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1 Year Review of iPhone 15 Pro Max!

13:45 video

It has been almost a full year since the iPhone 15 and 15 Pros came out, and the iPhone 16 is right around the corner. So I figured this is a good time for an exit interview of sorts: what’s been good, what’s been bad, and what’s been meh with the iPhone 15 Pro Max over the last year.

This video was sponsored by CalDigit, my dock partner.

Titanium and the design

The biggest external design change of the iPhone 15 Pro was moving to titanium sides and away from the shiny stainless steel. Mine is the natural titanium color and I like it a lot. I think it looks pretty good, but I am getting tired of these bland colors. I loved the Pacific Blue of the iPhone 12 and I wish Apple would start going back in that direction.

The design language is extremely similar to the previous versions of iPhone, back to the iPhone 12 with the flat sides. The edges of the frame are just slightly rounded compared to the very sharp edges of the 14 Pro and Pro Max. On the back you have the ever-growing camera lenses, which now include the 5x tetraprism lens, and matte glass similar to the previous models. There’s the Action button on the left side and the USB-C port on the bottom.

Durability, and six months without a case

The durability of the 15 Pro Max has actually surprised me quite a bit. In the last six months I’ve gone completely caseless on this phone, just to see what it’s like, because I’ve never done that before.

I have dropped this phone without a case multiple times in those six months and it has held up extremely well. So has the screen. Holding a light to it, you can barely see any scratches. There are maybe a couple of micro-abrasions on the display, but I’ve dropped this on concrete, on tile, on wood floors, and on tables and counters, and it still looks amazing.

In fact, the biggest ding on this iPhone is from when I was using it with a case and it fell from about six feet onto a flat tile surface. After dropping it on concrete, I have a slightly rough edge on one corner, and that’s it. This guy has taken a beating and kept on going.

But despite all of that, and despite the weight reduction going from the 14 Pro Max to the 15 Pro Max with titanium, I still hate using this thing without a case. I really miss having one, and after today the case is going back on.

Sure, iPhones look great naked and they slide in and out of your pocket really easily, but I’m tired of holding this thing. It’s slippery. When I pull it out of my pocket, it just kind of wants to fall out. A case gives you additional grip. It also gives you the psychological sense of safety, so you can put your phone down on any surface and not worry about what sound it’s going to make.

Overall, the design is great, the weight reduction with the titanium has been a welcome change, and it has held up extremely well.

The Action button

When this button came out, I was excited. What could it do? Well, you can only assign one function to it at a time.

Like a lot of you, I assigned the camera to the Action button at first. After a couple of weeks or months I realized I wasn’t even using it, because I have years of muscle memory for opening the camera from the lock screen. So the Action button really gave me no benefit.

When I switched it to the flashlight, that changed everything. I use this button at least once a day, sometimes five times a day. If I’m under the desk doing some cable management, I turn on the flashlight. If I’m in the garage or the attic and don’t have enough light, I use the flashlight. If I’m trying to figure out what that weird spot on my leg is, I use the flashlight.

It’s great that Apple lets you assign a number of different functions to the Action button, or really anything when you use a shortcut. But I’ve seen people build menus with it, and I don’t get it. That’s just too much. I enjoy it as a flashlight button, it’s worked well, and I’ve used it a ton.

USB-C

Apple added USB-C to the iPhones with a collective “finally” and sigh of relief from the entire world.

I know the USB-C port has been game-changing for a lot of you. If you’re trying to get ProRes 4K60 off your phone, USB-C is awesome. If you’re a remote podcaster hooking up a USB-C mic, USB-C is awesome. If you just want to carry one charging cable for your laptop, your phone, your tablet, and whatever else you travel with, USB-C is awesome.

It’s possible to connect a USB-C dock to your iPhone, mirror the display, and connect a keyboard, mice, and other accessories, and I guess that has a purpose. But my usage has really been limited to sometimes charging with USB-C and sometimes connecting an external drive to get high-res video or other files off the iPhone.

Although I haven’t had a lot of need for the USB-C port, it’s really nice to know it’s there, and it just makes things so much easier.

Display

The display on the iPhone 15 Pro is just awesome. It’s a Super Retina XDR display at over 400 pixels per inch. The thing with the 15 Pro Max is that it now gets up to 2,000 nits of brightness outside, which makes reading your iPhone in the middle of a hot, bright Texas day actually usable.

It doesn’t last a whole long time, because eventually it gets hot and starts dipping down. But it’s nice for those times when you’re outside and need to read a quick text message or do a quick search.

