iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max

(apple.com)

194 points | by meetpateltech 4 hours ago ago

167 comments

  • quinncom 3 hours ago

    I love that it has a feature to prove images came from the real world:

    > Users can now prove the authenticity of a photo taken on iPhone 18 Pro models with Apple Reference Image, powered by the new sensor in the Main camera that can sign every pixel it sees. When a photo is taken in the new Reference mode, the camera captures signed sensor data that Private Cloud Compute develops into an unalterable reference image.5 Reference images can be viewed in the Photos app alongside the main image, like a digital negative, to visually compare the two assets and determine if any edits were made. APIs are available in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS 27 for third-party apps to enable viewing of these reference images.

    • andrewmutz 2 hours ago

      Can't I just point my camera at an AI generated image? And it will get the stamp of authenticity?

      • dabinat an hour ago

        It would be great if they could use the LiDAR scanner to sign a depth map of the scene in front of the camera. It would show if you photographed a flat image.

        • bayindirh 18 minutes ago

          The sensor already uses phase detection autofocus. You can create a depth map out of it. iPhone X used its dual cameras and that phase data for depth maps.

        • ks2048 11 minutes ago

          If that became popular, the AIs would learn how to generate a realistic depth map along with any generated image.

          • lokar 5 minutes ago

            How would that work? I thought the premise here is that you can fool the apple camera by taking a (very carefully aligned) picture of a still image (printed out).

            A depth map from the apple camera (again, signed) would show that the entire image had the same distance from the camera.

        • koolala 18 minutes ago

          They could use the camera aperture to take a second photo and calculate blur.

        • mikeaskew4 17 minutes ago

          Pretty sure it does that already.

        • w4der 44 minutes ago

          And what if you take a picture across a IR-filtered window?

          • apetresc 25 minutes ago

            Then you won’t be able to prove it was a genuine photograph? That sounds like the right failure mode.

      • llukas 2 hours ago

        Stamp only proves you did the photo and probably some metadata like when where etc.

        It helps but doesn't solve credibility issue.

        • lokar 4 minutes ago

          what is it missing then?

    • spacebanana7 40 minutes ago

      The weakness of this is that a person can take a picture of a high resolution screen or print.

      We really need Apple to open up true depth APIs to make forgery non trivial.

      • apetresc 19 minutes ago

        I don’t know too much about image processing, but my intuition tells me that distinguishing a photo of a 3d scene from a photo of a photo of a 3d scene is a much easier engineering problem than distinguishing it from an AI-generated diffusion. So even just reducing the problem to the former is still a worthy accomplishment.

      • awkwardleon 24 minutes ago

        Agree with the weakness, but the benefit of provenance is still there. You can't tell if the picture that person took is of an AI image, but there's some value in saying "I took this" and being able to prove it.

    • lern_too_spel 18 minutes ago

      Finally. Android phones have been shipping with C2PA since last year, so it's great that the final holdout has capitulated, though with its own set of nonstandard tools.

      https://c2paviewer.com/articles/samsung-galaxy-s25-c2pa

      https://security.googleblog.com/2025/09/pixel-android-truste...

      https://c2paviewer.com/supported-devices

    • cavoirom 2 hours ago

      Yes, this is really a "Pro" feature, while C2PA exists, not many consumer products have it, iPhone will be the game changer for reporters.

    • whatever1 an hour ago

      I wish next year for videos too.

      We really need it for journalism. Otherwise we will not know what is real and what fabricated with ai.

    • FireBeyond an hour ago

      Canon's original high end digital models had this as a feature, that you images could be digitally signed in camera based on raw sensor data. Primarily for law enforcement. Obviously a far broarder use case, now.

    • xattt 2 hours ago

      *Not available in EU or China.

      I wonder what the common thread is.

      • rock_artist an hour ago

        > I wonder what the common thread is.

        Regulation.

        For China I would assume like other services, if there's some cloud involved, it should be on Chinese soil and accessible to China.

        For EU harder to guess, but again the lock-in with "Private Cloud Computing" feels related.

  • millipede an hour ago

    The things we need to know most, RAM and Memory Bandwidth, are unfortunately missing from the release. Their absence doesn't bode well.

    • dgellow an hour ago

      What do you do with your phone that requires you to know the memory details? Genuine question, I have absolutely no idea how much memory my iPad or phone have and don’t see why I would need to know

      • WarmWash an hour ago

        Running not-particularly-useful local models.

      • eagerpace 32 minutes ago

        Because I am buying a phone to use for the next 3 years and want to buy it based on the most important property of compute devices right now. I couldn't care less about the camera and the 13 random metrics that all look the same as every other camera announcement. I will happily take 96GB of RAM in my phone (and I know what that means) and would gladly allow you to make it 1.2mm thicker in the process.

