The iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max have been out for a little over a month. By now, you’ve probably gotten familiar with the new features available on the phone, like StandBy Mode, which turns your phone into a smart display, and NameDrop, which you can use to share your contact information simply by placing your phone near someone else’s phone.
Read more: Check Out These 7 Hidden iOS 17 Settings and Features on Your iPhone
However, if you haven’t had time to explore features exclusive to the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max, you’re going to want to. There aren’t many exclusive features, but in this story, we’ve highlighted three that you’ll definitely want to set up, configure and put to use. If you’re looking to get the most out of your iPhone 15 Pro or 15 Pro Max, here’s what you need to know.
Don’t have an iPhone 15 Pro yet? Check out our review of the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max and this gallery that takes a closer look at the two high-end iPhone models.
Scroll to view all the actions available.
If you see arrows below an action, that means there are additional options. To assign an action to the button, simply swipe and stay on the action in your settings. When you’re finished, exit the setting’s page.
2. Change the default camera lens when you open your camera
The default main camera on the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max is the 24mm lens, which is equivalent to 1x zoom. It’s your standard lens, but if you always find yourself zooming in a tiny bit when you’re snapping a photograph, you can change over to a different default lens for the main camera.
In Settings > Camera > Main Camera, choose between the three main lenses:
- 24mm – 1x (default)
- 28mm – 1.2x
- 35mm – 1.5x
The next time you open your main camera, your camera will start at whatever new focal length you choose, whether it’s 1.2x or 1.5x. If you want to swap between lenses, tap the main camera zoom control to manually switch between 24mm, 28mm and 35mm. You can also press and hold down on the control and drag the slider for more precise control.
You can’t use the braided USB-C cable that comes inside the iPhone 15 Pro packaging if you want 3.0 speeds.
Now that you have the correct cable, you can quickly transfer data between your iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max. If you’re transferring data from iTunes to your iPhone, and vice versa, that should be quicker. But it works for really any files being transferred out of your iPhone, especially to a flash drive. That’ll also be faster.
Apple also a page highlighting that the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max can support recording ProRes video (high-quality lossy video compression format) directly to an external storage device, at up to 4K at 60 frames per second. It’s a niche feature, but if you’re a cinematographer or a video editor, shooting in ProRes gives you better detail and color depth you can color grade later on without losing quality. Having it directly recorded to an external storage device saves space and time, allowing you to connect the SD directly to your computer without having to transfer it from your iPhone first.
