Everything we know about Apple’s rumored premium flagship

Rumors point to an unprecedented iPhone Ultra on the scene, and here’s everything we know about it so far.

The iPhone 14 series has just been launched, but already the internet is abuzz with more rumors about Apple’s next range of phones, and none of the tidbits we’ve heard so far are as exciting as the news that an iPhone 15 Ultra is potentially in the works under development.

This will be Apple’s highest-spec smartphone of the year, eclipsing even the likes of the iPhone 14 Pro Max, so we’ve rounded up all the information we know about it so far in the article below.

Release date

The iPhone 15 Ultra, if it does arrive, will likely be unveiled alongside the rest of the iPhone 15 lineup, which we expect to arrive around mid-to-late September 2023. In fact, we’d put reasonable money on it being the last product unveiled that day , thanks to Apple’s traditional demo style.

The iPhone release date schedule is now pretty well established, and so while we haven’t landed on an official or unofficial release date yet, it’s a pretty safe bet that we’ll see the new iPhone series (and potentially the Ultra as well) in early fall based on previous years:

While the device will likely be available for pre-order overnight, it will ship and be available on store shelves a few days after launch.

Price

There are a number of big questions surrounding the iPhone 15 Ultra, but one of the biggest is the price of such an offering. Today’s top-of-the-line iPhones are hardly cheap, and logic suggests that this will be the most expensive of them all, so let’s just say this won’t be a budget buy; you should only think about buying this beast if you have some serious cash to burn.

The iPhone 14 Pro Max, currently the most expensive smartphone offered by Apple, retails for $1,099/£1,199, so you might have to expect a bump of a few hundred pounds or dollars on top of that to get some extra premium features.

Design

The design is the one area where we’ve gotten the most information about this potential new iPhone. For starters, it’s very likely to have a USB-C port rather than a Lightning port, as Apple CEO Greg Joswiak confirmed (less than enthusiastically) that following an EU decision on the matter, “obviously we’ll have to comply, we have no choice.”

Additionally, potentially valuable information has arrived courtesy of LeaksApplePro, a Twitter source who claims that the new iPhone 15 Ultra will be cast in titanium. This certainly makes some sense, as it’s the same metal used in the construction of the Apple Watch Ultra, and perhaps indicates that Apple’s next phone will be similarly very tough.

What we would like to see

So far, rumors about the iPhone 15 Ultra are pretty thin. All in all, it’s not certain that there will be one at all, and we’ll have to wait for more supported leaks to appear before we can really start the countdown to launch.

However, based on our experience with the iPhone 14 series, there are still a few changes we’d like to see embodied in this perhaps mythical device.

For starters, our editor Max Parker suggested that this could be the perfect occasion for Apple to embrace the foldable form factor for the first time, writing that such a rethink “makes a lot of sense” and “would give the phone a higher-end a clear distinction from the Pro models.” We’ve seen Samsung have increasing success with this format, especially with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4, and it would certainly be interesting to see how Apple might execute a similar idea.

If we’re looking for slightly more modest tweaks to the formula, then there are a few suggestions we’ve come up with based solely on our experience with the iPhone 14 Pro Max.

The first of these would be that Apple could consider adding curved sides to the phone’s screen, which would make a device with a large display much easier to grip, especially at 6.7 inches or larger, as otherwise straight edges can feel uncomfortable when holding it especially for extended periods.

In addition, we would definitely recommend paying a little more attention to the scaling capabilities, as the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra can clearly beat Apple’s best offerings on this score at the moment.