Apple’s most anticipated iPhone launch since the original in 2007 took place last week and the hype has been extreme – so now it’s time to review what is coming. Time for our iPhone 18 Pro Review – sorry, the iPhone Duo is a month away, so we’ll get to that soon I’m sure!

EFTM Snapshot – Same looks, huge upgrade underneath, especially the camera: the iPhone 18 Pro is the one for anyone still on a 15 Pro or older.

For now, the outstanding Pro range of iPhones is about to hit the market, so we’ve taken to the streets and ball parks of New York and Boston to check them out.

iPhone 18 Pro Design – what’s changed?

Physically the iPhone 18 Pro is almost identical to last year’s 17 Pro, if they were the same colour you’d never know the difference. However Apple appears to be playing into the fashionable trends many others like Motorola and lately Samsung have been doing by going with a strong bold highlight colour. Last year it was Orange, this year it’s a dark purple which Apple is calling Burgundy.

It doesn’t quite stand out as much as the rather bright Orange did last year, but it’s certainly as bold. The Glacier “Blue” is my pick, it’s a fresh look I’ve really enjoyed rocking.. Silver gets a tweak this year because that back plate is now colour matches not white.

Also, Black is back! A nice simple style for the iPhone 18 Pro is the classic black.

Dimensions are identical – my iPhone 17 Pro Max case fitted the 18 Pro Max perfectly. In fact, the only listed difference is an increase of 7 grams in the weight.

In reality, this is one of the most internal and performance based upgrades in many years. They may look the same as the 17 pro, but they are not.

Critically too, the new iPhone 18 Pro comes with a potential 2TB of storage! Beware though, that choice takes the price from $2,099 to $4,499 – OUCH those AI Data centres are starting to sting!

Performance packed

At the announcement keynote Apple spent plenty of time talking about the new A20 Pro chip inside the iPhone 18 Pro range. New “Super Cores” are 20% faster than the A19 pro, and the chip design delivers 40% faster graphics. Critically again thanks to the design there’s also a 50% increase in memory bandwidth.

One of the biggest leaps forward is in thermal performance, something you wouldn’t normally notice much. But if you use your iPhone 18 Pro for things like video editing and exports, or more likely love to run games for extended periods you might have noticed older Pro phones heating up.

Apple has extended the size of the thermal management zone on the iPhone 18 Pro making it far more efficient in those intensive moments. Frankly, I didn’t get to notice this in my use over a short period of less than a week.

All of this performance is there to push the “Pro” credentials of the iPhone Pro range. They will matter as more AI features drop with Siri and Apple Intelligence in the years ahead I have no doubt.

Camera capabilities on iPhone 18 Pro

Core to the power of iPhone 18 Pro are unquestionably the improvements in the camera. I’m going to say, I think this is the biggest leap forward for the iPhone camera in a long, long time, perhaps since the addition of the third lens.

What’s interesting about that is that the core sensors haven’t really changed. The leaps forward are in both software and physical hardware either side of that sensor.

On the hardware side, it’s a remarkable little set of fins that clasp over the lens to create a “Variable aperture”.

New Camera Controls allow for pro-level settings with ease

To achieve this, six tiny laser-cut blades thinner than a human hair are moved by a small rotor in front of the camera which allows for four discrete settings: ƒ/1.48, ƒ/1.8, ƒ/2.8, ƒ/4.0 – they are only available on the main camera not the ultra-wide or zoom.

Key purposes for this are to get better low-light shots, to achieve a stronger depth of field control and to get some motion effects in daylight.

One simple way to see the aperture in use is on pointed lights offering a “starry” effect with the wider aperture. These four shots are all the same, yet look at the lights overhead.

I think the low-light performance is dramatically improved, but interestingly I noticed that most in a video.

Shot at the end of a Baseball game, the stadium lights go down and start flashing and the level of detail is I think excellent.

No better place to test a phone under challenging lighting conditions than New York City’s Times Square right?

For my mind, outstanding results once again – but I’d expect that from an iPhone Pro!

It all pops where it should, and nothing appears washed out to me.

