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Other iPhone 18 Pro expectations: What feature will be the game changer in 2026?

zalchi

zalchi

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 21, 2016
51
11
Hungary
I guess we just got a sneak peek of the trend of the iPhones until the next decade. What could be a feature next year makes the iPhone 18 Pros brighter than ever?

New camera feature? A fourth camera on the back?
Something new with the display?
Exclusive software function?
A new hardware element?
New exclusive accessory?

Is there anything new Apple can put in iPhone to make it even better? ;)
 
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Mechanical aperture like Pura 70.

Smaller Dynamic Island.

Foldable device above the Pro.
 
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Phones have peaked, not much else to add if at all, maybe more open software..don’t really care or notice Dynamic Island
 
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sapphire glass

wireless high-resolution audio

four speakers

Fourth camera (second main wide) for better quality and portrait spatial video

Thermal camera
Night vision camera
 
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I’d like to see some significant enhancement to the cameras. The main camera’s sensor hasn’t changed in four generations. Go for bigger. Really push the hardware to its limits. Variable aperture. Maybe even some mechanical optics for focus/zoom options.
 
This is not going to happen but I'm hoping they add more physical cameras instead of optical quality options.

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Pretty convinced the main new stuff of 18 Pro vs current 17 pro will be focused on two departments:

1/ New design with same chassis
- New smaller dynamic island for sure. Apple is hiding the notch size with black background around notch of 17 pro on many marketing materials. Next year it will be the opposite and you will see the smaller notch on background like they did with iPhone X and 14 Pro marketing.
- Black color option

2/ Performance
- A20 Pro with 2nm, I suspect it i will be almost same on GPU given how terrific is A19 Pro vs A18 Pro for a YoY upgrade + same 12 GB RAM than a19 Pro but probably 20-30% YoY upgrade for CPU perf. Maybe something new for NPU
- New C2 modem for better battery life, bye bye qualcomm

Honestly I think this year Pro phone is overall great like the first M1 Pro MBP : utililty focused with thermals in mind rather than just being sexy. They purposely make it not so sexy right now to give some room to sell their iPhone Air.
 
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I guess you can't change the laws of physics but if Apple could find any way to reduce or eliminate entirely those lens projections that would be a very worthwhile development for me.

I can live with the plateau (camera bulge) being here to stay but it bugs me how the three lenses then jut out from the top of the plateau. I would love it if somehow the surface of the lenses could be flush with the top of the plateau, or even better recessed a fraction of a mm to afford them some protection in the event of a face-on collision e.g. a drop onto a hard surface.
 
The Era of “Game Changer” iPhones ended a few upgrades ago — probably with the OG Max. It’s all incremental going forward. Even the presumed upcoming Fold will not move the chains significantly. It will just be another form factor rather than the “be all, end all” of phones.
 
We might finally get a folding iPhone but it'll probably start at like £1,999 lmao and I wouldn't spend that money on a screen that will get scratched by your finger nails or bits of dust lol.

We'll get an Air 2.. maybe... if the Air actually sells well this year.

Pro models will likely be thicker, better camera, under display FaceID/small Dynamic Island. I'd like to see them go up to 16GB RAM but won't really matter if Apple can't put out a good AI product.

The standard iPhone will just be a slight refresh.
 
Honestly, at this point, the only essential for next year is a better range of colours - some version of black or grey, maybe a different colour but still professional looking (rather than the orange which looks like a toy). Also thought the Natural Titanium colours were great.

Something like...

Space Black
Natural
Midnight Green (from the 11 Pro)
Silver/Pearl White


As for new 'game changer' features, being realistic apart from the Fold, there likely won't be anything next year but I'd like to see battery improvements, a smaller notch, maybe lighter.

The real 'game changer' will be when Apple release a phone with no notch and under-screen Touch/FaceID and camera, so it's just a single piece of glass. That's the next big one.
 
I don’t think a folding phone will be next year or within 5 years. They just aren’t popular enough. Now I think a bowling iPhone might sell better than Samsung’s stuff. I guess I don’t know. I’ve only seen one fold in the wild of any generation ever. They just don’t sell. I don’t think they would sell all that well for Apple either because of the price point they will be at, and that means not a money maker.

Next year, they will probably just make battery improvements and have a new chip. Also, if there’s any issues with the 17 they are aware of or not aware of as far as cooling performance durability I would expect that to be addressed.

I do think that this first generation error is a test husk. So I can see them putting a lot more effort into the air next year after they see how this sells and if it sells. I would’ve bought the air if they would’ve kept the camera from the 16 and had just a tad more battery life.

As it sits I love having ultra battery life over everything. The 16 pro max has been great other than getting hot, so maybe the 17 pro max solves that. We’ll see.

I would love the Dynamic Island to go away for the 18 and maybe just have a little thicker bezel at the top and bottom to hide things. A change to that is probably about due. Other than losing the home button, there really hasn’t been anything THAT significant.
 
I think if they ever do a foldable it'll be a separate category and not part of the annual line-up of new phones. It's too much of a niche item, and unlikely to recoup the high production cost at price points of 2 grand and up.
 
It wouldn't be a hugely user-visible item but with the C1 and C1X Apple-designed modems seemingly being quite credible for the capabilities that they're currently targeting, and the claim of better power efficiency vs the competition (that might be a big part of how the Apple seems to be able to claim such good battery life from such a small battery in the Air) will the 2026 iPhones be the point at which Apple uses it's own modems in all models or will we have to wait another year or more for that?

A much more efficient modem would give Apple some options in terms of extending battery life further, slimming down and weight reducing the bigger phones a bit compared to where they are now, or some combination of those two options.

Personally as a Pro Max user I'm not at all bothered by the current weight and I feel no need for the main body to get any thinner when it's got the big camera bulge on the back and then the lenses sticking out even further beyond that so my vote would be to use 100% of any Apple modem power savings to increase battery life even more.
 
Woody1073 said:
I wonder if next year or soon after that the line up could be…..
iPhone 18
iPhone air 2
iPhone 18 pro
iPhone fold to replace the Pro Max
Click to expand...
Next year we won't get iPhone Air 2.

We'll get
iPhone Pro,
iPhone Ultra and
iPhone Fold.

2027 spring we'll get
iPhone SE and iPhone.

2027 September we'll get
iPhone Pro 2,
iPhone Ultra 2,
iPhone Air 2 and
iPhone Fold 2.
 
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