Apple's iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max will arrive in stores and begin reaching customers on September 18. The phones retain a design similar to the iPhone 17 Pro models, but introduce upgrades to performance, cameras, battery life, cooling, connectivity and storage.

Pre-orders opened on September 12. Here are the 10 main changes arriving with Apple's latest Pro iPhones.

Performance, design and display changes

  1. A20 Pro chip: The new 2-nanometer A20 Pro features a six-core CPU, seven-core GPU and 32-core Neural Engine. Apple claims up to 20% faster CPU performance, up to 40% faster graphics and up to 40% faster sustained performance compared with the A19 Pro.
  2. New colors: The iPhone 18 Pro models come in Burgundy, Black and Glacier. Orange is no longer available, and the rear aluminum and Ceramic Shield glass are more closely color matched.
  3. Smaller Dynamic Island: Apple has reduced the size of the Dynamic Island, while allowing it to display up to three Live Activities at the same time.

Camera upgrades for photography and video

  1. Variable aperture: The 48-megapixel Fusion main camera now lets users adjust how much light reaches the sensor. Aperture settings range from ƒ/1.48 to ƒ/4.0, giving photographers more control over depth of field. Apple also says the change improves low-light images and detail in the back of group photos.
  2. Expanded Pro controls: The Camera app adds manual controls for shutter speed, white balance and aperture. Users can also enable a histogram.
  3. 4K Dolby Vision time-lapse: Both models can record time-lapse videos in 4K with Dolby Vision HDR.

Battery life and thermal improvements

  1. Longer battery life: Battery performance improves over the previous generation, with the iPhone 18 Pro Max offering up to 15% longer offline video playback than the iPhone 17 Pro Max. Charging to 50% now takes 15 minutes, compared with 20 minutes previously.
  2. Larger vapor chamber: A redesigned cooling system has three times the surface area of the vapor chamber used in the iPhone 17 Pro models, helping dissipate heat during demanding workloads.

Connectivity and storage options

  1. Second-generation C2 modem: At least some iPhone 18 Pro models in some countries use Apple's C2 cellular modem for 5G and LTE. Apple says it improves cellular quality and reliability, enables meaningfully faster uploads than the C1X modem and uses 15% less energy. US models support mmWave 5G.
  2. Up to 2TB of storage: Both the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max can be configured with 2TB of storage. Previously, that capacity was limited to the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

The upgrades are largely incremental, but the variable-aperture camera, faster A20 Pro processor, improved thermal design and new storage tier give the Pro models several practical advantages over Apple's previous generation.