iPhone 15 Pro price leak claims sticker shock is coming for us all

(Image credit: Konstantin Milenin)

Buyers of this year's best iPhones can expect to pay more than ever, according to a new report.

Apple is expected to announce the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max in September 2023 and it's the last two that are set to cost more than the iPhone 14 models that came before them, according to analyst Jeff Pu.

If true, this would be the first time that the price of the iPhone has increased since the iPhone X arrived in 2017.

Price rise rumors

In a research note for Hong Kong investment firm Haitong International Securities seen by MacRumors, Pu claims that the iPhone 15 Pro models will get more expensive because of a number of hardware upgrades. Those are expected to include a new periscope camera, more RAM, and extra Taptic Engines to power a new solid-state design.

While some countries experienced a price increase when going from the iPhone 13 models to the iPhone 14, the United States was left unscathed. Ever since the iPhone X the pro-level iPhones have started at $999, but that could now be about to change.

Pu doesn't appear to have said how much buyers can expect to pay for the new models, but anything up to $100 per device seems possible. It also isn't clear whether this price hike will affect the standard iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus, but it seems unlikely given Pu's justification for the Pro model increases. The iPhone 15 models aren't expected to have the advanced hardware upgrades of the Pro models, for example.

One change that the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus do look set to see is the arrival of a USB-C port rather than Lightning, but that is unlikely to make a huge difference in price. It's thought that the Dynamic Island could move down the lineup too, perhaps increasing the cost of the device as a whole.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.