Following Apple's "Surprise and Shine" event, I got a chance to briefly try out the iPhone 18 Pro. I'm very excited about the new cameras.
The new iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max weren't minor upgrades. Even though the physical dimensions remained the same, the internals got a significant boost this time around.
In what would previously be called an "s" year, Apple focused a lot on performance, cameras, and battery life. I couldn't test all of that in my limited time, but that cameras had me impressed.
Before we get into that, let's take a look at some of the other enhancements.
iPhone 18 Pro colors
The new iPhone 18 Pro comes in four colors. You've got Glacier, burgundy, silver, and black.
With the iPhone 17 Pro, black was seemingly the most sought-after color. There were a lot of users who opined the lack of a black or dark grey phone, since it was only available in Cosmic Orange, Deep Blue, and silver.
iPhone 18 Pro now comes in black
The new black looks great and is a true black. Especially with the black glass embedded in the back.
I love the look of the new silver too. Apple says it is now "more refined," which appears to refer to the matching glass.
The iPhone 17 Pro has white glass embedded into he back of the silver phone, but the iPhone 18 Pro has silver glass. It looks more seamless and the Apple logo is more pronounced.
The glacier blue iPhone 18 Pro
I'm going to miss the Cosmic Orange. I was glad to see the Glacier blue was more vivid than I anticipated.
iPhone 18 Pro internal upgrades
Internally, Apple has put in a new A20 Pro processor that has two new super cores, a larger and more powerful GPU, and twice the neural cores. There is also a second-generation vapor chamber that is larger and more efficient at cooling the phone.
The new burgundy iPhone 18 Pro
The new phone charges faster when using a wired power adapter and the smaller of the two pro phones has Apple's C2 modem with mmWave support. And that's on top of both phones having longer battery life.
Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to test any of that in my time with the new devices. They'll have to wait for the full review.
iPhone 18 Pro cameras
There was a ton new with the iPhone 18 Pro cameras. The biggest change is a new variable aperture on the primary wide-angle camera.
Aperture controls how much light hits the sensor. A wider aperture, noted with a smaller value, produces more background bokeh.
The iPhone 18 Pro features a variable aperture main camera. The bottom lens is open in the left photo, and more closed in the right photo
When you increase the aperture, you restrict how much light hits the sensor. This will reduce background bokeh and make sure more of the photo is in focus.
As a photographer, I was (and still am to be honest) a bit skeptical. With such a small sensor, I wasn't sure how well this would translate to meaningful bokeh and depth of field in a smartphone photo.
A photo of iPhone Duo testing out the variable aperture of iPhone 18 Pro. The left had an aperture of f/1.48 while the right had an aperture of f/4.0
I was pleasantly surprised to see a decent difference in my sample photos. I took a photo of an iPhone Duo from about a foot away and you can see how much additional background blur the variable aperture captured.
The aperture has four stops of adjustment; from f/1.48 to f/4.0. Apple says when shooting wide open at f/1.48, it will have about 50% better low-light performance than the iPhone 17 Pro.
The iPhone 18 Pro has new Pro Controls in the Camera app for adjusting the aperture, shutter speed, white balance, and more.
Users can leave the aperture on auto and it will adjust as needed, or you can manually adjust it with the Pro Controls. The Pro Controls can also manually adjust the shutter speed, view a histogram, adjust focus, and more.
There are other camera improvements too I still need to test, like 4K timelapses, applying Cinematic Mode blur after shooting, Photographic Styles 3, focus tracking, and new audio mixing.
iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max look incredibly promising
Even with the iPhone Duo, iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are going to be wildly popular. The camera features alone are worth getting excited over.
iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and iPhone Duo
There are so many camera improvements that I cannot wait to try all sorts of different photos that I wouldn't have tried before. I want to try using a long shutter speed to capture motion blur or capturing striking silhouettes.
At the same time, there's so much more to test. The new local processing should be great with Siri AI, sustained performance will be more than welcomed while video editing, and I'll always take more battery life.
Users are going to be torn between the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo. The iPhone Duo has a lot of things going for it, but iPhone 18 Pro is all about the cameras.
