It might not look like it when you study Apple's just release Q3 results, but the iPhone 15 is outperforming last year's iPhone 14 release.
The numbers might suggest the opposite is the case. For the three-month period ended June 29, Apple saw a little less than $39.3 billion in revenue from its iPhone business — a 1% drop from the $39.7 billion tallied for the same period in 2023. A cursory glance at those figures might lead you to conclude that the phones released last fall have flopped.
But there's more to the numbers according to Apple. The drop in revenue largely reflects fluctuations in currency. Remove those from the picture and iPhone sales come out ahead in the recent quarter. Even better from Apple's perspective is the fact that the installed base of iPhones hit an all-time high in the last three months, as that helps generate revenue from Apple's many services. (Indeed, during the same June quarter, revenue from services hit a record high of $24.2 billion, a 14% gain from the year-ago quarter.)
"If you look at the same number of weeks of the [iPhone 15] from launch and compare that to the [iPhone 14], the 15 is doing better than the 14," CEO Tim Cook told Wall Street analysts during an earnings call on Thursday (August 1). "And so that’s kind of a state of where we currently are."
Apple executives didn't dwell on reason for the iPhone 15 vs. iPhone 14 sales results, but if you compare the two product lineups, it isn't hard to figure out the reasons for the iPhone 15's appeal. And extending that to rumors about upcoming phones, it suggests that the iPhone 16 could arrive this fall with some momentum behind it.
Why the iPhone 15 is outselling the iPhone 14
Different factors appeal to appeal to different people when it comes to smartphones, but I think that three main drivers for why people are responding to the different iPhone 15 models. For starters, Apple has done a very good job in recent years at making its Pro models stand out from the rest of the lineup, and that really came to fruition with the iPhone 15 Pro.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max arguably features the best camera setup Apple has ever offered, thanks to the tetraprism telephoto lens offering a 5x zoom. That feature alone might convince mobile photography enthusiasts to pay up for the Max, and that model's higher price is offset somewhat by Apple's decision to increase the built-in storage on the base model to 256GB.
The iPhone 15 Pro may not have that beefed-up zoom lens — it makes do with a 3x optical zoom — but Apple added other features to boost its appeal. You'll find an Action button on both iPhone 15 Pro models that can trigger a shortcut of your choosing, and those phones run on the more powerful A17 Pro chipset.
But don't overlook the additions to the standard iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus. It's true that the best enhancements to those devices involved features Apple had previously introduced to the iPhone 14 Pro models — a Dynamic Island feature replacing the notch on the front display and a much improved 48MP camera that can mimic a 2x optical zoom when you want close-ups. More to the point, the improvements to the iPhone 15 made it a much better phone than its predecessor; you couldn't really say the same thing about the iPhone 14 which had too much in common with the iPhone 13 to really get people excited.
Besides features added to specific models, Apple made improvements across the lineup that made every iPhone 15 model more appealing than what came before it. I'm thinking of iPhone 15 battery life in particular, where all four models saw big gains in their battery life. In particular, the iPhone 15 Plus and iPhone 15 Pro Max turned in 14 hour-plus times on our battery test to earn them spots on our best phone battery life list.
What this means for the iPhone 16
To put it another way, Apple introduced enough changes to the iPhone 15 lineup to convince people that it was time to upgrade. It's a playbook the company likely hopes to repeat with the iPhone 16 this fall.
We won't know the extent of the changes Apple is making to its upcoming phones until they actually arrive, but iPhone 16 rumors paint a pretty compelling picture so far. The iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus models are expected to pick up the Action buttons from the current iPhone 15 Pro models, and all four new phones are apparently adding a Capture button to make it easier to snap photos. On the iPhone 16 Pro side of the ledger, camera rumors point to a larger main camera sensor and a 48MP ultrawide shooter.
The biggest rumored change coming to the iPhone 16 lineup would be one that ends Apple's two-year practice of using different chipsets for its standard and Pro models — a move that may have elevated the Pro phones but at the expense of making the other handsets feel like hand-me-downs. This time, though, rumors tip Apple to use new A18 silicon in every iPhone 16 model, even if the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max will likely get a more powerful variant.
There's one thing that could spur iPhone 16 upgrades this fall, and it's a feature Apple already announced. Apple Intelligence launches sometime after the iOS 18 launch, and the only current devices that will be able to support those AI-powered capabilities are the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. If you want Apple Intelligence on your phone and you're currently using any other iPhone model, you're going to need to upgrade.
Cook stopped short of upgrade predictions when pressed by analysts during Apple's earnings call, but it's very clear the company sees Apple Intelligence as an incentive to check out its future phones.
"I would just say that with Apple Intelligence, we are very excited about the level of value that we’re going to provide to users, and we believe that that presents another reason for a compelling upgrade," Cook said.
At any rate, it doesn't sound like Apple is sweating too much over the iPhone's immediate future. It just turned in a quarter where, currency issues aside, its current phones sold quite well. And its looking ahead to the fall when it stands a pretty good chance of repeating that success.
