Apple announces iPhone 18 Pro series: camera upgrades, A20 Pro chip, improved battery life

Apple iPhone 18 Pro officially unveiled. (Picture/reproduced by YT)

Apple’s 2026 autumn conference will debut today (9th). The new generation iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max will be unveiled, focusing on cameras, performance, heat dissipation, battery life and AI.

The appearance of the iPhone 18 Pro series follows the previous generation, but the area of ​​the dynamic island on the front is reduced. However, through redesign, the upgraded dynamic island allows users to see more information at a glance, and can display up to 3 "real-time updates" at the same time.

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The camera is one of the most important upgrades to the iPhone 18 Pro series this time. Both new phones are equipped with a 48-megapixel Fusion main camera and introduce variable aperture for the first time in iPhone.

The new camera uses 6 laser-cut aperture blades, which can automatically switch to different apertures according to the shooting environment, light and depth of field, and can open up to ƒ/1.48, allowing for better light intake for low-light shooting.

For advanced users, Apple has also added more complete manual controls. You can adjust the 4-step aperture directly in the camera app. You can also control the shutter speed, white balance, and view the exposure through a histogram. The operation method is obviously closer to that of a professional camera.

Imaging functions have also been upgraded simultaneously. The new computational photography process can improve the sharpness and details of photos, and the "Photography Style" adds texture and grain control; in terms of recording, videos shot at up to 60fps can now apply film-level effects afterwards, and time-lapse photography also supports 4K Dolby Vision HDR.

The new A20 Pro chip is built using a 2nm process. The 6-core CPU integrates Neural Accelerators, which outperforms competitors. The new 7-core GPU architecture is up to 40% faster than the A19 Pro. It also adds a new dual 16-core neural network engine to accelerate device-side AI models and computational photography processing. With a total of 32 cores, the AI ​​computing power is 2 times that of A19 Pro. The memory bandwidth of the A20 Pro is also increased by 50% compared to the A19 Pro. In addition to the A20 Pro chip, it is also equipped with Apple's self-developed N1 wireless network chip and C2 mobile network modem system.

Apple also redesigned the cooling system. The new vapor chamber is made of different materials, with a heat dissipation area three times that of the wallet. Coupled with a new chip packaging design, the A20 Pro chip can be in direct contact with the vapor chamber. Apple said that this new heat dissipation design improves the sustained performance of the iPhone 18 Pro series by up to 40% compared to the previous generation, which will be more helpful for long-term gaming, recording, or performing AI workloads.

Battery life is also an obvious upgrade this time. Judging from the version that only supports eSIM, iPhone 18 Pro Max can watch videos for up to 45 hours, which Apple calls the largest improvement in battery life in the history of iPhones. The charging speed is also accelerated. The iPhone 18 Pro Max only needs 5 minutes of wired charging to provide about 7 hours of video playback time.

Time to market, selling price

iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are available in 4 colors this time: black, silver, glacier color, and new burgundy red. The new phone will be available for pre-order on September 12th and will be officially launched on September 18th.