iPhone 15 Pro Models Rumored to Feature Titanium Frame, Taptic Buttons, Increased RAM, and More

[Mr. Dee]

The 15 lineup is sounding like a big experiment. I might just get the iPhone 14 Pro Max as a refurb since I still have an unused Lightening charger.

I am not gonna say Apple is becoming directionless with the iPhone. But it sure is getting harder to squeeze out innovation. Hence the new emergency services.

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

I'm curious what the process will be to force restart an iphone with no physical buttons.

I think the physical buttons will be there. It will look more like the iconic iPhone 4 style. Rounded shape!

This was also rumored last year. Perhaps it will make an appearance this year in 2023. Yes, this is coming from Jon Prosser however his speculation is normally 1 year ahead of the current time frame

iPhone 14 Pro Design Details Starting to Emerge

Key design elements of Apple's "iPhone 14 Pro" are beginning to emerge ahead of the device's expected unveiling in September. The...

www.macrumors.com

Dated: January 12, 2022

 

[darthgreen]

i’ll believe it, when I see it

 

[SumYoungGai]

I think there is a good chance of Apple bumping up the prices of their Pro models by 100 due to inflation.

With the way Apple has been acting lately, I wouldn't doubt them keeping 48 MP in the Pro phones only for another year. Or maybe something asinine like locking 48 MP ProRAW to pro phones only as a way of differentiation while still putting the sensor in the lower tier phones and advertising it as better low light performance, better detail with pixel binning, etc

 

[Sammy in SoCal]

”Titanium is generally more scratch resistant than stainless steel, but it can still be scratched. In terms of hardness, titanium is about 6 on the Mohs scale, while stainless steel is around 5.5. The Mohs scale is a measure of mineral hardness, with lower numbers indicating softer materials and higher numbers indicating harder materials. However, the hardness of a material is not the only factor that determines its scratch resistance. Other factors, such as the type of steel and the treatment it has undergone, can also affect its scratch resistance. In general, titanium is a very durable and corrosion-resistant material, and it is often used in applications where strength and toughness are important.”


*I asked OpenAI this question and this was the answer regarding which material is more scratch resistant

 

[Grey Area]

Titanium has exactly two advantages over steel:
1. It has a higher strength/weight ratio. It's not stiffer, harder or stronger than steel. It's an 'aerospace material' because strength /weight ratio is a big deal when building a plane. (https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/...eel-vs-titanium-strength-properties-and-uses/) The steel component on your phone is one of the heavier parts, but one part being 40% lighter won't a huge difference on the complete assembly.
2. The cool-ass name. Great for marketing.

Costing more isn't great and the dull gray color is liked by some, I guess.

3. Titanium is virtually impervious to corrosion. Stainless steel will readily rust in salty, moist conditions (sweat, seawater), whereas titanium is unaffected.
4. Titanium is also hypoallergenic and thus safe to use for people with nickel allergy, unlike stainless steel that can leach nickel onto the skin.

 

[theorist9]

”Titanium is generally more scratch resistant than stainless steel, but it can still be scratched. In terms of hardness, titanium is about 6 on the Mohs scale, while stainless steel is around 5.5. The Mohs scale is a measure of mineral hardness, with lower numbers indicating softer materials and higher numbers indicating harder materials. However, the hardness of a material is not the only factor that determines its scratch resistance. Other factors, such as the type of steel and the treatment it has undergone, can also affect its scratch resistance. In general, titanium is a very durable and corrosion-resistant material, and it is often used in applications where strength and toughness are important.”


*I asked OpenAI this question and this was the answer regarding which material is more scratch resistant

For both titanium and steel, the scratch resistance depends upon the alloy. But considering the stainless steel and titanium alloys used in watches, stainless is generally considered more scratch-resistant than titanium. That's why titanium watches are sometimes offered with a DLC (diamond-like carbon) protective coating.

 

[Oscar_440]

Thank you Apple for using a Titanium frame chassis. The stainless steel is getting old and it’s got to go. Btw, I love my Titanium Apple Watch Ultra. I’m ready for it!

With a poor alloy, Titanium material gets uglier than polished aluminum over time. Let’s see how long it lasts.

 

[robinp]

Hopefully they use a brushed finish on the titanium. I’m personally a much bigger fan of a matte finish then a glossy finish like what is on the pro model phones right now.

Is titanium lighter than steel? Will this bring the weight of the phone down?

Yes, it’s much lighter. But the important thing is strength to weight ratio, otherwise known as specific strength

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_strength

This is where titanium alloy does especially well.

 

[theorist9]

Assuming they use a thick enough frame to achieve the same stiffness regardless of material, we have:

m ~ d/ E^(1/3), where m is the mass, d is the density, and E is the Young's modulus.

Thus:
m_Al ~ 2.7/10^(1/3) = 1.25
m_Ti ~ 4.5/15.5^(1/3) = 1.80
m_Fe (stainless steel) ~ 7.9/29^(1/3) = 2.57

From this we can predict the mass of a titanium frame would be about half-way between that of an aluminum frame (which is on the iPhone 14) and a stainless steel frame (which is on the iPhone 14 Pro).

 

[Grey Area]

For both titanium and steel, the scratch resistance depends upon the alloy. But considering the stainless steel and titanium alloys used in watches, stainless is generally considered more scratch-resistant than titanium. That's why titanium watches are sometimes offered with a DLC (diamond-like carbon) protective coating.

The surface finish is another aspect. Titanium rarely gets polished, as it has a "rubbery" quality that makes it gum up grinders. Instead it usually gets brushed or sand/bead blasted, and the tiny hills and valleys of such rough surfaces are easier to scuff and scratch than a smooth surface.

