The Ultra suffix is a relatively new addition to Apple’s lexicon but is becoming increasingly common. For years, there have been rumors and reports about Apple preparing to launch an iPhone Ultra, possibly replacing the Pro Max at the top of the lineup.
As of last week, that feels more likely than ever.
Enter Ultra
Apple introduced the Ultra branding in 2022, with the M1 Ultra Apple Silicon. The moniker was promptly observed as a misnomer since it sat above the already top-tier M1 Max. You know, for maximum. As in, the most possible amount of something.
A few months later, the Apple Watch Ultra came out. A ruggedized, high-end wearable that sat above the top-tier Apple Watch. The following year, Apple doubled down with the M2 Ultra chip for its most powerful Macs, and the Apple Watch Ultra 2.
This week, Apple got really creative and decided to take the Ultra classifier for a ride. It christened the unofficially named Apple Car 2.0, a.k.a. next-gen CarPlay, a.k.a. the new delayed CarPlay, as CarPlay Ultra. It was also quick to associate the CarPlay Ultra branding with Aston Martin, which sits at the highest end of the automotive sector.
Meanwhile, in iPhone land, Mark Gurman from Bloomberg has been talking about how Apple could be about to drop the Pro suffix in favor of an Ultra model since 2022. Here’s Gurman, in his Power On newsletter from September that year:
If you have an iPhone 13, I’d wait another 12 months for the iPhone 15. That’s when we’ll see bigger changes, including a potential rebranding of the Pro Max as the Ultra.
The iPhone 15 came and went, and no Ultra as of yet. But that might be about to change.
‘It’s cleaner’
We seem to be a few months away from the release of a new member of the iPhone family, extra-officially named iPhone 17 Air. Apple tends to be quite conservative when it comes to iPhone suffixes, so it would make sense to take this opportunity to reframe the entire line-up, bringing it closer to the MacBook and iPad naming conventions.
This is pure speculation, but it would make sense to introduce the iPhone 17 line as:
- iPhone 17
- iPhone 17
PlusAir - iPhone 17 Pro
- iPhone 17
Pro MaxUltra
As of today, there are no credible rumors about an upcoming leap to Ultra, other than the speculation that “this year might be the year!”
However, with the Pro and Pro Max getting closer in features and the “Ultra” branding gaining momentum elsewhere as the new Pro, the idea of an iPhone Ultra now feels less like a rumor and more like an inevitability.
It would allow Apple to differentiate the Ultra model with exclusive hardware and software, while also streamlining the branding across its entire product ecosystem.
What do you think? Could Apple finally be ready to go Ultra with the iPhone? Let us know in the comments.
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