It’s time to compare two of the most powerful, large-format Apple flagships, the Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max vs Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max. The latter is the company’s new flagship which launched earlier this month. The iPhone 15 Pro Max arrived about a year ago, and it’s no longer a member of the flagship family, but it carried the torch for a year. With that being said, Apple did not really make huge changes from one generation to the next.

These two phones are different in some ways, however, so it will be interesting to pit them one against the other and see those differences. We do hope that this comparison will help you make a purchasing decision, to decide whether the new model is worth it. We’ll first list their specifications, and go from there. With that being said, let’s get down to it, shall we?

Specs

Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max vs Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max, respectively

– Screen size:
6.7-inch Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion (flat, 120Hz, HDR10, 2,000 nits)
6.9-inch LTPO Super Retina XDR OLED ( flat, 120Hz, HDR, 2,000 nits)
– Display resolution:
2796 x 1290
2868 x 1320
– SoC:
Apple A17 Pro
Apple A18 Pro
– RAM:
8GB
– Storage:
256GB/512GB/1TB (NVMe)
– Rear cameras:
48MP (f/1.78 aperture, second-gen sensor-shift OIS), 12MP (ultrawide, f/2.2 aperture, 120-degree FoV, macro photography), 12MP (telephoto, f/2.8 aperture, 5x optical zoom)
48MP (wide, f/1.8 aperture, 1/1.28-inch sensor, 1.22um pixel size, sensor-shift OIS), 48MP (ultrawide, f/2.2 aperture, 0.7um pixel size, PDAF), 12MP (periscope telephoto, f/2.8 aperture, 1/3.06-inch sensor, 1.12um pixel size, 3D sensor-shift OIS, 5x optical zoom).
– Front cameras:
12MP (f/1.9 aperture) + TrueDepth
– Battery:
4,441mAh
4,685mAh
– Charging:
20W wired, 15W wireless (MagSafe & Qi2), 7.5W wireless (Qi), reverse wired charging (charger not included)
38W wired & 25W MagSafe wireless, 15W Qi2 wireless, 7.5W Qi wireless, 5W reverse wired
– Dimensions:
159.9 x 76.7 x 8.25mm
163 x 77.6 x 8.3 mm
– Weight:
221 grams
227 grams
– Connectivity:
5G, LTE, NFC, Wi-Fi, USB Type-C, Bluetooth 5.3
– Security:
Face ID (3D facial scanning)
– OS:
iOS 17 (upgradeable)
iOS 18
– Price:
$1,199+ (discounted now)
$1,199+
– Buy:
Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max (Apple)
iPhone 16 Pro Max (Apple)

Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max vs Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max: Design

When it comes to the design, many people will be unable to tell one model from the other. They are very, very similar. The easiest way to differentiate them is the Camera Control button on the right. That’s something the iPhone 16 Pro Max has, and its predecessor does not. The bezels are also very slightly thinner on the new model, but that’s not as easy to spot. Other than that, the two models are very difficult to differentiate.

Both are made out of titanium and glass, and they are very similar in terms of size and weight. The iPhone 16 Pro Max does have a slightly larger display, and it’s taller and wider because of it, but the difference is not huge. They are equally thick, while the new model is slightly heavier. They both have flat sides all around, which do curve slightly towards the edges. Their front and back sides are also flat.

You will notice a flat display on both smartphones, with a pill-shaped cutout at the top of the panels. The bezels are both very thin and uniform on both phones, though slightly thinner on the new model. Both smartphones include the volume up and down buttons on the left, along with an Action Button. The power/lock button sits on the right-hand side of both phones, while the new model also has the Camera Control button there.

A Type-C port is present on both phones too. They have identical-looking camera islands on the back. Those are placed in the top-left corner on the back… on both phones. Both devices are IP68-certified for water and dust resistance. Both phones are also very slippery in the hand, so keep that in mind, as getting a case is not a bad idea.

Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max vs Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max: Display

The iPhone 15 Pro Max features a 6.7-inch 2796 x 1290 LTPO Super Retina XDR OLED display. That panel is flat, and it supports an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz. HDR10 content is supported here, and the same goes for Dolby Vision. This display goes up to 2,000 nits of brightness at its peak. The display aspect ratio is 19.5:9, while the screen-to-body ratio is at around 89%. The Ceramic Shield glass protects this phone’s display.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max, on the flip side, includes a 6.9-inch 2868 x 1320 LTPO Super Retina XDR OLED display. That panel is also flat, and it also offers an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz. HDR10 content is supported, and so is Dolby Vision. The display brightness goes up to 2,000 nits, while the display aspect ratio is 19.5:9. The screen-to-body ratio is at around 91%. The Ceramic Shield glass protects this panel, a new version of 2024.