        • apetresc 7 minutes ago

          What on earth would you do with an iOS device that has 96GB of RAM? You realize the last generation (i.e, the most powerful consumer phone in the world today) had 12 GB of RAM? You feel the need for eight times that amount?

          • lokar 2 minutes ago

            Number go up, I guess? A lot of people derive great satisfaction from ever larger (or sometimes smaller) number. But, uh, 8X is probably too much, need to spread that out over a few generations.

      • hombre_fatal 22 minutes ago

        To know what you're getting. No further reasons needed.

      • o_m an hour ago

        I only care about it because I'm waiting for a MacBook Neo with more than 8gb of memory.

        • wang_li an hour ago

          I'm waiting for a software release for my iPhone 16 Pro Max that will let me plug in a dock that has an attached SSD, keyboard, mouse, and display, and an option to pop up on my phone to reboot into MacOS.

          Also, if they make a neo 2 from the A19 with 12 GB that'd be cool.

    • runjake an hour ago

      Based on supply chain leaks, it's pretty safe to assume 12 GB memory with up to 100GB/sec memory bandwidth at best.

      The A19 Pro had 12 GB and was around 77GB/sec memory bandwidth for reference. If I was a betting man, I'd say the memory bandwidth on the A20 Pro is the same.

      • SirMaster an hour ago

        But they said the memory bandwidth was double the previous generation.

      • quentindanjou an hour ago

        If I didn't dream it, I think their presentation said something like 50% increase so you should be quite right probably around ~110GB/sec

      • carstn an hour ago

        Rumors suggested a wider memory bus on A20 Pro.

  • nateb2022 3 hours ago

    I would love to see some "pro" features hit the Pro or Pro Max. Something I've wanted for a while is the ability to have more than 2 active eSIMs; I think a dual modem would be really cool, maybe with some features targeting users in poor cell coverage/ spotty service areas.

    Or feature Thunderbolt rather than normie USB-C so you can record 4/8K ProRes to an SSD, and power a multi monitor setup with your iPhone Pro. macOS would be sick. Or (waterproof) exposed PCIE lanes so 3rd parties can integrate an ecosystem of backpacks like how Pi Hats work.

    • Scoundreller 3 hours ago

      > I think a dual modem would be really cool, maybe with some features targeting users in poor cell coverage/ spotty service areas.

      Can already do iMessage over satellite. Most “data” is download and I predict some satellite service that sends basic broadcasts (traffic, news, Text-to-speech podcasts) squeezed into a few mbps by pointing your phone at the sky (or a small cabled antenna for around the clock use). Would love to go carrier-less.

    • cavoirom 2 hours ago

      Apple Reference Image is the new "pro" feature.

    • wang_li 44 minutes ago

      >Or feature Thunderbolt rather than normie USB-C so you can record 4/8K ProRes to an SSD,

      My iphone 16 pro max can do 4K ProRes HDR or Log at 120 FPS when plugged into a SSD. If I had more builtin storage I could do it without the SSD. If you don't mind more dongling you can also have an external display along with the external SSD.

  • ksec 3 hours ago

    I am actually quite excited on this iPhone 18 Pro. Seems to pack a a lot of exciting stuff. 2nm A20 Pro, C2. I wish they have N2 but I guess not. 2nd Generation Vapour Chamber. I thought I would have to wait another generation because Apple like to use new product features for two generation before moving on. And it seems this Vapour Chamber along with other heat desperation features are much better built. Much better Camera. And larger battery. With 60W charging that finally matches or closes to a lot of Android phone has been doing.

    Never thought they would do it all within one update. In terms of hardware that is pretty much everything I wanted other than Silicon Battery.

    The only thing that need radical change is iOS.

    • ivm an hour ago

      > The only thing that need radical change is iOS.

      Please, not again.

      – Sincerely yours mobile developer

      • RetpolineDrama 19 minutes ago

        Introducing SwiftUI2: Every UI is a simple prompt, and all the underlying code is generated.

    • ShinyLeftPad 28 minutes ago

      > The only thing that need radical change is iOS.

      Personally iSO 26 is so unbelievably glitchy, it's only not embarrasing because you know others spent $$$ on the same thing so everyone pretends it's fine.

      • solarkraft 6 minutes ago

        27 is really a lot better, even on an iPhone 13.

        Yet that’s still just repairing what they previously broke. I still can’t listen to music AND listen to a voice memo or a video clip.

    • LeBit an hour ago

      Heat desperation?

      I don’t think Siri is sentient yet.

  • afavour 4 hours ago

    That’s certainly an iPhone, alright.

