The iPhone 15 Ultra might be a thing after all

It's pretty much common knowledge at this point that Apple is going to announce four new iPhones next month, possibly as soon as September 12. We can be pretty sure of when they'll go on sale, and the specs and features are pretty much a given as well - assuming all the leaks and rumors turn out to be on the money, that is. But there's one thing that we can't be sure about just yet - the name.

One name in particular, in fact. The iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, and iPhone 15 Pro are all pretty much locked in right now and you'll notice that the flagship iPhone 15 Pro Max is missing. That isn't because Apple is ditching its best iPhone, of course. Instead, it now appears that Apple has decided that its big-screen wonder deserves a new name. But it's an old name, really. And it's coming back from the dead like a zombie.

That name is of course iPhone 15 Ultra, something that we'd been told to expect almost a year ago by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. After much talk about the name change it just sort of vanished, and everyone went back to calling it the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Now, it sounds like it's back again.

That's after Apple Insider's Andrew O'Hara posted on X to say that he's heard that the iPhone 15 Ultra name is back in the cards. He didn't disclose his sources, obviously, but he did at least say that those sources were multiple.

The Ultra brand makes plenty of sense, really. We already have the Apple Watch Ultra and the Ultra is the fastest and best Mac chip of every generation - like the M2 Ultra now shipping in the first Apple silicon Mac Pro, for example. So surely it stands to reason that Apple would go Ultra for the iPhone, too.

It definitely makes sense when you remember what the iPhone 15 Ultra is expected to be. It's going to gain a new periscope camera with a 6x lens according to reports, something that will make it the best iPhone ever in terms of taking photos from a distance. Can we then expect Apple to further differentiate the 6.7-inch iPhone Ultra from the 6.1-inch iPhone Pro in future generations? It's entirely possible, and with a move to a new titanium construction and Action button on the way, the Apple Watch Ultra comparisons will surely continue.