The iPhone 18 Pro refines most of what we liked about the 17 Pro – and ditches Cosmic Orange
Burgundy and Glacier take centre stage
This is a developing story, and we'll be updating with further details as they emerge.
Apple opened its 9 September event by dropping straight into its unveiling of the iPhone 18 Pro, confirming a few weeks of leaks by showing off two striking new colours for the new phone.
It'll come in burgundy and glacier, the latter being an icy blue, along with the more traditional silver and black options that have been around for years.
In wider design terms, the phone's a clear case of continuity – it looks extremely similar to last year's 17 Pro, with a shelf on the rear again housing that triple camera unit. Those cameras have been given a nice upgrade, though, while the Dynamic Island has also shrunk down to be smaller than ever.
Unsurprisingly, the showcase of the phone was dominated by explanations of how Siri is evolving in its new "Siri AI" iteration. Apple showed how it can interact with apps and services to give you more voice control than before. It also showed a far more expressive and customisable voice model, something that Siri's been crying out for for years.
Of course, that AI upgrade goes hand in hand with a new chipset powering the phone, the A20 Pro. Seeing Apple talk in terms of "compute" requirements does underline how AI lingo is going mainstream, but the details are important here. The chip is built on a 2-nanometer infrastructure, a big step, and has upgraded CPU and GPU performance.
In practice, that'll mean more power in graphically demanding situations like gaming, but also improvements in AI performance in image generation. Hopefully that means Apple's AI editing tools get a little quicker.
Under the hood, we got a look at a new thermal management system that should help the 18 Pro keep cooler and therefore more performant – a whacking great vapour chamber, something that's becoming increasingly popular as a solution in flagship phones.
For the first time, Apple also talked about its battery tech changing, with the "largest increase ever" between two generations of iPhones. It didn't explicitly say this was down to silicon carbon technology, but it might expand on that at some point.
The new 48MP main shooting lens on the iPhone 18 Pro has a new variable aperture control system that should make it a little more customisable and controllable. This is the closest we've seen Apple get to just sticking a traditional camera lens in its phone, and we'll be fascinated to see how it performs. It'll be a great addition for photography nerds, as will newly expanded controls in the Camera app (which might kill some third-party apps overnight).
Of course, we knew that the phones would also get a price hike – and that was confirmed by a new price for the 18 Pro at $1,199 in the US, and the 18 Pro Max from $1,299. Those are chunky, and we'll hopefully get the UK prices soon to compare.