    Apple basically need to release a new model every year to fit the phone upgrade cycle so I suppose it’s not that surprising to see one with so few compelling features. Maybe next year.

    • nobleach 3 hours ago

      > the most advanced camera in an iPhone

      I mean, I can't remember the last time they DIDN'T say that. Variable aperture is kinda cool I guess. 256Gigs of storage basically means everyone's going to have to upgrade their iCloud storage monthly spend just to back this thing up. I've stopped sending my camera roll to iCloud just to save on space.

      • otherjason 3 hours ago

        Apple events are full of these meaningless statements, which always drive me crazy. Of course it's the "best iPhone Apple has ever made." If it wasn't, then wouldn't I be better off buying an older model?

        • paxys 2 hours ago

          Just once I want the CEO to go up on stage and say “this year’s model isn’t all that great tbh”.

          • Den_VR an hour ago

            That’s the open for an actually amazing year.

        • nobleach 2 hours ago

          I haven't been this excited since Dodge released their new Caravan... or Ubuntu released their new orange and purple UI...

      • WarmWash an hour ago

        Camera quality actually topped out a decade ago or so, and now it's become all post-processing trends that define "best".

        Not unlike the "Best jacket of the season" being the one that is most fashionable as opposed to the most functional.

        • luqtas an hour ago

          soon we'll have a like amount predictor connected with your personal assistant talking with your social media

        • kingkongjaffa an hour ago

          You say that, but I've bought the non-pro iphones the last few generations (13, 15 currently) and consistently wanted a better camera, so this upgrade cycle I'll probably shell out for the 18 pro.

      • insaneirish an hour ago

        > I've stopped sending my camera roll to iCloud just to save on space.

        This is an interesting choice. Photos from my phone would literally be the last thing I ever turned off backup for.

        To each their own...

        • nobleach 2 minutes ago

          Oh I back them up to Immich self-hosted. I just stopped paying Apple.

        • brewdad 29 minutes ago

          Agreed. The photo backup is so seamless. I’ve been documenting my electronics and other possessions for insurance purposes and in anticipation of a move. It’s been so easy to go around the house taking photos of serial numbers and such with the better camera on my phone. Then I grab my iPad and update the spreadsheet. Nothing needed to happen on my end, the photos are just there for my iPad to access and as later proof if I ever need it.

      • FireBeyond 42 minutes ago

        And it's not even that they said that, I get marketing spiel but one the actual phrases was, emphasis his, not mine:

        "MASSIVE improvements in Camera". Where? Evolution, refinement, sure. Massive? Hm.

    • MattDamonSpace 2 hours ago

      Incremental changes year/year to a mature product line means if you skip a couple years you get a BIG upgrade

  • Merad 3 hours ago

    > eSIM-only models deliver up to 36 hours of video playback on iPhone 18 Pro and up to 45 hours of video playback on iPhone 18 Pro Max.

    That might convince me to upgrade. Not because I care about watching video for two days straight, but hopefully it means the battery is large enough that it'll last 5+ years before battery degradation becomes annoying.

    • JK-Swizzle 2 hours ago

      I doubt any phone battery is lasting 5+ years. But I can say modern iPhones are pretty easy to swap the battery on. They designed it so the back plate gets removed to open the phone rather than the screen. No more risk of cracking the display.

      • tonyedgecombe an hour ago

        >I doubt any phone battery is lasting 5+ years.

        Just coming up to five years on mine and it is still at 87% capacity.

        • ValentineC 3 minutes ago

          My iPhone 14 Pro is almost 4 years old and at 65% capacity. I don't know how everyone else is (not) using their phones.

        • JK-Swizzle 12 minutes ago

          That is genuinely shocking to hear. You have to be like 3+ sd above the mean. Do you know how many charge cycles you have? I recall that most batteries need replacing after 300-500 cycles.

        • usefulcat 13 minutes ago

          iPhone 11 coming up on 7 years old in December, still at ~85% capacity.

          Really it mostly depends on how heavily you use it, and maybe to a lesser extent charging habits (charging slowly, not charging to 100%, etc).

        • lotsofpulp 38 minutes ago

          I have an iphone 13mini at 5 years and 81% capacity.

          • JK-Swizzle 6 minutes ago

            Very jealous over here. I had a 12 mini whose battery dropped off a cliff just in time for the mini line to get discontinued.

            Big phones are overrated.

          • chrisweekly 19 minutes ago

            My 13pro is at 84% capacity, but in the last month or two it seems to lose charge much more rapidly than it used to. Probably the only reason I'll consider an upgrade.

      • monxer 36 minutes ago

        The maximum capacity of my iPhone 17 pro is still at 100% after 192 charges, that's after 1 year of usage. The extra battery life does reduce the amount of charges I have to do so that helps with the battery life.

