Ditching its tradition of announcing a regular numbered iPhone, Apple today revealed the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max at its “Surprise and Shine” event at Apple Park.
Both new models offer several improvements, including a smaller Dynamic Island that supports three activities (up from two), a more powerful A20 chip, and longer battery life, over the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max, which I called “practically perfect” when I reviewed them a year ago. Both models have a new variable aperture in their main camera lens to allow for better-looking portrait mode photos and low-light shooting, and manual camera controls.
iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max
Check out the new color with color matched back.
Burgundy is the new color#appleevent pic.twitter.com/1maaD28lsw
— Ray Wong (@raywongy) September 9, 2026
The previous generation’s vibrant Cosmic Orange has been replaced with a “Burgundy” colorway. It’ll be available alongside a deep black, glacier (light blue), and silver.
In terms of performance, Apple says the A20 chip has a 6-core CPU that’s up to 20% faster and a 7-core GPU with up to 40% faster performance. The Neural Engine has 32 cores, two times the compute power compared to before.
Apple also touts the improved thermal design of the iPhone with a next-generation vapor cooling chamber that’s three times larger than the one in the iPhone 17 Pros. This allows the iPhone 18 Pros to stay cooler while pushing more performance. It’s better for gaming, according to Apple.
Apple is also claiming up to 38 hours of video for the iPhone 18 Pro and 45 hours for the iPhone 18 Pro Max. Wireless charging is faster, too: up to 50% in 15 minutes.
In addition to the variable aperture for the main camera, Apple also added a “Pro mode” that lets you manually control the aperture and shutter speed. For photographers and filmmakers, this allows users to control how much motion blur they may want in a photo or video.
Notably, the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max cost $100 more than the iPhone 17 Pro, which started at $1,099 and $1,199, respectively. Starting prices for the iPhone 18 Pro are $1,199 and $1,299 for the iPhone 18 Pro Max. Apple didn’t provide a reason for the price increase, but it was expected after the company raised prices for Macs, iPads, Apple TV 4Ks, HomePods, and even Apple TV subscriptions over the past month. You can blame AI data centers for causing price hikes for all consumer electronics.
Preorders for the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max start on Sept. 12 and will they’ll be available on Sept. 18.
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