Apple unveiled the iPhone 18 Pro lineup on September 9, with the iPhone 18 Pro Max starting at $1,299 for 256GB — $100 more than the iPhone 17 Pro Max cost at launch. That premium buys three headline upgrades: a 2-nanometer A20 Pro chip, a variable-aperture main camera, and up to 45 hours of rated video playback.
The iPhone 18 Pro Max starts at $1,299 for 256GB and tops out at 2TB, versus $1,199 at launch for the 17 Pro Max with 256GB. The smaller iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199. Apple also teased a foldable iPhone Duo due in October, but has published no spec sheet for it yet.
The 18 Pro Max runs on the A20 Pro, built on a 2nm process: a 6-core CPU, 7-core GPU, and 32-core Neural Engine. The 17 Pro Max's A19 Pro was 3nm, with a 6-core CPU, 6-core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine. One extra GPU core and a doubled Neural Engine count mean the gains land hardest in gaming and on-device AI workloads.
The 18 Pro Max keeps a 48-megapixel main sensor, but its aperture is now variable from f/1.48 to f/4, replacing the fixed f/1.78 on the 17 Pro Max. The ultrawide and telephoto remain a 48-megapixel pairing, and the 18MP Center Stage front camera is unchanged. A variable aperture lets users trade low-light intake against depth-of-field control manually — a first for the Pro line.
Battery capacity rises to 5,391mAh on the Nano SIM model and 5,567mAh on the eSIM-only model, up from 4,823mAh and 5,088mAh on the 17 Pro Max. Apple rates video playback at up to 45 hours (eSIM model) versus 39 hours before. Wired charging steps up to 60W: about 50% in 15 minutes, and five minutes on the cable yields roughly seven hours of playback, against 50% in about 20 minutes on last year's 40W charging. Wireless charging stays at up to 25W over MagSafe on both.
The 6.9-inch LTPO OLED at 120Hz with 3,000 nits peak brightness, 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and 256GB-to-2TB storage are identical across the two generations. Connectivity is where the modem changes: the 18 Pro Max moves to Apple's in-house C2 modem and N1 chip (Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, Thread), replacing the Qualcomm Snapdragon X80 in the 17 Pro Max. Colors are refreshed to Black, Silver, Glacier, and Burgundy, replacing last year's Silver, Cosmic Orange, and Deep Blue.
For photographers and heavy gamers, the variable aperture and the 2nm chip are tangible upgrades. Buyers who mostly care about the screen and everyday performance will find a discounted 17 Pro Max still plenty — the $100 gap is, at bottom, a camera-and-battery tax.