Review: Six Months With the iPhone 15 Pro

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

Let's treasure this occasion by gathering in prayer and thanking our Lord and saviour, Timothy Applebaum Cook, for blessing us with the innovation that is USB-C on iPhones 15 and newer.

Amen!

 

[HouseLannister]

Like the lighter weight of the titanium.
The action button is too high up on the phone for me to bother using it. Mine is currently set to play/pause and I almost never touch it.
Launch day phone still at 100% battery health, 91 cycles, only charge via MagSafe and always to 100%, so that's pretty good so far.

 

[DutchApplePie]

It's a fantastic phone but a bit too much for my needs, I settled for the regular 15.

 

[stano_vittorio]

Hello, which wallpaper do you use in the video?

 

[marck1991]

100% with 135 cycles, 80% limit enabled. iPhone 15 Pro Max, using the action button as garage door opener by Shortcuts functionality.

 

[Fuzzball84]

Mine is 97% after 197 cycles. The variability always confuses me. Maybe the cold weather over the winter has something to do with it, but it really didn't get THAT cold and I wasn't outside that often with my phone.

There are so many variables affecting the battery health that it really isn't easy. Manufacturing batch, date of manufacture, storage, usage etc etc

Apple have designed it so that under normal usage the consumer doesn't have to worry.

With regards to the 80 percent capacity setting... for a phone.. I dont think you need to worry. It's nice to have yes... but for most people it's not going to make a huge difference. That type of setting is way more pertinent to MacBooks etc

Treating the phone nice... no shocks, leaving in the sun in a hot car etc and you will be fine.

 

[Fuzzball84]

100% with 135 cycles, 80% limit enabled. iPhone 15 Pro Max, using the action button as garage door opener by Shortcuts functionality.

I had 100% capacity after 1 and a half years of use on iPhone 13 mini

Apples batteries have came a long way in recent years. This is why they have upped the cycle count before 80% degradation on the recent models... the battery management and chemistry is superb for li ion.

 

[Hogswarts]

15 Pro Max here. Battery at 100% after 122 cycles. Most days, I don't need the whole charge and use the 80% charge feature.

 

[brio]

After 10 years of iPhone, I used the 15 Pro Max for 4 months and switched to the Pixel 8 Pro, because I got bored of it and I had this permanent feeling of buying always the same phone years after years.

 

[DesignTime]

I still have a 12 mini and was thinking of upgrading to a 15 Pro in the next couple of weeks. This video has convinced me to just wait another year or two before upgrading.

 

[jicon]

I ended up using the action button for a flashlight, but rarely use it, as it and the camera are easily accessible from the screen with a button press or quick swipe anyway.

It's been a welcome improvement over my prior phone, an iPhone 7, but the software is... how can I say this muting my frustration a bit... horrible. If it was sent to me at a restaurant, I'd send it back to the chef. Big issues with alerts, Standby mode, and dynamic island, which I think are more an issue with iOS 17. I rely on those pieces for critical health related information available on the fly, really considering reviewing Android options. There's combinations of using Standby with an Apple Watch that basically turn off audible alerts that I can't re-enable without keeping the device off Standby, the clock is the only screen on standby that shows in real time, meaning data is often ten or fifteen minutes out of date, and dynamic island will only allow use for up to eight hours. Apps need to manually be tweaked to push value in to dynamic island again, which... you can do with a shortcut, until 17.4 came about, and now gives a 50/50 chance the shortcut would successfully update or not... and if that shortcut is fired while in standby mode, said information is shown full screen and you must take the phone off the charger, turn 90 degrees, back another 90 degrees and place back on charger to see dynamic island detail back on the Standby screen with a clock. The infrequent updates of Standby apps are... a big miss. If the device is always being charged in Standby mode, what's the concern allowing an app showing updates every five minutes? Why is it randomly delayed much longer than that?

The amount of hoops you need to jump through to get tiny bits of information on a complication on a watch, or phone every five minutes is such a bummer.

 

[SyrOrange]

A former iPhone 13 mini owner here who now owns an 15 PM Blue titanium since Oct 2023. I'm at 100% with only 92 cycle count.

I use the action feature for the camera.

 

[ignatius345]

A former iPhone 13 mini owner here who now owns an 15 PM Blue titanium since Oct 2023. I'm at 100% with only 92 cycle count.

I use the action feature for the camera.

