The iPhone 18 Pro launched on Wednesday, 9 September 2026, at Apple’s Cupertino keynote, starting at $1 199 alongside a $1 299 Pro Max and Apple’s first foldable, the iPhone Duo.
Apple’s Wednesday keynote confirmed months of leaked specifications and settled the biggest question hanging over the event: what the foldable would actually be called, as reported by CNBC.
It landed as the iPhone Duo, not the iPhone Ultra name that had circulated for months.
What the iPhone 18 Pro launch confirmed on price
The iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1 199 for 256 gigabytes of storage and 12 gigabytes of RAM, a $100 increase on the iPhone 17 Pro’s launch price. The bigger iPhone 18 Pro Max starts at $1 299, the same $100 jump. Both run on the new A20 Pro chip.
That price rise stems largely from the A20 Pro’s move to a two-nanometre manufacturing process,
Apple’s first chip built that way. Packing transistors more tightly means more of them fit into the same space, which Apple says delivers roughly 15% faster performance and 30% better efficiency than last year’s chip.
iPhone 18 Pro Max battery and camera changes
The Pro Max now manages up to 30 hours of video playback on one charge, Apple’s longest yet. Both new Pro models gain physical camera shutters that open and close to control depth of field, focus and background blur, the mechanical version of the variable aperture that had been rumoured for months.
Apple also introduced a feature called Apple Reference Image, which lets a photo be verified as having been captured by an iPhone camera rather than generated by artificial intelligence. It works by embedding a cryptographic marker at the moment of capture, addressing growing concern about AI-faked photos passing as real.
iPhone Duo: Apple’s first folding iPhone
Apple also confirmed its long-rumoured foldable, the iPhone Duo, ending months of speculation that it would be called iPhone Ultra or iPhone Fold. It opens book-style into a tablet-sized screen, supports the Apple Pencil for the first time on an iPhone, and comes in just two colours: white and dark blue.
Pricing starts at $2 000 for the base 256 gigabyte model, climbing to roughly $3 000 for the largest 1 terabyte version, positioning it well above both Pro models.
Apple confirmed the iPhone Duo ships separately from the Pro line, arriving in October rather than alongside the standard 18 September launch.
When the iPhone 18 Pro launch reaches South Africa
Pre-orders for the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max open on Saturday, 12 September 2026, from 09:00 SAST, with devices reaching customers from Friday, 18 September 2026.
Apple’s official South African reseller, iStore, has confirmed the country sits in the first wave of markets to receive the new lineup, though local pricing has not yet been published.
