I got in a creative binge upon receiving my Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max this weekend and happily discovering my Microsoft Surface Thunderbolt Dock works like a charm. Ethernet, USB drives, keyboard, gaming mouse, the works, just work. The only thing it falls just short of is supporting two displays (I can use either one of my two displays from Mobile Pixels Trio Max depending on which one I plug in first) at once or one display in an extended mode and that got me to thinking. Is the next step in Apple’s master plan to take the market by storm by enabling Stage Manager on the Pro Max tier iPhones? The A17 Pro is Pro for the first time after all and with that moniker it would sound pro-er to actual professionals (what does an office worker care about with ray tracing, anyway?) if they upsold a DeX-ified Stage Manager for iOS. Thoughts?
First off: A+ on the thread title. 
And second, I hadn’t given this much thought, but they could totally pull this off. I mean at this point MS kind of deserves it (sorry well-meaning MS engineers, I’m sure you’re frustrated too). Windows Phone had them beat with Continuum. Briefly so cool. And then they gave up.
If Apple do end up enabling Stage Manager on phones, I wonder how many people will actually use it. Ideally they’d make it TB4 compatible so we don’t need to resort to USB-C docks. Either way, looking forward to this!
I’m the biggest cheerleader around here for Apple, but I just can’t see them giving iPad Pro powers to the iPhone Pro - they are so adamant against MacOS on iPad that I don’t see them letting users cannibalize iPad sales from below.
I think that they could prevent that at least partially by keeping it exclusive to their A Pro series processors and iPhone Pro Max and/or Pro models.
I’ll side step the DEX discussion though I agree Apple could and should do something that works as least as well.
But on topic of the Pros and because I know some here are interested in our tests that we do on devices.
The TLDR (only completed tests on the Pros and even there we haven’t completed our camera test.
- Pro Max- best display ever in an iPhone and arguably any smartphone. The accuracy and uniformity were beyond the limits or our test equipment. For example a delta e of .18 on color accuracy.
The standard pro was right behind, only losing slightly to Pro Max in grayscale linearity.
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Both Pro and Pro Max have the fastest implementation of WIFI 6e we’ve tested in a mobile device, hands down.
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5G while still showing some speed gains (15%) over the 14 Pros is still midpack generally and the S23 ultra is still the pack leader.
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We need to do some sanity checks on the graphics performance portion of our tests, but in few cases the new graphics nearly reach, (and in two cases exceed) the cores in the desktop/laptop M1.
That is truly remarkable for a device in a phone form factor.
Thanks @Desertlap - helps bolster my decision to pull the trigger. Like to add a few notes of my own:
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Love the camera quality, even coming from the excellent iPhone 13 Pro.
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I have not had a plus size iPhone since the 8, but the Pro Max is more than manageable, and the extra screen real estate is great for old(er) eyes. However, if you have a 14 Pro you might want to wait for 2024 and get the 5x in the 16 Pro instead of 15 Pro Max.
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Although I have been a leather case snob since the iPhone X, I’ve already fallen in love with the CaseKoo clear case with the kickstand ring - you can prop up the iPMax horizontal or vertical AND the open ring makes a great holder for one handed use as a camera. I was afraid of dropping it when in my hand only.
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Spring for the Spigen front screen protector (tempered glass) - easiest installation ever.
So, as the expression goes, there seems to be “some there, there”
Interestingly we didn’t see anything like this during our testing, OTOH we have three employees in our organization that have experienced this on their own devices.
My hypothesis is that there is one or more bugs in IOS that are only surfaced with various 3rd party apps. When we test, we go with an absolute base level OS and app loadout, only adding and removing our test apps as we do the tests which may be why we didn’t see it.
iPhone 15 overheating reports, with temperatures as high as 116F (9to5mac.com)
Sounds likely. I wonder if it’s just more noticeable in the iPhone 15 models because their SoC can burn through battery power faster. My iPhone 12 mini became hot enough during normal use (scrolling through TPCR pages 
) that it would dim the display, even in an air conditioned room without direct sunlight. The update to 17.0.1 seems to have fixed it for me, or perhaps the phone completed cleanup and indexing tasks that were particularly CPU intensive.
We bought two iP15P and one iP15PM and no overheating (yet). I charge mine on magsafe, my wife on USB C, and no issues there either.
BTW I really like the “natural” titanium color of the new Pro 15’s. I realize that is very low on most folks list of priorities, but…
If I had one, I think I’d want to go caseless, and it also would make me want a watch ultra to match… 
One more for the day and then I need to actually get to work…
This thread serves as a reminder of how much more civil, measured and thoughtful the folks here are. I have been reading here and some other places trying to gauge the dimensions of if/how much the 15 pros have thermal issues.
TLDR we are so much a better place
Thermalgate (yup, it’s happening): Pics of how you’re coping | MacRumors Forums
I have been using my 15 Pro Max for the last several days and heavily mind you, and I am still trying to understand this the build quality and now thermalgate nonsense. You know better than anyone that I am no Apple fanboy but the entitlement and reaching complaints from the Apple user cartel has gotten beyond belief. This is one of the only reasonable comments I saw in the entire hysteria of that thread.
You just had to make me look - MacRumors needs to rebrand as MacWhiny…
As reported yesterday, two Pros and one pro max in the family since last Friday and no thermalgate…
So we’ve talked about how perception isn’t always aligned with reality. To that point and iPhone 15 Pro comments about being noticeable lighter, even though reality is slightly less than an ounce.
So I have a new suspicion based on something we discovered yesterday with one of our own custom devices.
The device is in the middle of a redesign to incorporate newer screen and cellular tech.
Since our designer had to rework the body of the device regardless to accommodate the new internals, he gave the outer case a refresh as well and as is the fashion of the moment, went with more rounded edges to the case.
So… you probably see where I’m headed with this; even though the new version of our device is actually 3 ounces heavier (new bigger battery), perceptually our employees kept asking if it had been made lighter
The only possible explanation we can come up with is that the rounded edges do make it more comfortable to hold and that your brain somehow equates this with “lighter”…
Of course YMMV but at least 5 engineers who you would think would be at least skeptical or questioning, asked us the same thing.
One last thing. I’m sure apple knows this and likely actively works/studies it, but the smaller bezels on the new 15 pros also somehow manage to make the phone look just a little nicer/more premium than the 14s’.
Which is almost galling to me as I’ve never been one of those “bezels should not exist” types as I’ve argued that they serve a purpose in having a place to hold the device… 
BTW: You folks can probably tell I’ve been spending a lot of time with the Pro Max 15 the last couple of days…
PS: The graphics jump with the a17 pro is quite significant and Apple might have even underplayed it a bit. eg. it is approaching console levels in many cases.
And of course now I’ll likely be buying Resident Evil when It comes out… for research of course.