Apple has launched the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, bringing significant upgrades, including in camera, silicon, battery life and higher entry-level prices when stacked against the outgoing iPhone 17 Pro generation. Both new flagship handsets carry a $100 price increase across the board. The baseline iPhone 18 Pro now begins at $1,199 (Rs 1,64,900), compared to the $1,099 launch price of the iPhone 17 Pro. The larger iPhone 18 Pro Max enters the market at $1,299 (Rs 1,79,900), up from last year’s $1,199 threshold. Here are the key differences between the flagship phones of 2026 and 2025.
Apple has eliminated the two-tone contrast of the iPhone 17 Pro back glass. there are several refinements While the overall design remains the same. The lineup shifts to four finishes: Glacier, Burgundy, Silver and Black. The interactive pill cutout on the front screen features a reduced physical footprint, creating enough display room to display up to three Live Activities at the same time.
the iPhone 18 Pro shifts primary engineering attention back to the primary rear shooter While the iPhone 17 Pro emphasised telephoto enhancements and an updated Center Stage front-facing sensor. Using six laser-cut mechanical blades, the lens transitions smoothly between four distinct physical aperture stops: f/1.48, f/1.8, f/2.8, and f/4.0. Performance sees a sharp generational jump, thanks to the new A20 Pro chip, manufactured using an advanced 2-nanometer architecture compared to the 3nm foundation of the A19 Pro. The processor houses a 6-core CPU featuring four efficiency cores alongside two high-performance super cores that Apple bills as the fastest mobile processing units on the market. Engineered to handle the intensive machine-learning workloads built into iOS 27, the A20 Pro integrates a dual 16-core Neural Engine that doubles the core density found in the A19 Pro. When it comes to managing thermals, a second-generation vapor chamber cools the package, enabling up to 40% higher sustained processing performance under heavy operational loads compared to the iPhone 17 Pro, Apple says.
Apple says that the setup automatically adapts to tricky lighting environments and shifts depth of field to keep backgrounds sharp in group compositions or soften backdrops for portraits. The biggest change is probably the camera. The main shooter is an overhauled 48MP Fusion Main camera equipped with physical aperture control – a first for an iPhone.