Apple iPhone 15: Australian pricing and availability

Apple’s iPhone 15 will be available to buy in Australia from 22 September. Here’s what you need to know about Apple’s new flagship phone in Australia.

When can I buy a new iPhone 15 in Australia?

Apple announced the iPhone 15 family at its “Wonderlust” event on 12 September 2023 (early a.m. 13 September here in Australia), but as is its usual style they’re not on sale right away. Instead, Apple’s announced that it will open up pre-orders for the iPhone 15 family from 15 September at 10pm AEST.

It takes absolutely zero insight to suggest that this is the earliest you’ll see formally announced deals from telcos around pricing and availability of the new iPhone models as well.

The actual on sale date in Australia for the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max is Friday 22nd September 2022. As is usual, Australia is technically the first place in the world where new iPhones go on sale, though that whole frenzy around lining up and being “first” has thankfully receeded into the mists of time.

Well… nearly. This is what it looked like quite a few iPhone generations ago.

I’m pretty happy this is no longer a thing. If you’re keen on a new iPhone, just order one online and let it come to you, folks.

How much does the iPhone 15 cost?

As always, there’s a split between the prices you’ll pay for the smallest new iPhone with the lowest quantity of storage and the full-fat, decked out Pro models. Here’s the rundown of prices across all four new iPhone models.

So how does that compare against the existing models that you could have purchased yesterday from Apple – given that it’s culled away several models as it always does?

Here’s what Apple’s pricing looked like had you purchased an iPhone from their available stock yesterday.

Bear in mind that you may still see some of these models from other retailers, but from Apple’s perspective several of them are no longer directly sold.

That’s a lot of different phone models, but there’s a couple of clear takeaways. The new iPhone models are, sadly, slightly more expensive than their predecessors, for a start.

Also, predictably, a few iPhone models have gone by the wayside, with all iPhone 12 models now gone, and the iPhone 13 mini – as everyone predicted — also removed from Apple’s lineup.

Both the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max are also now removed from the lineup — all the better to sell iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, naturally.

Adding back in the new iPhone 15 variants, here’s how the full iPhone pricing table looks now:

iPhone 15 Specifications

For those of you who just like the numbers…

So what’s actually new with the iPhone 15/Plus and iPhone 15 Pro/Max?

As expected, everyone gets the jump to USB-C, though the only notable specification difference there is that the Pro models support faster USB-C data transfer speeds; Apple hasn’t seemingly done anything with regards to charging speeds over USB-C, or indeed MagSafe/Qi wireless, and for the regular iPhone 15/Plus, you’re stuck at boring old USB 2 speeds, so there’s really no change from Lightning there for data transfers.

The iPhone 15 lineup gets brighter screens and new colour choices with aluminium frames as well as a new camera system — the core megapixel numbers don’t jump from the iPhone 14 but new features include enhanced portrait modes and focus depth control to play with. They also get the “Dynamic Island” visual effect that was an iPhone 14 Pro-only feature last year.

Apple’s also adding a new roadside assistance via SOS mode, to go along with the Satellite SOS mode it’s already launched — though there’s no sign of that feature in the Australian release, with the launch only mentioning the US. Stay tuned on that one — I suspect for quite some time.

Switching over to the Pro models, the finishes are all Titanium this year, with the Blue Titanium looking particularly fetching — but then I have a bit of a thing for blue phones generally, so your tastes may indeed vary.

As the rumours predicted, the mute/ring switch is gone — for the iPhone 15 Pro/Max only, it’s still on the standard models — replaced with an action button that can launch a variety of phone features including shortcuts.

The iPhone 15 Pro/Max models are also the only ones to get a fully new chip, dubbed the A17 Pro. It’s built on a 3 nanometre process with some bold claims around performance upgrades at the CPU and GPU level. Which is great, though I’m still kind of waiting for the apps that’ll take advantage of that kind of power on a smartphone. Is that just me? Apple’s pitch at the launch event revolved around mobile gaming experiences including Resident Evil 4 and Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, which will be neat to see — and a bit of a showcase for what the new iPhones can do.

On the camera front, Apple has indeed split out the camera features between the Pro and Pro Max models, with the Pro Max getting up to 12x telephoto compared to the 3x telephoto on the Pro model. I rather liked having the same quality across both phone models, and it’s still a step behind its competition in raw zooming terms — but as always, it’s the quality of the final results that really counts. Photos are an area where USB-C makes a lot of sense, because Apple can talk up the transfer rates out to external devices as being much, much faster than over Lightning, too.

Alex’s Take: iPhone 15

Look, there are mostly expected upgrades here, but then it’s been a long while since it made any sense at all to upgrade annually anyway.

I do like some of the new colours, though it’s a tad disappointing not to see a PRODUCT(RED) iPhone at launch.

Apple’s largely just jumped into USB-C with seemingly nary a mention of Lightning’s funeral — there are new USB-C AirPods as well if you’re keen — but then it probably didn’t want to mention how it more or less had to be dragged there by the EU.

The split between the A16 Bionic and A17 Pro is an interesting one for sure, though whether that will translate to perceptible real-world differences for many iPhone users might be moot — unless you like very heavy-duty apps, that is.

Also (sigh) it appears that Apple is once again splitting the world up into a whole confusing mess of actual iPhone 4G/5G models, with Australia in a “rest of the world” configuration that means we don’t see mmWave 5G on these phones.

I’m keenly awaiting being able to test out the new iPhones to see what they can do, and where they make sense as upgrades. Stay tuned.

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