Apple’s new iPhones went on sale in the UAE on September 18, and the queues came back with them. Buyers were lined up outside the malls from 5.45am, some having flown in for the day, and two Dubai residents spent more than Dh550,000 on 76 handsets between them. Initial allocations sold out, and units were being resold at up to Dh3,000 over list before the shops closed. The long lines showed that interest in Apple’s newest phones has not cooled.
This year’s line-up was thinner than usual. Apple announced no standard iPhone 18 and said nothing about when one might arrive, and the iPhone Air did not get a new version. With the foldable iPhone Duo not shipping until late October, the only new iPhones on sale on Friday were these two, and both cost more than last year: Dh5,099 for the iPhone 18 Pro and Dh5,499 for the iPhone 18 Pro Max, Dh400 up on the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max.
Aside from the new colour options and the smaller Dynamic Island, it is hard to distinguish the new iPhones from last year’s models. But there were quite a few upgrades, especially in the camera and battery departments.
Announced: 9 September 2026
Pre-orders: 12 September
On sale: 18 September, UAE included
UAE price: iPhone 18 Pro Dh5,099 (256GB) / Dh5,949 (512GB) / Dh7,649 (1TB) / Dh10,199 (2TB)
UAE price: iPhone 18 Pro Max Dh5,499 (256GB) / Dh6,349 (512GB) / Dh8,049 (1TB) / Dh10,599 (2TB)
Chip: A20 Pro (2nm)
Memory: 12GB, reported, not confirmed by Apple
Storage: 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, 2TB
Displays: 6.3in and 6.9in, both 120Hz
Cameras: 48MP main with variable aperture f/1.48 to f/4, 48MP ultra-wide, 48MP 4x telephoto, 18MP front
Battery: Up to 36 hours video on the Pro, 45 on the Pro Max; 50 per cent in about 15 minutes with a 60W adapter
Size and weight: 8.75mm; 211g and 249g
Colours: Black, Silver, Glacier, Burgundy
The Good
• Important camera upgrades: variable aperture and manual controls
• 2nm chip that outruns the one in Apple’s cheapest laptop, and runs cooler under load
• Improved battery performance and faster charging
The Bad
• The price rise is worse on the higher-storage models
• Design, screen and body are essentially unchanged
• iPhone 17 Pro is still on shelves at retailers, and arguably better value
Six blades, four apertures
You can find the biggest upgrade in the iPhone 18 Pro models’ main camera: the 48MP sensor now sits behind a mechanical iris of six blades, moving between f/1.48 and f/4, whereas the iPhone 17 Pro was fixed at f/1.78. The feature is called variable aperture, and it is most commonly found in professional cameras, where control over light and depth of field is essential. Apple claims about 50 per cent better low-light performance, and early reviews bear that out in the dark and at close range, while finding little visible difference in ordinary daylight.
Along with variable aperture come manual camera controls, something that finally puts the Pro in the iPhone 18 Pro. IPhone users have had to reach for third-party apps to get fine control of aperture, shutter speed, white balance and a live histogram. The new camera app does not make those apps redundant, but for the first time that control is there without one.
Apple has also built a way to prove a photo is real. Apple Reference Image, which works on the main camera of the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, signs the picture at the sensor and again in Apple’s cloud, so it can be checked later for tampering. It is a separate camera mode you have to switch on, so most people never will. It also arrives in the same week as iOS 27, which gave Image Playground photorealistic generation and the ability to edit real photos from a written description.
2nm, and what it buys you
It is easy to forget how much computing Apple now puts inside a phone. The cheapest laptop the company sells, the MacBook Neo, runs on the A18 Pro, the same chip as the iPhone 16 Pro. The A20 Pro in these new phones is two generations beyond that, the first 2nm chip Apple has put in an iPhone, and it sits under a vapour chamber three times the size of last year’s to stop it slowing down under load. Early benchmarks matched or beat the speed claims Apple made for it.
The part with the longest future is the neural engine, which has doubled in size. Little that Apple ships today asks that much of it, but the industry is moving toward on-device AI, which keeps what it works on inside the phone. The nearer benefit is battery. The new phones’ batteries are not much bigger than before, so the gain comes from the more efficient chip. Apple says the smaller iPhone 18 Pro now lasts as long as last year’s iPhone 17 Pro Max.
So, are the iPhone 18 Pro models worth it?
Buy it if:
• Photography is your main use, and you need pro controls and better low-light performance
• You own an iPhone 15 Pro or older; the gains stack up
• You keep your phones longer; the doubled neural engine will help with AI longevity
Avoid it if:
• You don’t need the performance; the base iPhone 18 is reported for next spring
• You already have an iPhone 17 Pro; the upgrades are not worth the price
• You plan to buy the higher storage models; the price increase is too steep
Which brings us to the price.
At the entry storage both phones cost Dh400 more than the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max did at launch, and that is the figure most of the coverage has carried. It is only true at the bottom. At 1TB the gap widens to Dh1,250 on both models, and the largest iPhone 18 Pro Max costs Dh2,100 more than the largest iPhone 17 Pro Max did. The reason is memory, which now reportedly accounts for about a third of what the phone costs Apple to build, against a tenth last year.
The rises are not Apple’s alone. A shortage of memory has been pushing phone prices up across the industry all year, and Apple is only the most visible case. So the new iPhone 18 Pro models are mostly worth it, with a caveat. The camera and the chip are real advances rather than a year of polish, and at Dh5,099 the smaller iPhone 18 Pro is the better buy of the two.
Because the increase is steepest at the top, the sensible move is to take a lower storage tier and put the photos and videos in iCloud. The Dh2,550 between the 256GB and 1TB iPhone 18 Pro would pay for more than five years of 2TB iCloud+ at Dh39.99 a month. Alternatively, the iPhone 17 Pro is still a very decent phone, and it costs noticeably less now that retailers are clearing the last of it.
Source: Khaleej Times