The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max are here, and they’ve got even longer battery life this year

With the iPhone 18 on hold until 2027, the only “normal” iPhones to launch in 2026 are the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max. You might expect Apple to lavish a bit more attention on them, but the advancements look fairly humdrum compared with the dramatically different iPhone Duo, Apple’s first folding phone, which debuted at the same time as the two new Pros.

What’s new for the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max?

Let’s start with what’s new for the hardware, and in all honesty, there isn’t much. First up is a new Burgundy colourway, which replaces the iconic Cosmic Orange in the range. It’s accompanied by a choice of silver, sky blue or black.

Under the hood, we have the obligatory processor upgrade, this time to the Apple A20 Pro, built by TSMC as usual. This features reengineered CPU and GPU cores, and an extra neural engine, doubling the number of cores from 16 to 32.

Apple says the 7-core GPU is 40% faster, the new chip has 50% more memory bandwidth than before, and there’s superior cooling, too. The iPhone 18 Pro’s new vapour chamber is 3x the size of the one inside the iPhone 17 Pro, and this enables up to 40% more sustained performance than the iPhone 17 Pro.

More important than the extra performance and cooling, though, is better battery life. Last year we saw a big boost to the stamina of the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, but we’ve got another big step forward here, with the iPhone 18 Pro delivering up to 36 hours (the same as the iPhone 17 Pro Max) and a whopping 45 hours for the iPhone 18 Pro Max.

If Apple’s claims hold, and they usually do in our experience, the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max will be the fastest, longest-lasting phones in the company’s history. Given how good the previous generation was, I’m looking forward to being seriously impressed.

There’s also a smaller Dynamic Island cutout at the top of the screen, enabled by a miniaturisation of Apple’s TrueDepth camera module. There were rumours that Apple would use an under-screen Face ID sensor to free up more room, but this hasn’t materialised.

Instead, we have a slightly smaller module that provides more room for status icons and more Dynamic Island notifications. The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max can now show up to three of these.

We also get some significant improvements to the camera system. The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max will still come with three rear cameras: an ultra-wide-angle, wide-angle main and a 4x optical telephoto, all shooting at up to 48MP.

The big upgrade in 2026, however, is the main camera’s variable aperture. The benefits of this in smartphone photography have been hotly debated over the years, mainly because, with smaller sensors, changing the aperture doesn’t have much impact on depth of field.

But with sensors getting bigger, that’s slowly changing, and Apple clearly thinks it makes a big enough difference to introduce here. Apple is concentrating on what it calls “creative control” between f/1.48 and f/4. According to Apple, the six-blade system delivers better depth of field in good light and superior light-gathering capabilities.

Other camera upgrades include the ability to capture 4K resolution Dolby Vision timelapses, “Pro Controls” that let you customise the camera UI, and adjust advanced settings like white balance, shutter speed in video and more.

And last, but by no means least, is the debut – AT LAST – of Siri AI, which arrives this month. Siri AI will still be in beta, but should massively improve on iPhone’s native voice assistant with a more natural-sounding voice and vastly expanded voice-driven capabilities.

There’s a new Siri app where you can access past conversations, Siri is built into your camera, allowing you to ask questions about what the camera is looking at, like what to make for dinner out of specific ingredients, and more. You can use Siri AI to transcribe and interact with third-party apps, and conversations are stored in iCloud so you can access them across other Apple devices.

Other improvements to Apple AI include the ability to create Apple Shortcuts by describing them, an upgraded Image Playground image generation tool and expanded image cleanup tools.

iPhone 18 Pro specifications

• 6.3in, 1,206 x 2,622 resolution, 120Hz ProMotion display
• Smaller Dynamic Island
• Apple A20 Pro, 2nm processor
• Cameras: 48MP ultrawide, main (with variable aperture) and 4x telephoto
• Colours: Silver, Black, Sky Blue and Burgundy
• Price: from £1,199 (256GB)
• Availability: Preorder today from Apple; in stores 18 September 2026

iPhone 18 Pro Max specifications

• 6.9in, 1,320 x 2,868 resolution, 120Hz ProMotion display
• Smaller Dynamic Island
• Apple A20 Pro, 2nm processor
• Cameras: 48MP ultrawide, main (with variable aperture) and 4x telephoto
• Colours: Silver, Black, Sky Blue and Burgundy
• Price: from £1,299 (256GB)
• Availability: Preorder today from Apple; in stores 18 September 2026

That’s it for new stuff. The rest of the features stay pretty much the same as before. There’s no new design. The iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max will remain encased in aluminium this year, with the raised camera plateau still in place and the glass panel inset at the rear. I’m not a massive fan of the way this looks, but it seems we’ll have to wait until 2027 at the earliest for a change.

The phones’ screen sizes remain at 6.3in and 6.9in – again, no change there – they’re still using Apple’s Super Retina XDR OLED screens which run at up to 120Hz and are covered with Ceramic Shield 2. The phones are pretty much the same size and weight, too, give or take the odd fraction of a millimetre or gram here and there. They’re still IP68 dust- and water-resistant as well.

How much will the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max cost?

With prices rising everywhere due to the RAM and storage crisis, we expected significantly higher prices for the new iPhone 18 Pro models. But while prices have gone up, we’re happy to report that the price rises aren’t as bad as they might have been.

• The smaller Apple iPhone 18 Pro will cost from £1,199 for the model with 256GB of storage, a price rise of only £100 on £1,099
• The Apple 18 Pro Max, meanwhile, will cost from £1,299 for the 256GB model, a price rise of £100 on £1,199

Both phones are available to pre-order right now and will ship to customers from 18 September 2026. We’ll review both phones as soon as we can get our hands on review samples.

Written By

Jonathan Bray

Head of reviews at Expert Reviews, Jon has been testing and writing about products since before most of you were born (well, only if you were born after 1996). In that time he’s tested and reviewed hundreds of laptops, PCs, smartphones, vacuum cleaners, coffee machines, doorbells, cameras and more. He’s worked on websites since the early days of tech, writing game reviews for AOL and hardware reviews for PC Pro, Computer Buyer and other print publications. He’s also had work published in Trusted Reviews, Computing Which? and The Observer. And yet, even after so many years in the industry, there’s still nothing more he loves than getting to grips with a new product and putting it through its paces.

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