upgrade. This is good news for people who plans to upgrade to the regular iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus variants. Another potential camera upgrade is the rumored 5x - 6x periscope telephoto lens. However, the rumors are also saying that only the iPhone 15 Pro Max would receive the telephoto lens upgrade while iPhone 15 Pro would still be using the current 3x telephoto lens of the iPhone 14 Pro.
The specs of the four cameras of the iPhone 15 in terms of megapixels are as follows:
🟠 Main Sensor - 48 MP
🟠 Ultra-Wide - 12 MP
🟠 Telephoto - 12 MP
🟠 Front camera - 12 MP
2
3
Dynamic Island and Slimmer bezels - I was one of those disappointed when the innovative display island was exclusive for the iPhone Pro lineup only.
This time the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus are rumored to upgrade to the dynamic island design. Although a lot of reviewers view the dynamic island more as a gimmick. I think the dynamic island could be the final iteration of a design that started with the notch. Once Apple figures out how to hide both the front facing camera and face id sensors at the back of the screen then that would replace the dynamic island. The roadblock for an under-screen implementation could be the technology to further decrease the size of the face id sensors may not be practical on a scale that Apple needs.
For Android users, under screen cameras has been around for almost 3 years. But since Android phones mostly rely on fingerprint security - under screen or side button, and not on a face id like implementation, it was never a technical problem for Android. I find the under-screen front facing camera implementation on android phones to be more clean and efficient use of screen real estate. It's evident that Apple is not in a hurry to copy this Android innovation and seems satisfied for now on its implementation of the dynamic island. Apple might be reserving this upgrade for the future iPhone 16 or 17.
4
We could also see slimmer bezels on the iPhone Pro lineup. In fact, there are rumors circulating that iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max availability during launch day to be available on limited quantities. This could be due to early manufacturing difficulties on producing the slimmer bezels.
Qi2 Wireless Charging - iPhone 15 is also rumored to get some upgrades on wireless charging. The iPhone is still stuck on the awfully slow 7.5W wireless charging when using regular wireless Qi chargers.
That sad feature forces people to invest on Apple's proprietary MagSafe charger which can do 15W. Qi2 is a relatively new wireless charging standard and works in a similar way with MagSafe where it uses magnetic support to improve on the charging efficiency. If the upcoming iPhone 15 do adopt Qi2 then it's a great deal for people who are looking for cheaper wireless charging alternative.
