Apple announced three phones on Wednesday evening. Every figure below is from Apple’s UK spec pages, its UK store or its UK newsroom, read on 10 September. Nothing here is measured, estimated or converted from dollars.
What Apple announced
| Model | Chip | Display | From | UK price | Pre-order | On sale |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| iPhone 18 Pro | A20 Pro | 6.3 in | 256 GB | £1,199 | Sat 12 Sep, 13:00 | Fri 18 Sep |
| iPhone 18 Pro Max | A20 Pro | 6.9 in | 256 GB | £1,299 | Sat 12 Sep, 13:00 | Fri 18 Sep |
| iPhone Duo | A20 Pro | 7.6 in inner, 5.4 in outer | 256 GB | £1,999 | Fri 16 Oct, 13:00 | Fri 23 Oct |
Storage runs to 2 TB on all three: £2,399 for the 18 Pro, £2,499 for the Pro Max and £3,199 for the Duo. Apple also announced AirPods 5, Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4. It did not announce a standard iPhone 18, an iPhone 18e or a second iPhone Air, and the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max have left Apple’s own store.
The foldable is called iPhone Duo. Not Ultra, not Fold.
The Pro models
The iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max are the same phone at two sizes: 150.0 × 71.9 × 8.75 mm at 211 g, and 163.4 × 78.0 × 8.75 mm at 249 g. The A20 Pro is a 2-nanometre chip with a six-core CPU, a seven-core GPU and what Apple calls a dual 16-core Neural Engine.
The camera is where Apple spent its keynote. The 48 MP main camera has a mechanical variable aperture with four stops, ƒ/1.48, ƒ/1.8, ƒ/2.8 and ƒ/4.0, on both models. The ultra wide and the 4× telephoto stay at 48 MP, the telephoto stays at ƒ/2.8, and the front camera stays at 18 MP. Apple states 8× optical-quality zoom and a 16× optical-quality range.
Apple’s battery claims are up to 34 hours of video playback on the Pro and 43 on the Pro Max, against 31 and 37 for the 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max on the same test. Fast charging is stated as 50% in around 15 minutes with a 60 W adapter, from 20 minutes with 40 W last year. Peak brightness is unchanged at 3,000 nits outdoor. Colours are Black, Silver, Glacier and Burgundy.
iPhone Duo
The Duo is a book-style foldable: 117.8 × 84.1 × 11.3 mm closed, 117.8 × 164.6 × 5.2 mm open, 254 g, in a titanium frame with Ceramic Shield 2 on both faces. The inner display is 7.6 inches at 1878 × 2670 with a nano-texture finish; the outer is 5.4 inches at 1398 × 2034. Both run to 120 Hz and 3,000 nits.
Three things separate it from the Pros on the spec sheet. It unlocks with Touch ID in the side button, not Face ID. It has two rear cameras, a 48 MP ƒ/1.6 main and a 48 MP ultra wide, with a 2× crop standing in for a telephoto. And it is eSIM only, everywhere. Apple’s battery figure is up to 31 hours of video on the inner display and 44 on the outer.
What it means if you own a 15, 16 or 17 Pro
The comparison pages do this row by row with our published thresholds, so the short version here uses Apple’s figures only.
From a 17 Pro or Pro Max. The 18 Pro Max is 18 g heavier than the 17 Pro Max, which sits between our marginal and noticeable weight marks, and the video-playback claim is up by 6 hours, which is exactly our noticeable mark for hours of use. Charging moves 20 W, which is marginal. Brightness does not move. The variable aperture is a capability, not a larger number, and whether it is worth £1,199 depends on whether you shoot in a way that uses it. The price is £100 higher than the 17 Pro’s launch price.
From a 16 Pro. Apple’s video figure goes from 27 hours to 34, brightness from 2,000 to 3,000 nits, charging from 20 W to 60 W. All three clear our noticeable threshold. This is the generation gap that reads as a different phone.
From a 15 Pro. Every threshold is cleared by a distance: 23 hours to 34, 2,000 to 3,000 nits, 20 W to 60 W. The 18 Pro is 24 g heavier than the 15 Pro, which sits between our marginal and noticeable weight marks. The honest question is not 18 Pro or 17 Pro. It is whether a used 17 Pro at whatever CeX is paying this month does the same job for £400 less.
One caveat carries over from the hub: capacity is not endurance, and Apple’s video-playback hours are a manufacturer’s loop test, not a day’s use. The EU energy-label endurance figures we use for the comparison engine do not exist for the new phones yet. When they do, the compare pages will pick them up.
The rumours, scored
We tracked 38 claims before the event. Against Apple’s pages: 15 confirmed, 12 partly right, 4 wrong, 7 that Apple did not address. The full scorecard names the outlet behind each one and links the Apple page that settled it.
The biggest miss was the front camera. Several outlets had it moving to 24 MP; it is 18 MP, the same as last year. The variable aperture rumour was right, but the claim that it would be Pro Max only was wrong: both models have it. The telephoto was reported to get a wider aperture; it stays at ƒ/2.8. The colour leaks had the names wrong and said there would be no black; there is.
The biggest hit was the foldable. Two rear cameras and no telephoto, Touch ID in the side button, eSIM only, two finishes, titanium, a fourth-quarter ship date after a September reveal: all confirmed. The screen sizes were close, 5.5 and 7.8 inches reported against 5.4 and 7.6 shipped. The thickness was not: 4.5 mm open and 9 to 9.5 mm closed were reported, against 5.2 and 11.3 mm shipped.
The price forecasts were the weakest set. TrendForce’s $1,249 to $1,299 for the Pro and $1,349 to $1,399 for the Pro Max were both above Apple’s US prices of $1,199 and $1,299. The UK coverage that converted a $300 analyst estimate into a £300 rise was wrong by £200; the outlets that said £100 to £200 and a £1,199 start were right. The foldable forecasts, $1,800 to $2,500, bracketed the actual $1,999.
Seven claims are unresolved because Apple does not publish the figure: RAM, battery capacity in milliamp-hours, the panel type, the chip’s percentage gains over the A19 Pro, the memory-cost explanation for the prices, and two reports about production volumes and early testers. Third parties will fill some of those in the coming weeks, and when they do, the device pages will show them as third-party figures, not as Apple’s.
What the site now holds
The three phones are in the catalogue with 32 to 34 sourced figures each, every one linked to Apple’s UK spec page, store or newsroom. Two rows were added to every iPhone on the site so Apple’s compare page has nothing ours lacks: Apple’s video-playback claim, and how the phone unlocks. Comparisons against every other phone in the catalogue are live, including 18 Pro vs 17 Pro and 18 Pro Max vs 17 Pro Max. Used and trade-in prices appear once CeX lists the phones; until then the price panel shows Apple’s RRP and nothing else.