I was a small phone holdout for a long time, but the battery life on the 13 Mini was just killing me. I'd get off my morning train ride having used it for 45 minutes and find my battery down around 80% already.

Very happy with my 15 Pro. Battery life is very solid, and it's reporting 100% battery health at 198 cycles.

As far as everything else goes, love the camera, love the general responsiveness, love the smoothness and brightness of the display. Coming from that 13 Mini, it still feels a bit large at times, but it's not quite as heavy as I'd feared.

The Action button, I just have mapped to the default mute/ringer function. I need quick access to that, as much as I'd love a shortcut button for other uses. I kind of wish the Action button had been an additional button so I could use it for something fun or useful.

 

[Windoes]

100% with 112 cycles, 80% limit enabled. iPhone 15 Pro Max, the action button is the mute button

 

[JKLass]

I have my 15 Pro in a leather wallet-style case that is 1/8th inch thick in the back so there's no camera bump; lies flat. This case made by CaseMe also obviates need for a screen scratch protector. I bought the case back when I thot I was going to be getting a 13 Pro, but had the battery in my 6s replaced instead. Yet it fits the 15 Pro perfectly, so it probably would have worked also with the 14 Pro. I charge my 15 Pro to 80% when I first awaken and it lasts 24 hours ... still at 100% chargeable after 103 charges. The fineness of the screen resolution is mindbogglingly awesome and a magnifying glass is needed to begin to see the pixels. One of the most impressive features of the 15 Pro is the Dynamic Island that adjusts to different apps and functions. I listen to a lot of internet radio during the day and 'the island' is a reminder of what's playing when other displays are active. Hard to believe that album covers 3/16 inches square can be recognizably displayed on the left side of 'the island', that when touched, bring up the full radio app and the full-size album cover. It's so cool. I have my Action Button set to record quick voice memos when it's held in. It opens the recorder app and begins recording. The recorder Stop button is shown in 'the island'. The 15 Pro is an absolutely stunning technical achievement.

 

[timestride]

100% battery health on 185 cycles. Do not have a charge limit set. Keep forgetting about the action button. Had it set to translate for a recent trip to Puerto Rico, but didn't end up using it.

 

[sos47]

my 15 Pro is 100% after 99 cycles. so far so good

i came from an 11 pro
the 11 pro was the same weight but smaller, more comfortable to my hands. the 15pro is bulky in comparison to the 11pro.
i wish there will be smaller phones in the future, i would prefer a 16 or 17 pro mini.
btw. my hand size is XL ( or 10 in the EU)
i cant understand why apple phones are getting bigger and bigger.
in every product line there is a mini version, but not for iphones.

mac mini
ipad mini
macbook air 13“
iMac 24“ (which is a mini compared to the standard 27“)

 

[CopyChief]

Tremendous battery life so far on my 15 Pro. 184 cycles, sitting at 100%, and I don’t monkey with any 80% limits because then I’d have to charge more.

I dig the action button. I have it set to selfies, so I use the regular lock screen button for normal photos. Works for me.

 

[vorkosigan1]

100% after 100 cycles, bought in December. But I sit at my desk most days with it charging.

 

[chrise2]

I use the action button for the flashlight which I use all the time walking the dog at night. Its nice being able to use the button with gloves in the winter. I tried using it for the camera for a minute, but then I missed having the flashlight access so I put it back.

 

[MrGimper]

Used the action button for about a week when I got the phone and assigned a shortcut to it. Not used it since. In fact now I mess up taking screenshots as the volume up is no longer the “top” button and muscle memory.

Wish I’d kept my purple 14 pro max tbh.

 

[nitrobear]

The portraits on the review were the worst photos I've seen on a phone in such a long time, I thought for a second they were taken from the front camera of a phone in 2014 rip

As for the useless battery health stats, my phone shows 100% maximum capacity with 193 cycles, manufactured in July 2023 and heavily used since it came out. You can ask Tim Cook about it, he was in my Apple Store when I bought it (it was so random, I swear??)

 

[19callum93]

6 months in and battery health still at 100%!

 

[ApAx]

I use the Action Button like the previous silent switch. The other functions are either seldom used, or run through automations for the most part. I do miss having a quick visual to know if the phone is on silent or not.

 

[omiks]

Everything has been good, except for the camera. I wish they didn't process the images so much. 13 was amazing, but they screwed up on 14, and kept the overprocessing on the 15, sadly...