Critically, nothing also seems overblown which can be problematic in bright conditions.

While Cinematic mode itself hasn’t changed, what is new is the ability to essentially apply it to any video you shoot with the main camera after the fact

For people who don’t remember cause Cinematic mode is a few years old now, this is a cinematic video – Red Sox fans will think so anyway:

It’s all about focus. And if you forget to choose Cinematic, you can now just edit any video you shoot on iPhone 18 Pro to change that focal point – I fear the distinct Cinematic mode might not be required very soon.

What IS new is “Smart Focus Tracking”. When you might be used to tapping on a subject when taking a photo to focus, you can now double tap on a subject to track them as you move the camera or they move through the frame. Works well.

Overall, this is yet another outstanding camera from Apple. I’ve certainly been snapping away!

We saw the Yankees at Yankee Stadium:

It’s an impressive stadium no question.

In terms of detail, couldn’t be unhappy with these two shots – the pitch:

And the hit:

In terms of static shots, just stunning:

Zoom levels remain the same.

0.5 Ultrawide:

1x Main

2x Fusion:

4x Telephoto

8x Hybrid

Photography in low light, are excellent, this shop photo taken from a bus probably shows the scene better than the naked eye

This Graveyard shot was taken at night, again the photos show more light than was visible to the eye.

But all-in-all, impressive photos, as always from an iPhone Pro.

iPhone 18 Pro Fighting AI Images with Apple Reference Image

Apple is doing their bit to fight image fakes. In a world where AI sites can generate photorealistic images in a heartbeat, what is real?

Given even Apple has also moved to allow photorealism in their own “Image Playground” it’s a critical move.

Apple say this “new, opt-in camera mode lets a photographer create a securely timestamped reference image that accurately reflects what was captured by the iPhone’s camera sensor. Dedicated secure hardware on the device protects the integrity of this reference image, and Private Cloud Compute protects the privacy of the image data during processing.”

Honestly, I get the intent, I love the leadership, but I’m confused – I’ve gotta take another photo that serves as the reference photo? Or I use this as my default shooting mode. Not entirely clear to be honest.

Possible 4K Video Issue on iPhone 18 Pro

There is one issue. And, to be clear, it may be my demo device because I’m only experiencing this on my iPhone 18 Pro, not on my Pro Max. But, any 4K video shot on iPhone, be it the iPhone 18 Pro, 18 Pro Max or my iPhone Air, and viewed on the iPhone 18 Pro shows some strange green gridlines across the video.

Below is a photo taken on a normal camera of the iPhone 18 Pro while it’s playing a sample video I filmed on a plane of the seat in front of me while I noticed this issue:

The same video seen on any other device does not show these same gridlines. Strange. I’ve sent all I can about this to Apple because it could be unique to my device. Whatever it is, it’s not the video files, so I’d suggest it to be a software issue easily fixed.

iPhone 18 Pro Price in Australia

Prices aren’t as bad as we hoped – at the entry level. iPhone 18 Pro starts at $2,099 – just $100 more than last year. Unfortunately because memory is what drives the price, the more storage you add the bigger the jump over last year, and that gap widens further at each tier – $2,499 for the 512GB, $3,299 for the 1TB and $4,499 for the 2TB.

If you want the Pro Max, that’s $2,299 for 256GB, $2,699 for 512GB and the 1 and 2TB are $3,499 and $4,699 respectively.

So, not cheap, but it never has been.

Who should buy the iPhone 18 Pro

Battery life is up on last year, and it’s built for the next 5-7 years of software, so of course, it’s the right phone to get now.

That said, we didn’t get a “base” model iPhone 18 – that’s expected early next year. Plus, there’s the lure of the iPhone Duo. That’s going to cost them some Pro sales this year no question.

I always say though, these phones aren’t released with an eye on last year’s owners upgrading, In fact, I’d put the crosshairs fair and square on iPhone 15 Pro users and older – in particular those on the iPhone 14 Pro or earlier don’t have access to Apple Intelligence, something that’s had a slow launch – but is starting to really show some benefits as the personal context becomes clear. More on that down the track though.

Web: Apple