Apple's iPhone 18 Pro adds a variable aperture…

Pre-orders open September 12 and the phones go on sale September 18, starting at $1,199 in the U.S.

The most consequential change in the iPhone 18 Pro is a camera you can stop down. Apple's 48MP Fusion Main camera now has a variable aperture, which the company says brings creative control that wasn't possible before, and the same sensor does something else: it can sign every pixel it sees, powering a feature called Apple Reference Image that lets a user prove a photo was actually taken on the phone.

Pre-orders begin Saturday, September 12, and availability starts Friday, September 18. iPhone 18 Pro comes in burgundy, glacier, silver and black at $1,199 (U.S.), and iPhone 18 Pro Max starts at $1,299 (U.S.).

Inside is the A20 Pro, built on 2-nanometer process technology. Its new Dual 16-core Neural Engine handles on-device AI models and computational photography, and with 32 total cores Apple puts its AI processing power at double that of the A19 Pro.

The cellular side gets a new part too. C2 is Apple's next-generation modem system, and it brings AI-powered improvements to call and connection quality, meaningfully faster uploads than the C1X, 15 percent lower energy use, and mmWave support in the U.S.

Battery is where Apple is claiming the biggest single leap. iPhone 18 Pro Max delivers the largest increase in battery life ever on an iPhone, which Apple credits to both the silicon and a physically larger battery, and in eSIM-only configurations the numbers come out at up to 45 hours of video playback on the Max and up to 36 hours on the smaller Pro. Recharges are quick as well. Apple says the Pro reaches 50 percent in around 15 minutes on a cable, or 30 minutes wirelessly.

Both phones get access to Siri AI, which rolls out in beta with iOS 27. That release also introduces iPhone Handoff, letting users on supported carriers move back and forth between two iPhone models on the same phone number.

This was the first iPhone keynote led by John Ternus, Apple's newly anointed CEO, according to The Verge, which noted he had billed the event in advance as "a huge launch . . . that's going to be phenomenal." The Verge also raised the possibility that the standard iPhone 18 won't arrive until the new year, which would leave the Pro models and a folding phone as the event's announcements.