Cameras

There were a number of camera updates on the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, including a new 48-megapixel sensor. What’s great about that sensor is that you can choose different focal lengths to get just the right framing. Tap the 1x button and you can go to 28 mm, 35 mm, or back to 24 mm, and you can set a default for which one you want to use.

Right next door is the 2x button, which also crops in on that main sensor, giving you essentially a lossless crop.

But the real star of the show is the 5x tetraprism zoom lens on the iPhone 15 Pro Max. This thing has been awesome. Honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back to an iPhone that doesn’t have at least a 5x zoom. It was game-changing at my daughter’s volleyball games, where I could actually get crisp video of her serving from across the gym. I was able to get shots I was never able to get on previous iPhones, and I am so thankful for that.

The big video feature was the addition of ProRes Log. You get really high quality video that you can grade in software later to get the color you’re looking for. The downside is that the files are about 30 times bigger than your regular video files, and if you want 4K60, you have to use external storage on that new USB-C port.

This feature is great, and I’ve used it a number of times for B-roll and other shots in my videos. But I have found that when I need log footage, I use the Blackmagic Camera app, because I can shoot H.265 with log rather than ProRes Log. The files are much, much smaller, and the video is indistinguishable from ProRes in the way I use it, at least.

The A17 Pro, and Apple’s FU

For the first time, Apple released a “Pro” A-series chip in the 15 Pro and Pro Max, the A17 Pro. It’s no slouch. In all of my tests it was about 10 to 20% faster than my 14 Pro Max. But the 14 Pro Max was already extremely fast, and so is the 15 Pro Max.

Really, performance on iPhones has not been an issue for me at all in the last couple of years. Apple can keep adding more processing power, but it doesn’t change how I use my iPhone. And that’s okay. That’s good.

One thing Apple added to the 15 Pro and Pro Max that it didn’t add to the regular 15 is 8 GB of memory. That means the iPhone 15 Pro is the first iPhone that will be able to use Apple Intelligence. Apple Intelligence, coming with iOS 18.1, is going to be for the iPhone 15 Pro, Pro Max, and newer. If you have a regular iPhone 15 or 15 Plus, you are not going to get Apple Intelligence on that device, ever.

That really sucks, and Apple is definitely to blame for it, for being so stingy with RAM on their phones, their laptops, their everything for the last number of years. This is coming back to bite them. People are going to be really upset that their one-year-old iPhone can’t run some of Apple’s newest stuff, especially since some of it could just go to the cloud. It doesn’t make any sense.

Maybe there will be reversals on this, maybe not. But I think it was definitely not an oversight. It was an intentional FU to whoever bought the iPhone 15. Normally that’s not a stance I take. I don’t think Apple purposely limits their devices. But in this case, they knew far in advance that this was coming, and they really screwed anybody who bought a regular iPhone 15.

Battery is king

I don’t generally enjoy the size of the iPhone 15 Pro Max. The reason I usually go for it is simply battery life, and the battery life on the 15 Pro Max has not disappointed at all.

This iPhone is about a year old, and in the last 10 days my average screen time was a very unhealthy 5 hours and 46 minutes. I should be ashamed of myself. But the fact that I can use this iPhone for 5 hours and 46 minutes, plus three to four hours of background idle time, and still go to bed with between 25 and 50% battery is pretty insane.

After a year of use, my battery health is down to 91%. That’s surprisingly low compared to my iPhone 14 Pro Max, which is at 94% at almost two years old, though it wasn’t used much in the last year.

Regardless, battery life on the iPhone 15 Pro Max has been awesome. I use a lot of DirecTV, so a lot of background video, plus a lot of Safari, Threads, applications for work, YouTube, and other things. I use this phone quite heavily, and the battery definitely lives up to what I need.

After a full year

Other than that, there’s crash detection and the satellite SOS features, which I’ve never had to use and hopefully never will, but it’s nice to know they’re there.

Really, there’s just not a lot to be unhappy with on the iPhone 15 Pro Max. It has been a solid device. It’s held up well, it’s taken some beatings, it keeps on ticking, and it lasts all day. It does everything I need it to do and more.

The Pro Max size, though: I am tired of holding a big phone, and I think it is starting to cause some RSI issues in my hands. It’s the way I have to hold it, grip it, and reach all the way across with my thumb to get to the other side of the screen. And without a case, this slippery little bugger is hard to grip with one hand.

But I’ve tried going to the regular 15 Pro, and battery life is the thing that keeps me coming back to the Max, along with the better camera system.

In this video

Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I may receive a small commission. See my ethics statement.

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