        I'm not sure where the capacity will end up after 5 years, but I think my iPhone 14 pro was at less than 95% at this point. Apple refused to replace just the battery on that one because of a small crack in the screen.

      • moduspol 2 hours ago

        Oh that's nice. I'd always see guides talking about glue with the screen and kinda spooked me out of it.

        • JK-Swizzle 2 minutes ago

          With reason. That glue is a nightmare to deal with. I would not advise anyone start with iPhone repair.

          I damaged my first iPhone repair even after multiple years of active hardware modification on other consumer devices. The older models really only go smooth if you have the Apple tools. A nice $149 of tool rental to swap the $50 part at home, rather than paying the $199 to get Apple to swap it for you. Odd how that math works out.

        • stevenwoo 38 minutes ago

          I took an iPhone SE generation three to Apple Store to replace battery and they broke the NFC functionality in a way that passed their simple diagnostic tool but failed to work in the real world. I had to go back and reset the phone and upgrade my IOS so they could troubleshoot it (the phone menu for setting appointments does not allow you to pick repair broke NFC funny enough) and they were nice enough to give me a new iPhone SE to replace we proved it was broken. But that was kind of worrisome and put me off any kind of Apple self repair for something they still make.

          • JK-Swizzle 9 minutes ago

            I think anything after the 16 regular or 17 pro becomes easy to repair. I feel you though, my first battery swap turned into a screen swap too.

            The SE versions have a history of board level issues so I have been afraid to touch any of them.

    • Insanity 3 hours ago

      I'm on the iPhone 13 pro max since launch and my phone comfortable gets through an entire day of usage. (Given my usage is pretty light). If the battery fubars in one of the next years I wouldn't be upset, 5+ years of battery life is enough.

      But I also don't see it failing me any time soon on battery. I think local AI models in a future iPhone could be an actual reason to upgrade.

    • jmuguy 3 hours ago

      I have a 12 Pro Max purchased at release, battery is now at 83% capacity. Still lasts all day and then some, rarely think how much I've got left on a charge.

      • Merad an hour ago

        My three year old 15 Pro is already down to 85% capacity.

        • LUmBULtERA 36 minutes ago

          My 15 pro bought on release is at 91% and 607 cycles, for more reference.

      • Scoundreller 3 hours ago

        I set up a shortcut to put me into low-battery mode once I hit 95%. Works a treat.

    • rafaelmn 3 hours ago

      Meh I just replaced a battery in my 14 pro (and the charging port) for ~200 EUR. I didn't want to upgrade yet and I would not even be considering upgrading if the device had USB-C

    • eastbound 3 hours ago

      Don't. Large iPhones are the deadweight of a ball and chain, and fits in no pockets. Next one will be the SE, and even if I buy an external battery, it's still lighter than the ingot Pro Max. Also you can buy one every 1.5 years.

  • the_sleaze_ 42 minutes ago

    The photos I get on my iPhone are worse with every generation. Can anyone tell me if the photos are any good on these new ones? The hardware is fine I'm sure it's the post processing that destroys the image.

    • alistairSH 29 minutes ago

      Have you tried using a 3rd party photo app (like Halide)?

  • 1970-01-01 3 hours ago

    Apple innovation truly looks dead at this point. At $1200 I expect them to be made in the USA by union workers.

    • infecto an hour ago

      Hyperbole if I have ever read it. Lots of other products released I don’t think the highlight was the iPhone 18.

      • spacebanana7 38 minutes ago

        And even then the price of the phone ex memory is staying stable.

        Even Apple can’t eat hundreds of dollars in extra cost per phone in competition with AI memory consumption.

    • ballsac 2 hours ago

      This is the kind of nonsense I come here for… can I follow you? :D

  • at1as 3 hours ago

    I have no idea which iPhone version I have anymore. It doesn't feel as though it's missing anything, though.But I'd upgrade immediately if the new models truly offered better AI experience.

    Forgive my skepticism that Apple will get it right. Even the lauded latest version of Siri is far worse than the labs' offerings or Android at voice dictation (I now have to fix 1 word per sentence instead of 4, previously)

    • jjice 3 hours ago

      Agreed on iPhone versions not feeling significant. I personally consider it a good thing. I'll keep my phone for as long as possible and not feel the need to upgrade.

      I personally don't care if Siri is the worst LLM of the big players, as long as it can answer my basic questions and search my texts, I'm happy. I don't need "frontier intelligence" for that kind of stuff.

      As for dictation, they say the new dictation is much better, requiring an iPhone 17. Unfortunately, I won't get to find out if that's true for another five or so years, but I'm hopeful for a better dictation on device, because you're right.

