CUPERTINO, Calif.—Apple’s new iPhone 18 Pro is an iterative update that—as usual—focuses heavily on both performance and new camera features. This time around, many of the new camera features are oriented around giving the user more direct control of the image, rather than depending entirely on Apple’s computational photography assumptions.
As usual, the new iPhone has a new chip. It’s called A20 Pro, and it’s the first 2 nm chip for the iPhone. It has a 6-core CPU, with two super-cores that are up to 20 percent faster, and four efficiency cores. A 7-core GPU offers up to 40 percent improved performance and increased bandwidth.
The A20 Pro also has a new Neural Engine—the machine-learning processor on the system-on-chip—which the company says is basically two Neural Engines on one chip.
Apple spent a significant chunk of the iPhone presentation talking up Apple Intelligence, arguing that the iPhone is a perfect place to establish and maintain the context for effective AI features—for example, with access to your calendar and daily habits—but of course tried to differentiate on the basis on privacy within that context. The company also discussed the previously announced new LLM-driven capabilities of Siri. Siri AI, as they call it, will arrive in October.
Back to the hardware: Apple also put an emphasis on improved thermals with this release, which, if effective, ought to help with those situations where your phone gets too hot—like when driving on a hot day without A/C in the car.
The 18 Pro and Pro Max are slightly smaller than their predecessors, but Apple says they offer similar battery life, in part thanks to a new battery usage model based on data about how people use their phones. The Dynamic Island—the little black oval at the top that expands or shrinks with notifications and that houses the front-facing camera and Face ID—has been redesigned to be a bit smaller, too.
The 48-megapixel main camera’s flagship new feature is a variable aperture. The aperture will adjust based on the scene, offering more precisely tailored settings for varying levels of light in the room. There’s also an emphasis on giving the user more manual control over the settings when taking a photo: Users can manually adjust the aperture, set a specific shutter speed, and so on.
As is the custom for many iPhone launches, there’s a new color too: burgundy. The phone starts at $1,199, and the Max size starts at $1,299. Storage can be upgraded as far as 2 terabytes. Preorders start September 12, and the phone ships September 18.
This story is developing, and this post will be updated with new information about the iPhone lineup as it comes.