These two panels are basically identical, save for the size and the display protection. They look essentially the same, though. They’re bright, vivid, and have great viewing angles. They are also more than sharp enough. The touch response is good, and the refresh rate helps scrolling feel quite smooth, amongst other things, though Apple does lower the refresh rate quite a bit during use, following iOS 18 update. Neither display supports high-frequency PWM dimming, though. Both of them are bright enough, though not the brightest in the industry, not at all.

Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max vs Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max: Performance

The Apple A17 Pro SoC fuels the iPhone 15 Pro Max. That is a 3nm processor, and it’s paired with 8GB of RAM and NVMe flash storage. The iPhone 16 Pro Max, on the flip side, is fueled by the Apple A18 Pro chip. That is also a 3nm processor, and it’s paired with 12GB of RAM inside the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Apple also uses NVMe storage inside this smartphone. The new chip is more powerful, but the difference is not that big at all.

Truth be said, you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference in regards to performance between these two phones. They feel identical to use in a day-to-day basis. They respond pretty much the same to jumping between apps, browsing, messaging, image processing, and so on. They’re both really smooth and a joy to use in that regard. No matter how much you push them, they’re very responsive.

What about gaming? Well, Apple did improve the heat dissipation with the new model, following some initial issues when the iPhone 15 series launched. Aluminum is now thrown into the mix, along with some other changes. You won’t really be able to tell the difference, however. Apple tweaked the SoC on the iPhone 15 Pro Max via an update, and even though the iPhone 16 Pro Max does run cooler, that’s not something most of you will notice. You can play basically whatever game you want on either phone, without a hitch.

Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max vs Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max: Battery

The iPhone 15 Pro Max packs in a 4,441mAh battery, while its successor has a 4,685mAh battery. That handset does also include a 0.2-inch larger display, so the battery boost is expected and welcomed. Does that make a difference in terms of battery life? Well, no, not really. From what we’ve seen the battery life is very similar between the two models. The iPhone 16 Pro Max did manage to pull ahead at times, but they’re on the same playing field.

They both offer great battery life, actually. You won’t have to worry about charging either of them during the day, not at all. Even for power users, chances are that both smartphones will be able to make it through the day. Even if you go over the 7-hour screen-on-time mark, that’s not a problem for either phone. They can even go over the 8-hour mark, depending on your use. Most people will have plenty of juice left at the end of the day.

What about charging? Well, the iPhone 15 Pro Max supports 20W wired, 15W MagSafe and Qi2 wireless, 7.5W Qi wireless, and 5W reverse wired charging. The iPhone 16 Pro Max, on the other hand, supports 38W wired, 25W MagSafe wireless, 15W Qi2 wireless, 7.5W Qi wireless, and 5W reverse wired charging. Neither smartphone has a charger in the retail box, however.

Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max vs Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max: Cameras

These two phones actually have the same main and periscope telephoto cameras, and the same goes for their front-facing cameras. Their ultrawide shooters do differ, however. A 12-megapixel main camera (1/1.28-inch sensor size) sits on both smartphones. That camera also offers sensor-shift OIS, 1.22um pixel size, and so on. A 12-megapixel periscope telephoto camera (1/3.06-inch sensor size, 5x optical zoom, 3D sensor-shift) is also included on both of these smartphones.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max does come with a considerably improved 48-megapixel ultrawide camera. The iPhone 15 Pro Max has a 12-megapixel ultrawide snapper. The new camera does bring more detailed shots in general, but its main advantage is when it comes to macro photography. This new ultrawide camera is much better in that regard, macro photos really do end up looking great.

The images from the other two cameras are very similar between the two models. Both smartphones do a good job, though they simply love to brighten up the shadows, even during daytime, which ends up images looking a bit flattish at times. The processing is a bit different on the new model, and the images do look a bit more processed in general, for better or worse. Something similar can be said for the periscope telephoto camera performance. Both of them do a fantastic job in general, however, that goes for low-light performance too. There are better offerings out there, though, in our opinion, at least as far as photography is concerned.

Audio

You will find a set of stereo speakers on both of these smartphones. In fact, speakers from these two phones are very, very similar. They are more than loud enough and are actually similar in terms of loudness too. The quality of the output is very good too.

There is no audio jack on either phone, though. You can always use their Type-C ports in order to connect your wired headphones. If that’s not your thing, do note that Bluetooth 5.3 is included on both smartphones, for wireless connectivity.

Update, September 30, 7:28PM ET: At 7:18PM ET, the company tweeted that its engineers had resolved the issue. The original story, which was updated twice after publish with statements from Verizon, follows.

Verizon mobile customers reported widespread outages across the US on Monday. Starting at around 9:30AM ET, hundreds of thousands of people flagged issues with their mobile service on Downdetector, which tracks user-submitted outage reports. The volume of reports spiked at almost 105,000 at 11:20AM, but were still reaching almost 59,000 at 12:52PM.