      • kenjackson 3 hours ago

        I update my phone now when the battery requires two full charges to 100% to last throughout the day. But there's no feature I'm looking for. My current phone is a 13 -- so I guess it lasted five years, which seems crazy long for it to be perfectly fine from a functionality perspective.

        • at1as 3 hours ago

          I would probably still have my iPhone 12 mini if not for what happened to its battery. Loved that form factor, but the battery went from bad to worse in just a couple of years.

          Hopefully these models have a longer lifespan before the battery life forces a replacement. If they truly offer 36 hours, there's more runway before they hit the < 18 hours point at which many people need a refresh

        • newman314 3 hours ago

          I went from a 13 Pro to 17 Pro and the battery life has been great.

          • littlexsparkee 31 minutes ago

            I used my iPhone 8 for exactly 5 years before the battery went to hell. Been on iPhone 14 for 3 years, 9 months and see no reason to upgrade.

        • ocdtrekkie an hour ago

          Same, I went from a base model iPhone 11 to a base model iPhone 16. Assuming the trend line holds up, I'm in for an iPhone 21 next!

        • petesergeant 3 hours ago

          I'm on a 12. Paid really not very much to get the battery replaced recently, and I wished I'd done it sooner. There's at least another year left in this phone now if I want it.

    • dylan604 3 hours ago

      That's kind of like saying the 2026 Corolla isn't really much different than the 2025. People don't expect to upgrade annually. I'm using an iPhone 15, and upgraded to that from a 6S+. The 15 was a night and day difference. Most people are financing their device with their service plan which is 2-3 contract.

    • dayvid 3 hours ago

      I upgraded from a 13 to a 17 pro. Barely notice a different, my old phone was just dying

      • hakunin 3 hours ago

        I got a battery replacement instead, and still use 13 pro, works like new.

      • bayganyo an hour ago

        13 to 17 pro is a huge leap in performance, battery life, and camera features.

      • js2 3 hours ago

        The 13 is the last generation of the mini and I still have mine. Good to know I'm not missing anything. Battery capacity isn't even below 80% so I can't replace it under Applecare yet.

    • hdgvhicv 3 hours ago

      This is the problem for Apple. Expect shorter lifetime for security updates in the next few years. It’s why they’re pushing the “lease to own”, because people aren’t upgrading every year, or two, or even three any more.

    • paul7986 3 hours ago

      Indeed been using the new Siri since June and it fails a ton in comparison to chatGPT voice!

      Using chatGPT voice i can see Open AI's push for pushing us to a new Internet voice paradigm 1st with screens/visuals secondary & complimentary to possibly none at all. It would be much safer especially when driving to get super intelligent human like directions where voice says drive to the mcdonalds on dorset you go to all the time and across the street is the new 7 Brew coffee shop.

    • eastbound 3 hours ago

      — "Start my chronometer"

      — "There is no contact named 'Chronometer'"

      Maybe if we mock the iPhone enough, they'll stop autocorrecting words with other words that are on the opposite side of the keyboard. Or mistype letters with the letters just next to them.

      iPhone is laughing stock. A neverending comedy of "There is no track named 'Call Mom' in your Apple Music library."

  • ModernMech 2 hours ago

    Seems like at this point each year the biggest new feature is a new color.

    • brewdad 14 minutes ago

      It works with normies.

      My wife just preordered an 18 pro. She’s the family photographer and is still on a 128gb iPhone 12, so it’s time for an upgrade and she fell in love with the cherry color.

      She bought the 12 instead of the more appropriate 12 pro years ago because she loved the purple that she couldn’t get with a 12 pro.

      Edit:typo

    • sssilver 2 hours ago

      ...and a brave new price

  • runjake 3 hours ago

    There's a lot of misdirected complaining here, so some reminders:

    - Apple has this event because it generates buzz, which increases sales.

    - You do not need to watch the event.

    - You do not need to pay attention to anything about the event.

    - You do not need to buy the new device.

    • michelb 2 hours ago

      Golden HN rule: the more complaints, the more successful the product will turn out because normal people like it. It’s like the inverse Cramer.

      • justinator an hour ago
      • justinator an hour ago

        Things were simpler in the Slashdot/iPod era.

      • Razengan 2 hours ago

        The Reddit Rule: The more votes someone gets for bitching about something, the more popular that thing is in the Real World.

        Like on the post about the No Man's Sky update: "Oh these devs have been putting out free updates for 10 years? So what? I don't like it"

        The worst thing about cynical-for-the-sake-of-being-cynical goons is that they drown out the actual legitimate complains and concerns about something.

    • ActorNightly an hour ago

      - Top 4/6 links on HN are currently Apple news.