 

[saintmac]

It would be nice if they went full Apple Watch ultra with this one: titanium frame, sapphire glass in the front, titanium lip around the display and sapphire or ceramic back.

That would finally be an iPhone that you could safely go baseless with !

Assuming that they keep the display size unchanged it would be the first pro model to be significantly smaller (compared to a 14 Pro + case) and lighter than the previous one which would be great !

 

[ZZ9pluralZalpha]

A titanium-framed iPhone would pretty much need to be branded an Ultra to excuse the single choice of color. Remember what happened when Steve wanted the TiBook to be silver?

 

[acconda81]

Titianum… I wonder how much real world difference this will make ? I had absolutely no issues before with any models! long as they don’t decide to increase the costs. Mine are always put in casesso won’t be seen or touched lol as for speed, I barely noticed the difference when I went from iPhone 7 Plus to iPhone 13 pro max beside the larger screen of course, yeah it opens an app 0.5 seconds faster and I am thankful that I can add upp all those milliseconds at the end of year. doubt I will be upgrading again until iphone 20

 

[MacFin]

Call me old school, but I hate the idea of removing physical buttons and replacing them with haptic ones. I think this could easily be as stupid a move as Apple implementing a touch bar on Macbooks and then reversing back to a regular keyboard. Here's my reasoning.

Most of us who live in colder countries use gloves. With haptic feedback, you can no longer easily operate the phone, especially adjusting the volume when listening to music. This applies not only when you are holding the phone but also when it's in your pocket. I cannot tell you how often I still adjust the volume while my iPhone is still in my pocket. With haptics, we can say good buy to all of this.

Secondly, haptics will mean a small "revolution" in custom cases for the iPhones since unless you use some special materials, you can't really get the buttons working. Obviously, this issue is fairly easy to solve (just make cutouts for the buttons) or buy the case directly from Apple since they have found the perfect "solution" for the problem they intentionally created.

I get that one reason Apple might want to ditch physical buttons might be to improve water resistance, but it already has excellent water resistance. Apple does not need to create a phone that can live underwater 24/7 so what other true benefits of solid buttons really have? A much better idea would be to focus on improving cold resistance, which is still rubbish since once the temperatures go below -10 Celcius iPhones tend to shut down.

The greatest irony in this all is that all Apple engineers constantly seem to forget that half of the people on this planet live in areas that get cold during winter; hence, gloves are a big part of the smartphone experience. Now they want to cripple their iPhone user experience to brag about new "technological enhancements" that actually make the user experience worse.

Regular buttons don't need any power source, but haptics do. So technically adding haptics requires more components that could at some point, fail or break down + they also add that small battery drain too. That all being said, I really struggle to understand what "good" Apple can really archive by abandoning classic buttons.

 

[theorist9]

It would be nice if they went full Apple Watch ultra with this one: titanium frame, sapphire glass in the front, titanium lip around the display and sapphire or ceramic back.

Apple did try to outfit the iPhone 6 with a sapphire screen cover. Here's what happened:

The company that dashed our sapphire-covered iPhone dreams is being charged with fraud

Now, it’s only sparingly used on pricier Apple Watches and to cover camera lenses

www.theverge.com

I'm also not sure how well sapphire would work for a smartphone. It offers superb scratch resistance, but might be too brittle and thus too prone to cracking. The latter is much less of an issue for a watch crystal or camera window, where the sapphire would be much smaller and thicker (typically 3 mm for a watch crystal; Gorilla Glass on a smartphone is ~0.5 mm). HTC did produce a sapphire phone in 2017 (the U Ultra Sapphire Edition) but I've not been able to find reports on whether it was more breakage-prone than glass.

 

[Nozuka]

Lighter would definitely be nice. Especially if i am some day supposed to switch from the Mini...

 

[Marty80]

For the pros high price tag, I won’t change my iPhone 12 pro max unless the iPhone:

Goes Full Screen, with a larger display and gets a design overhaul, with better speakers etc. With something New and Exciting, since the X the iPhones design and features are getting boring.

I will hang on to my iPhone 12 Pro Max, hopefully third time is the charm with the iPhone 16 pro max.

 

[d686546s]

Personally I would like them to move away from steel and glass entirely.

For me the Google Pixel 5 with its aluminium frame coated with bio-resin was the ideal phone (if it ran iOS). It was light, durable and not very prone to scratches or fingerprints.

This obsession with premium materials has to stop in favour of materials that over 90% of us don't feel need to immediately cover in even cheaper plastic.

 

[stormbeast]

The article wasn’t specific about whether the Taptic buttons would be touch-sensitive or pressure-sensitive. Traditional cases would probably still work with pressure-sensitive buttons, whereas cutouts/conductive caps would be needed for touch-sensitive solid-state buttons.

But a removal of the silent mode switch would definitely suck!

 

[fatTribble]

I would just love an iPhone that doesn’t need a case. I never used a case until the X. The glass back just makes it seem so fragile. I dropped by 6’s and 7’s all the time without anything breaking. To me premium means durable.

 

[meteoreos]

USB-C, finally! I can upgrade from my beloved XS later this year.

 

[Shirasaki]

Probably take it into an Apple store to have it done lol.
But would be interesting to actually know.

Given how bad iOS has been recently, I expect support calls skyrocket, and more people will be left without a functioning phone at some critical moments.
A phone that you cannot reset when things go south is just bad. You cannot even disconnect battery temporarily yourself anymore.

 

[The Game 161]

Sounds like the upgrade people have been waiting years for. Lighter phone as well. No doubt will cost more

 

[jouster]

I'm curious what the process will be to force restart an iphone with no physical button.

Restarts are soooo 2007. There will be no need for them--you simply purchase a new iPhone Ultra!