Many folks claimed they were unable to make or receive calls or exchange text messages. Those with an iPhone may be seeing “SOS” instead of the usual connection bars on the top right of their screen. That’s a common sight when there’s limited service or none at all. However, affected iPhone users can still make emergency calls via other networks.

A Downdetector heatmap suggested that the issue was most prevalent in New York, New Jersey, Georgia and elsewhere on the east coast and midwest. A narrow yellow band of reports was also emerging on the west coast as of 1:10PM ET. along with an intensifying heat spot in Los Angeles.

Verizon confirmed that service was affected for some customers. “Our engineers are engaged and we are working quickly to solve the issue,” the company wrote on X at 11:48AM. The cause of the outage is not yet clear.

As of 3:45PM ET, Verizon had yet to provide an update on the outage via X. User outage reports were still flooding into Downdetector, however, with almost 48,000 of them at 3:10PM.

At 5:04PM ET, the company tweeted that “service has started to be restored,” and Downdetector reports of outages had dipped below 30,000.

At 7:18PM ET, the company tweeted that its engineers had “fully restored today’s network disruption.” The number of reports of an outage on Downdetector had dropped below 3,500. There has still been no word from the company on what caused the outage.

A Y Combinator startup named PearAI launched with an X post thread and YouTube video on Saturday and created immediate controversy. And some of that is splashing onto YC itself.

PearAI offers an AI coding editor. The startup’s founder Duke Pan has openly said that it’s a cloned copy of another AI editor called Continue, which was covered under the Apache open source license. But PearAI made a major misstep: PearAI originally slapped its own made-up closed license on it, called the Pear Enterprise License, which Pan admitted was written by ChatGPT.

Changing a license like this is a big deal in the open source world. Not only are there legalities involved in violating a software license, but it defeats the whole purpose of open source, which is about community building, sharing, and contributing. In an apology PearAI’s Pan posted on Monday, he said that the project has now been released under the same Apache open source license as the original project.

The launch thread went viral with thousands of comments by Sunday. Some were congratulatory, but others were vicious in pointing out the licensing and the fact that PearAI wasn’t so much a fork with new stuff added, but a replica with a new name. Pan admitted as much in his apology.

So many angry comments were made on Pan’s launch thread that X put a community note on it that read: “Pear is a fork of Continue.dev, an open-source AI code editor. PearAI used Continue.dev’s code and mass-replaced all references to ‘Continue’ to ‘PearAI’ to mislead people into believing that they built this product on their own.”

This note wasn’t accurate, either. PearAI did say in some of its materials that the project was a clone (also known as a fork) of Continue as well as the original project that Continued used, VSCode. X subsequently removed that note.

Pan apologized for how hard it was to find that information, too. He said that one way he and his cofounder, Nang Ang, “screwed up, critically, was not being clear enough about this … doing so upon a fork of others’ work without many new features, and talking about it so publicly online, made it look like we were stealing the work of others as our own.”

On Sunday, Continue jumped in with by posting a subtle threat that it was “ecstatic to see the ecosystem that has formed around us. But open source can’t be taken for granted—it is a movement built on trust, and on respect for contributions, licenses, and intellectual property.”

Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan got involved, too. He defended PearAI with several tweets. “Don’t understand why people are dragging a new project when literally it’s open source Apache license and that’s *the reason* why open source is awesome” one read. As you might imagine, people pointed out that it was changed to an Apache license after the uproar.

There were other reasons this project caught ire. Pan boasted how he “just quit my 270 000$ job at Coinbase” to do this startup, even though this was about as far from an original idea as a startup can get. In addition to Continue, another big competitor is Cursor. 

On top of that, YC has funded two other AI code editors already, Void and Melty, as the mob was quick to point out. To which Tan replied on X, “More choice is good, people building is good, if you don’t like it don’t use it.”

Others criticized YC for selecting PearAI into its cohort at all. Blogger Sven Schnieders wrote that PearAI is an example of the “the decline of YC” because it accepted a company that is “nothing more than a codebase copied from another YC-backed company.”

On Hacker News, the site for programmers owned by YC, a commenter wrote that the debacle “says more about YC than this particular founder (lots of these types nowadays): i.e. their process, their due diligence.” Another wrote, “Is it typical for VC to just throw money at projects without any sort of oversight/auditing of, oh jeez, IDK, Licensing/Legal issues?”

YC’s plans to double from two cohorts a year to four isn’t likely to ease this perception, or this risk.

The whole uproar probably says as much about how eager all VCs are to fund AI startups as it does about YC’s love of this particular ilk of them.

Tan could not be immediately reached for comment. PearAI did not have further comment.