      Yeah Apple TOTALLY doesn't astroturf HN.

  • justinator an hour ago

    Looking forward to the photo samples with the variable aperture. If it's something you can manually set (with the Camera app or third party), that would be neat. The miniaturization of this mechanical piece is really quite wild.

    Eh, that's maybe about it.

    • timster6442 7 minutes ago

      While it is a cool technical advance to see, its use case is probably niche. One of the biggest things people say about photography is lighting. In general, if you can get more photons onto your imaging plane, you will have a better picture. This is why phone cameras, despite advertising 100s of MPs, still fall short. For the same field of view and capture conditions, fewer photons are collected because phone sensor sizes are much smaller. This is a physical limitation that cannot be overcome.

      Now given that they already have a lower photon budget, you now want to add aperture control, which when stopped down physically reduces the amount of light from the scene that reaches the sensor. Thus you need to compensate for these lost photons somehow, so gain will probably have to increase quite a bit, but then you get noisier, grainier photos. This then leads to the suspicion that you will need some sort of AI denoising or computational processing to recover some of that lost image quality. Though of course you can comp in other way such as exposure time (they can make big wins here with their stabilization) and tons of lighting.

      Also a phone already starts with very deep depth of field because again smaller sensor size thus smaller focal length etc. Most images at their lower f stop is already in focus. So the ability to reduce aperture or simulate shallow DOF is trying to give users more of the creative control that larger sensor cameras naturally have (need to manipulate because of their larger sensor size) and doesn't make much sense to me.

  • BISH-BASH-BOSH 4 hours ago

    Is the C2 modem the satellite data chip?

    • rickdeckard 21 minutes ago

      It's their in-house cellular modem for 2G/3G/4G/5G.

      No details on satellite comms, but the predecessor C1X also handles satellite communication and competitor Qualcomm also does satellite comms on the same silicon, so I'd say yes.

  • matesz 2 hours ago

    Did they just announce the ultimate solution to image authenticity online?

    Instead of proving some image on some platform is not AI or severely edited, we can simply prove it was original by verifying unforgeable signature made by a camera / microphone baked into each image produced by it.

    And of course in future it could be done for video and audio! This would be absolutely HUGE!

    • rickdeckard 13 minutes ago

      From what I understand, the feature renders a signed reference image from raw sensor-data "alongside the final image".

      Still no solution if the image posted online is not that reference image or that reference image is actually a photo of an AI picture.

    • embedding-shape 2 hours ago

      > that image shared online is original and unedited?

      The image data the sensor physically receives passes through a ton of processing steps before the image lands in your phone. If there is some watermarking/signature doing on, on the image, it'd be that the device at that moment capture that data, not that it's not AI, or not edited, or "truthful" or whatever. That's still an unsolved problem to figure out.

    • nicce 2 hours ago

      It is a very old idea. But it matters a lot in iPhone’s scale. Many people will have it without buying a separate device.

    • 2 hours ago
      [deleted]
    • doublepg23 2 hours ago

      The underlying tech is already compromised on the Android side.

      https://lobste.rs/s/4netv1/c2pa_cameras_do_not_survive_conta...

  • epistasis 3 hours ago

    I really don't care at all about phone models, I just want software to launch quickly.

    Waiting 15 seconds for a simple app is just infuriating in this day and age. This is mostly on crappy app developers, but a lot of that falls on Apple for not having a rating system that encourages basic good app behavior.

    Every bad app that I encounter, which sends advertising notifications, takes a long time to launch, etc. is dominated by 5 star reviews, somehow. The whole ecosystem feels broken.

    (And I'm also really offended by how ugly, unpolished, and broken the Tahoe visual style is on iPhone. The whole thing feels like a buggy beta, something completely unworthy of Apple of the past. That it's still not fixed is an indication of the Apple of the future, unfortunately...)

    • JK-Swizzle 2 hours ago

      I just tested a number of apps on my 15pm connected to WiFi and could not find anything that took longer than 5 seconds. That includes some small developers and bad developers.

      Not quite sure where you are seeing this. Maybe games?

    • throw1234567891 2 hours ago

      Maybe you need a new phone. Or a faster internet connection?

      • epistasis 2 hours ago

        No I need better phone app developers. The fastest phone has the same issues. New phones are just as sluggish. And, it's a phone, there's not going to be fast networks everywhere, and a whole generation of poor developers was raised to believe that the network was always present and always fast.

