Apple's iPhone 18 Pro debuts with 2nm chip, variable aperture camera

The two phones start at 256GB of storage and reach 2TB for the first time, with intermediate tiers of 512GB and 1TB. Apple offers them in black, silver, glacier and a new burgundy finish.

Both models run the A20 Pro chip. Apple says its 7-core graphics processor is up to 40% faster than the previous generation, that memory bandwidth has risen by 50%, and that a dual 16-core Neural Engine doubles the phones' capacity for artificial intelligence tasks.

The camera drew the longest segment of the presentation. A 48MP main sensor sits behind six laser-cut blades that widen the aperture to f/1.48 in dim conditions and narrow it for greater depth of field. Apple also introduced Apple Reference Image, which cryptographically signs sensor data at the pixel level so that a photograph can be verified as camera-captured rather than generated by artificial intelligence.

Greg Joswiak, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, said the company had targeted the areas users care about most.

"With iPhone 18 Pro, we've made advancements to the areas our users care about most: camera, performance, battery, and intelligence. And we didn't just make incremental improvements in these areas, we took huge leaps forward to create the best Pro iPhone we've ever made," he said.

Apple redesigned the Dynamic Island to occupy less space while displaying up to three Live Activities at once, and fitted a vapor chamber with three times more surface area, which the company credits with a gain of up to 40% in sustained performance.

Battery life rises sharply on models sold without a physical SIM slot. Apple cites up to 36 hours of video playback on the Pro and up to 45 hours on the Pro Max, calling the latter the largest battery improvement in the product's history. A wired charge reaches 50% in roughly 15 minutes.

The phones carry Apple's N1 wireless chip, supporting Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Thread, together with a new C2 modem that the company says uses 15% less energy than its predecessor.

Pre-orders open at 5 a.m. Pacific Time on September 12. Sales begin September 18 in more than 65 countries and regions, with 20 additional markets following on September 25.

Earlier, Qazinform reported that Apple set the annual salary of its new Chief Executive Officer John Ternus at $3 million as part of a compensation package following his appointment to lead the company.