Early Rumors of the iPhone 15
by Matthew Nudelman
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The iPhone 15 Pro models that will most likely be releasing later in the year as usual are said to feature a significantly upgraded processor in the form of the A17. It is said to be Apple’s first iPhone processor that will be based on TSMC’s 3-nanometer process. This technology is expected to enable significant upgrades for iPhone performance, though many say that even the iPhone 13 Pro is overkill with its incredibly effective A15 chip. The adoption of this technology for iPhones has been expected for some time, and it is now expected that this may improve performance and efficiency even more, with a supposed 35% power efficiency improvement over the 5-nanometer process of the A16 chip in the iPhone 14 Pro.
Apple is also expected to continue a new trend of only giving the Pro phones the new processor, while the base-level phones will stick with the processor that last year’s Pro phones had. This may be partially motivated by cost as it is more expensive to manufacture phones with the new processors, a reason for other companies to wait until prices are lower. 
The iPhone 15 Pro models are also highly expected to finally feature USB-C connectivity instead of Lightning, something many people have been waiting a long time for. Many have been predicting since before the reveal of the iPhone 14 that the Pro phones would be only the ones to have USB-C in 2023, as Apple is likely trying to drag out the life of the Lightning connector for as long as possible due to the new requirement in the EU demanding all new mobile devices to use the USB-C standard. Proprietary hardware means guaranteed sales, after all, and it’s clear that Apple knows they would be making slightly less money if users could buy chargers from anywhere. This also relates to a rumor that Apple will skirt the requirement by using USB-C ports, but including a condition that only Apple-certified connectors will be allowed to take full advantage of the port’s data and charge speeds, with a cap for every other cable, making them as slow as Lightning. And as many are aware, Lightning is still notoriously slow for the 2020s, at a maximum data transfer rate of 480 Mbit/s. This is the equivalent of USB 2.0, which was introduced more than two decades ago. To put that in perspective, Windows XP released after USB 2.0 was first introduced. There have been 5 major releases of Windows since then, and the current standard USB version is USB3.2 with a maximum data transfer rate of 20 Gbit/s, 40 times faster than USB 2.0. 
It is also rumored that at some point within the next couple of years, Apple will rebrand the Pro Max iPhones to “Ultra”, citing apparent plans for a higher-end iPhone to replace the iPhone Pro Max in line with the Apple Watch Ultra naming. At first it was said to be starting with the iPhone 15, but is now expected to be part of the iPhone 16 lineup.
None of this information can be fully confirmed until the Apple Event towards the end of this year, so all that is known at this point can only be based on rumors and “insider information.” There will likely be more rumors and speculation to come throughout the year and towards phone announcement season.