        And on the iOS side, Tahoe inserts all sorts of overdone, ridiculous animations that slow down phone interaction, but delaying presentation of

        • crtified an hour ago

          We are up to the iphone 18 now. The iphone is said to be about 50% of Apple's revenue since 2012. Regardless of app developer quality, it is quite literally Apple's now-well-honed job to ensure that enough people want to buy next year's model, by various types of forced obsolescence. Indirectly, this means that the durably snappy and non-sluggish experience you're forever wanting can never actually happen. 'Forever wanting it' is an essential part of the business design here!

          In this system. Of 'smartphones', where a small handful of corporate masters - who also happen to (now!) be a big share of the world's largest and most profitable corporations - now own over half of the computing world that we love, following their whirlwind 20-year takeover of it.

          "No I need better phone app developers." - Hmmm. Commiserations. The trend of developer quality (and/or it's inverse - e.g. system complexity and overheads) has been fairly constant since the term 'developer' became mainstream parlance, and you won't need me to point out what effect AI coding agents have had upon the doorway-to-entry.

        • devilsdata an hour ago

          Not that you aren't correct, but Tahoe is a MacOS release, not iOS. I assume you mean iOS 18 (the version before iOS 26)?

          • MYEUHD 15 minutes ago

            Tahoe is macOS 26. The corresponding iOS version is iOS 26

            iOS 18 corresponds to macOS 15 (Sequoia)

  • jghn an hour ago

    Just say no to phablets

  • sergiotapia 2 hours ago

    45 hours of video playback is insane?! Is this accurate, because if it is I will sell my phone and buy this. Normally my samsung discharges in about 12 hours or less when I'm out, not even watching 12 hours of video.

    "On iPhone 18 Pro Max, five minutes of wired charging provides around seven hours of video playback"

    Materially impactful feature holy moses! I can plug it in, brush my teeth and I'm set for the work day.

    • dofm 2 hours ago

      iOS video playback is pretty highly optimised and hardware-assisted, though, right?

      Not sure you can really extrapolate non-video battery life from video battery life. I have an ageing iPad and I can get a couple of hours of video when the battery is at 30%, but it would be gone in 45 minutes if I was browsing.

  • gib444 30 minutes ago

    £1200 / £1300 and 256GB storage lol

    (Pixel 11 512GB / 16GB RAM is also £1200 - not an endorsement)

  • jmyeet 3 hours ago

    I don't know why we even have this event anymore. There's a new iPhone every September. It's incrementally better than the last iPhone. Phones keep getting more expensive while doing basically the same thing for some reason. Just buy whatever is out when you need a new phone.

    I bought an iPhone 11 in 2019 I think? It last until 2 years ago when I limped along until the iPhone 16 Plus. I like the big screen area. The premium for Pro isn't worth it to me. I hope to get another 3 years out of it.

    What I would like is an iPhone with Touch ID as an option and no, I don't mean the small one (SE?). I want a big screen. Put the Touch ID on the back of the phone like the samsung Galaxy did.

    I literally hate Face ID with a passion and it's a massive accessibility issue for people with visual impairments.

    No amount of slightly better CPU and camera is going to get me to upgrade every year anymore.

    • chrisbrandow 3 hours ago

      How is Face ID un-accessible for those with visual impairment? I hadn't heard that before.

    • sgarland 3 hours ago

      You’re in luck, the Duo has Touch ID and a big screen.

  • ungreased0675 4 hours ago

    I’m still waiting on a mini

    • dijit 4 hours ago

      we’ll be waiting a while. The last Mini was iPhone 8 sized, when I considered anything larger than the 5 to be too much.

      The Mini thus, undersold, because if you were fine with the 8 then iPhones of that size were still available (2nd Gen SE). Nobody bought: So Apple thinks theres no market.

      • ocd 3 hours ago

        Always seemed like a marketing issue on Apple's part. People have different opinions when they actually see and handle the Mini. Apple appended so many "Pro" and "Max" names to everything which ended up creating a "status symbol" that was contrary to the actual needs of the consumer to have a more reasonably sized phone. "Fablets" weren't particularly popular for that reason, and Apple still managed to lead people down this road.

        • permanent-overc 3 hours ago

          I think you forgot the history.

          Apple was the last hold out with small phones, years after everybody else moved to huge phones.

          But even Apple couldn't resist the pressure from the consumers, and eventually yielded.

          • layer8 3 hours ago

            The mini was released six months after the SE2 was released, which many SE1 owners holding out for a new smaller iPhone had already migrated to. Then Apple presented the mini in a joke-y manner in the keynote, didn’t do any publicity afterwards, and neither did the carriers (because the mini was lower-margin for them I presume). Lastly, the iPhone 12 gen had particularly bad battery life, which also hurt the mini. With today’s battery improvements, it would be much better (as demonstrated by the iPhone Air’s good battery life). Apple could at least have taken the option to make the “e” line mini-sized.

