Apple has officially announced the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max at its “Surprise and Shine” launch event. The new Pro models bring several notable upgrades, including a new A20 Pro chip, improved AI capabilities, a variable aperture camera and longer battery life.
The iPhone 18 Pro series comes in four colors: black, silver, light blue and burgundy. Apple has also focused heavily on Apple Intelligence. Most importantly, the new phones designed to handle more AI processing directly on the device.
The iPhone 18 Pro features a 6.3-inch display, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max gets a larger 6.9-inch display. Both use OLED Super Retina XDR panels with ProMotion support for adaptive refresh rates up to 120Hz and an Always-On display. The displays also support HDR, True Tone and up to 3,000 nits of peak outdoor brightness. Apple has also upgraded the Dynamic Island. It is now smaller and can show up to three Live Activities at the same time while continuing to support Face ID.
The A20 Pro is at the heart of the new iPhone 18 Pro models. It is built using a 2nm process and features a six-core CPU with two performance cores and four efficiency cores, along with a new 7-core GPU. Apple says the GPU is up to 40% faster than the A19 Pro, while memory bandwidth has increased by 50%.
Apple has also added a Dual 16-core Neural Engine to the A20 Pro, giving the chip 32 neural cores in total. Apple says this delivers twice the AI processing power of the previous generation. The chip also includes integrated Neural Accelerators to improve on-device AI and computational photography.
Apple has also improved heat management. The A20 Pro uses a new packaging design that places the memory beside the silicon instead of stacking it in the main heat path. The chip connects directly to a redesigned vapor chamber with three times the surface area of the previous-generation iPhone 17 Pro. Apple says this allows up to 40% better sustained performance.
The new hardware also powers Apple’s latest Siri AI features. Siri AI is rolling out in beta with iOS 27 and is designed to make Siri more personal, capable and conversational. It can understand personal context, use information from apps such as Messages, Mail and Photos, and understand what is on the screen to take relevant actions.
The iPhone 18 Pro also gets AI-powered camera features and other Apple Intelligence capabilities. The company says the new hardware is designed to run more AI models directly on the device, reducing the need to send data to the cloud for many tasks.
The camera system gets one of the biggest upgrades this year. The iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max feature a new 48-megapixel Fusion Main camera with a mechanical variable aperture. This is the first time Apple has brought aperture control to an iPhone.
The variable aperture system uses six laser-cut blades and can automatically adjust the aperture depending on lighting and the depth of field needed. It can open as wide as ƒ/1.48 for better low-light photography and can narrow down to ƒ/4 to keep more of a scene in focus. Users can also manually select from four aperture settings.
Apple has also added Pro Controls, giving users more control over the camera. Users can manually adjust the aperture, shutter speed and white balance, while a new histogram can be used to check exposure. These controls are available for both photos and videos.
The main camera also gets a new computational photography pipeline for more detailed images. Apple has upgraded Photographic Styles with new texture and grain controls, allowing users to further customize the look of their photos.
The video recording capabilities have also been improved. The iPhone 18 Pro can record 4K Dolby Vision video at up to 120fps, while Cinematic mode now supports up to 4K Dolby Vision at 60fps. It can also record 4K Dolby Vision HDR time-lapse videos.
Apple is also introducing Apple Reference Image. The system uses cryptographic signing of captured image data to help establish the authenticity of the original image. The reference image can be accessed alongside the main photo in the Photos app, while metadata support is designed to help track changes made to the image.
The camera setup also includes a 48-megapixel Fusion Ultra Wide camera and a 48-megapixel Fusion Telephoto camera. The phones offer up to 8x optical-quality zoom and a 16x optical-quality zoom range, with digital zoom reaching up to 40x.
The front camera has also received an upgrade. Both models feature an 18-megapixel Center Stage front camera with autofocus and support for 4K Dolby Vision video recording at up to 60fps.
The iPhone 18 Pro series also gets a new N1 wireless networking chip that supports Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Thread. Apple has also introduced the C2 cellular modem, which uses 15% less power than the previous-generation C1X modem and supports mmWave connectivity in the US.
Battery life has also improved on the new Pro models. The eSIM-only iPhone 18 Pro can offer up to 36 hours of video playback, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max can reach up to 45 hours. Apple says the Pro Max gets the biggest battery-life improvement ever seen on an iPhone Pro model.
Both phones support fast wired charging, reaching up to 50% charge in around 15 minutes. They also support MagSafe and Qi2 wireless charging.
Apple is expanding eSIM-only models to more markets this year. These versions use the space previously occupied by the physical SIM tray for a larger battery and can deliver around two additional hours of video playback.
The iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max come with 256GB, 512GB, 1TB and 2TB storage options. Both phones also run iOS 27 and have an IP68 rating for water and dust resistance.
The iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max starts at $1,299. Pre-orders will open on September 12, with both phones going on sale starting September 18. India is among the markets getting the phones on the first wave of availability.
The iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max therefore bring upgrades across several areas. The A20 Pro focuses on performance and on-device AI, while the new vapor chamber should help the phones maintain that performance for longer. The variable aperture camera is arguably the biggest camera change, giving users more control over light, depth of field and manual photography.
Apple has also made AI a bigger part of the iPhone experience with the new Siri AI, while the upgraded cameras and Pro Controls make the new models more interesting for photography and video users. While the foldable iPhone Ultra may be the biggest new addition to Apple’s iPhone lineup this year, the iPhone 18 Pro series gets plenty of meaningful upgrades of its own.
