I just got back from a lunchtime trip to the Apple Store. As I mentioned in my original post, its a rare year that I don't upgrade, and I wanted to see the iPhone 15 PM in person. I think my original feeling was correct, there is no real reason to upgrade from my iPhone 14 PM this year.
I picked up a model in Natural Titanium. The color and feel does look great. However, knowing my own usage, it would be in a case from the minute I took it out of the box, so the feel and color are almost meaningless to me. The phone is zippy as it should be. The action button is nice and i'm sure people and Apple will come up with great uses for it in the future. However, I use the mute switch every day, I do glance at my phone to make sure the ringer is off if im in a meeting or a show. So its a good addition to the phone, but not groundbreaking in my opinion.
We all know the differences in cameras by now. Improvements, yes of course, but enough to upgrade? Not this year.
USB-C is a major improvement if you are a professional photographer or content creator and will use the port to record to external drives and move multiple photos and video across devices. But for the average user such as me, it's again not game changing. I have many lightening cables, I charge wirelessly every night, and still have many devices that use lightening (Magsafe Duo, Magsafe Battery Pack, Magic Mouse).
The feel and look of the phone was very similar to the 14PM. Im not sure I would even get that "new toy" feeling.
This post isn't a negative post against Apple or anyone who decided to upgrade. Apple adds enough into a phone each year to differentiate it from the year before because the have to sell millions of phones each year. My point is that a 14PM has 95% of the features and usability of the 15PM. I still do have some FOMO, I can't shake that feeling. But again, as of now, I am sticking with my 14PM.