          • happymellon 3 hours ago

            Yet they sold more minis than Google sells Pixels.

            And somehow we ended up with more Pixels and not minis.

      • Jtsummers 3 hours ago

        > The last Mini was iPhone 8 sized

        It was smaller than the iPhone 8. It was slightly thicker (0.01"), shorter (by 0.27") and narrower (0.13"). And it had a bigger display despite being overall smaller. It was bigger than the 5, though.

        • dijit 24 minutes ago

          maybe I'm misremembering the dimensions of the 8.

          I did, however, take a series of photos comparing the Mini to the SE- and the packaging of the 6 (I think I gave the phone away but still had the box).

          https://imgur.com/a/iphone-mini-vs-iphone-5-vs-iphone-6-case...

          • Jtsummers 17 minutes ago

            https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?modelList=iphone-13-mi...

            The SE was the one that shared the 8's dimensions, the Mini was smaller than both. That Mini appears to be in a case, so the comparison photos aren't as useful as they'd be otherwise.

            (Also, it looks like I couldn't do arithmetic earlier or typo'd the number, the Mini is 0.12" narrower, not 0.13").

            • dijit 4 minutes ago

              I'm not sure I understand how you think the mini is in a case from those photos.

              Maybe because it's the dark version of the phone you can barely make out the shiny apple logo, but it's there, you can see the metal edge of the phone.

              It's not in a case.. obviously, that would be a stupid comparison.

    • azibi 2 hours ago

      I really liked my iPhone 12 mini. But Apple also makes a lot of money from app sales, so I wonder if there’s a connection between screen size and app purchases. Maybe users with larger screens spend more time in apps and are therefore more likely to buy apps or make in-app purchases. The more screen real estate people have, the more they might engage with apps, which could translate into higher spending.

    • havaloc an hour ago

      Having used a Z Fold 8, it's sort of a Mini. I'd love to see a non-folding phone in the same passport form factor, I think they'd sell a ton.

    • ocd 3 hours ago

      Despite the Lightning port, I prefer my 13 Mini to upgrading.

      • rootusrootus 3 hours ago

        An updated 13 Mini with USB-C and modern chipset would be fantastic. That would get me to upgrade. My hope is that Apple decides the world needs an iPhone Mini once in a while, just not a new one every year.

        • eumenides1 3 hours ago

          My contention is every 5 years release a mini spec with hardware bumps. Everyone jumps in and everyone upgrade. It only has the larger size space spec.

          Rinse and repeat.

          If you have a "known" or "expected" cycle, people can rely on that.

          • jghn an hour ago

            This has been my hope. Relase one, say "oops no market", and then come back several years later

        • mrheosuper 3 hours ago

          With SiC battery no less.

      • pixelesque 3 hours ago

        Same, got battery replaced 5 months ago.

        Wish I'd got the biggest storage size when I bought it though :(

    • haunter 3 hours ago

      The new iPhone Duo in single screen mode is the same size (5.4") as the iPhone 13 mini but with a different aspect ratio

      https://photos.reportinglive.com/p/2026-09-09/f-bf86c6f5adb3...

      • layer8 3 hours ago

        Same diagonal doesn’t mean same size. The Duo is also much thicker (the camera plateau in particular) and heavier, and the front screen is so wide (a good bit wider than the Pro Max) that it’s hardly suited for one handed use.

      • Firaxus 3 hours ago

        I think the screen might be the same diagonal length but it looks wider overall…

      • pixelesque 3 hours ago

        It's wider though, and surely going to weigh more...

      • idontwantthis 3 hours ago

        I wouldn’t mind buying half of one of those for 1/4 the price.

    • pixelesque 3 hours ago

      I wish they'd alternate each year or something between iPhone / iPhone mini if they're struggling for sales.

      The body shapes and cases seem to change each year anyway now, so it's not like people get to re-use cases that much anyway...

    • idontwantthis 3 hours ago

      Me too. Everyone who sees my phone loves it, and I always share a nod with my fellow mini owners. I really don’t want a huge phone and it is still more than fast enough (a 12 at that!) iPhones got Good Enough at least 6 years ago. Same with macbooks.

  • josteink 2 hours ago

    This phone is so underwhelming it doesn’t even make the frontpage of HN. And yes, I realise it was obviously overshadowed by the Duo.

    Still. This must be the first iPhone not to break page one.

    Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

    Edit: Page one I guess?

  • SirFatty 3 hours ago

    Where's the foldable? :-D

    • rootusrootus 3 hours ago

      In some thread not yet voted to the front page. iPhone Duo

      Edit: Nevermind, it has made the front page now

    • stuff4ben 3 hours ago

      Apple iPhone Duo is out