Apple prepares for iPhone 15 launch amid sales slump and tech upgrades

Apple is poised to reveal its latest iPhone iteration on Tuesday, a tradition held each late summer, aiming to stimulate interest in its flagship product. The presentation will take place at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California, and comes amid a slight decline in the company's sales over the past three consecutive quarters. Apple's management has also signaled the likelihood of another sales downturn in the current quarter coinciding with the iPhone 15's release, which has contributed to a nearly 10 percent drop in the company's stock price since mid-July, pushing its market value below the $3 trillion mark it achieved earlier this summer.

In terms of technological advancements, the upcoming iPhone 15 isn't anticipated to introduce any groundbreaking innovations, following a trend observed in the smartphone industry. The iPhone 15 lineup is expected to offer a range of choices, spanning from more affordable base models to pricier premium versions, with most of the improvements focusing on incremental enhancements to the device's chips, battery, and cameras.

The basic iPhone 15 models may also undergo a redesign that incorporates a dynamic cutout on the display screen, referred to as the "Dynamic Island," for app notifications. This design element was initially introduced with last year's Pro and Pro Max models.

According to reports, the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max may feature a periscope-style telephoto lens to enhance long-distance photography. This lens could offer a 6x optical zoom, though it would still fall short of the 10x optical zoom found in Samsung's premium Galaxy S22 Ultra. Nevertheless, it represents a substantial improvement over the 3x optical zoom of the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max.

Apple is also expected to raise the prices of the Pro and Pro Max models, possibly by an additional $100 to $200. This price increase will test consumer willingness to pay more for these devices, particularly in a period of post-pandemic inflation impacting household budgets.

One of the major anticipated changes is Apple's shift to the widely-used USB-C cable standard for charging the iPhone 15 models and future generations. This move is driven by a mandate imposed by European regulators for 2024, necessitating the phasing out of Apple's proprietary Lightning port cables, which were introduced in 2012 with the iPhone 5. It remains unclear whether this switch to USB-C will initially apply only to European market models or extend globally.

The transition to USB-C is expected to be relatively smooth for most consumers since USB-C cables are already prevalent across various devices, offering faster charging and data transfer speeds.

In addition to new iPhones, Apple typically unveils its latest smartwatches during this annual event, marking nearly a decade since their initial introduction. The launch of the new iPhones also sets the stage for the release of the next iteration of the device's operating system, iOS 17. This upcoming OS, available as a free download for earlier iPhone models later this month, will introduce features like real-time message transcriptions for unanswered calls, allowing users to decide whether to answer a call while the voicemail is being recorded.