Apple’s New iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max Opens Its Eye with Six Hair-Thin Blades

Apple spent Wednesday morning rolling out iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, a pair that look familiar until you start poking at the main camera and the battery ratings. Same aluminum unibody as last year’s Pros, same camera plateau across the back, same Action Button and Camera Control on the side. Ceramic Shield 2 still covers the front glass, Ceramic Shield still covers the rear, and IP68 still covers a six-meter dunk for half an hour. Four finishes this time: black, silver, glacier, and a new burgundy.

The iPhone 18 Pro still measures 6.3 inches across a Super Retina XDR OLED screen at 2622 x 1206 pixels, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max stays 6.9 inches at 2868 x 1320 pixels. Both continue to run ProMotion at 1 to 120Hz, retain their Always-On capabilities, and still peak at 3,000 nits outside, 1,600 in HDR, and 1,000 in everyday use, with a low of 1 nit. The display has a similar good contrast ratio of 2 million to one. The Dynamic Island is the only visible modification from the outside. Apple has downsized it so that it can now manage three Live Activities at once, while Face ID continues to handle all face recognition duties. The Pro weighs 211 grams, while the Pro Max weighs 249 grams, making it the heaviest large iPhone Apple has ever manufactured.

The A20 Pro processor, Apple’s first to be made using a 2-nanometer technology, is a significant upgrade. Six CPU cores (two speed and four efficiency), a 7-core GPU that’s supposed to be up to 40% faster with graphics than the A19 Pro, and your visuals should increase significantly. In addition, a dual 16-core Neural Engine allows for twice as much on-device AI work as last year, which should improve performance. Memory bandwidth has increased by 50 percent, according to Apple’s proprietary chip architecture, which places the silicon directly next to the memory and connects it to the next generation vapor chamber, which has three times the surface area of the 17 Pro configuration, and claims to provide up to 40% better sustained performance. N1 handles Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread, while C2 is Apple’s new cellular modem, which implies quicker uploads, 15% lower energy consumption, and, for US users, mmWave support.

Finally, the camera side of things has experienced the biggest changes. The three back lenses are still 48 megapixels. Fusion Main is the new game in town, with a 24mm focal length, second-generation sensor-shift stabilization, and a mechanical variable aperture with 6 laser-cut blades thinner than a human hair, which is quite a feat of miniaturization. The Camera app has four aperture settings: f1.48, f1.8, f2.8, and f4.0. According to Apple, wide open will result in 50% better low-light performance and a speedier Nite mode. Group photographs taken at a lower angle will keep the background sharply focused. Fusion Ultra Wide’s 13mm ƒ/2.2 lens provides a 120-degree view and some macro capabilities. Fusion Telephoto is still a 100/200mm pair, but at f2.8, which allows for optical grade zooms of 4x and 8x. Crop the main sensor, and you’ll still get a clear 2x at 48mm. The front camera remains the same 18-megapixel Center Stage device with an aperture of ƒ/1.9.

Pro Controls are now available in the stock Camera app, and they’re a game changer. Aperture, shutter speed, white balance, and a histogram are all included, and if you’re a developer, you’ll also have access to an API that allows you to manipulate the camera’s iris over a larger range. If you’re one of the many users who experiment with Photographic Styles, you’ll be excited to find that texture and grain sliders are now available. Then there’s the Apple Reference Image function, which allows you to take a screenshot of what the new main sensor sees, save it next to your finished shot, and return later to see what changes you made along the way.

Cinematic effects can now be applied after the shot has been taken, with speeds of up to 60 frames per second. You can also use Time-lapse to record your clips in 4K Dolby Vision. Audio Mix is also receiving some love, with improved speech isolation and the ability to separate music. Video recording on the main camera is still limited to 4K Dolby Vision at 120 frames per second, but you’ll still have access to ProRes, ProRes RAW, and Apple Log 2. If you want to be a little more conversational in the Camera app, you can now have Siri hang out and talk about whatever is in front of the lens.

The battery life is another great surprise. The eSIM-only iPhone 18 Pro is rated for up to 36 hours of movie playback and approximately 24 hours of typical use, matching last year’s Pro Max. The eSIM-only iPhone 18 Pro Max looks even more remarkable, with up to 45 hours of video playback and roughly 30 hours of ordinary use, as Apple claims this is the highest battery life boost they’ve ever given a Pro Max. Physical SIM trays in other regions reduce that by a couple of hours because the extra cell takes up the space previously occupied by the old tray. Fast charging has also been improved, with the ability to reach 50% in roughly 15 minutes using one of those fancy 60-watt USB-C sets. If you’re in a hurry, five minutes on the Pro Max can give you around seven hours of movie playback. Wireless charging is still limited to 25 watts, but you can still charge to 50% in roughly 30 minutes using MagSafe or Qi2.

Storage options now include 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, and, for the first time on an iPhone, a whopping 2TB. The iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max begins at $1,299, representing a $100 increase over last year’s launch prices. Pre-orders commence on September 12th at 5am Pacific, and the phones will start landing in over 65 countries on September 18th, with another wave hitting on the 25th. If you’re looking forward to running the latest and greatest iOS on your new phone, iOS 27 will be available on September 14th, introducing Apple Intelligence and a beta of Siri AI that can leverage on-screen context and personal files. English speakers will be the first to have access to this new version of Siri AI, with additional languages arriving in October. Just a heads-up: eSIM-only units will ship in the United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico, and a few other territories, while everyone else will still receive a dependable old tray with their new phone.