- 8 minutes ago
In this video, host Ben McKimm from Man of Many takes the Apple iPhone 18 Pro out for its first official review after spending 5 days with the device.
Following Apple's reveal at Apple Park, the iPhone 18 Pro series introduces major internal thermal architecture overhauls and physical optical innovations. Starting at AUD$2,099 in Australia for the Pro and AUD$2,199 for the Pro Max, this flagship device debuts a physical 6-blade mechanical variable aperture alongside extended battery performance
Following Apple's reveal at Apple Park, the iPhone 18 Pro series introduces major internal thermal architecture overhauls and physical optical innovations. Starting at AUD$2,099 in Australia for the Pro and AUD$2,199 for the Pro Max, this flagship device debuts a physical 6-blade mechanical variable aperture alongside extended battery performance
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00There's a bit of a different atmosphere surrounding this year's iPhone launches because I think the iPhone duo stole so
00:06much of the show.
00:07I was at the event last week in Apple Park and I was sitting there in Steve Jobs' theatre watching
00:11everyone pull their phone up to record every segment of the keynote.
00:16It was something that I've honestly never experienced before. People were so anticipating this folding phone.
00:22But honestly, I think the sleeper of the event is the first thing that they unveiled in the keynote, the
00:27new iPhone 18 Pro series.
00:29So that's what we're going to talk about today.
00:31I've been using this new iPhone 18 for the last few days and I've spent most of that time taking
00:36a heap of photo and video on this new camera.
00:40It introduces variable aperture for the first time.
00:43But what I want to figure out in this video, has this become too much of a pro phone?
00:47And where does that leave the casual consumer?
00:49Because there is no regular iPhone 18, at least there's not a new one just yet.
00:54So today I'm going to do a breakdown of everything that has come out and been released to this new
00:58phone.
00:58And some of my first initial impressions now that I've had my chance to try it out for a bit.
01:03So this new iPhone Pro series starts from $2,099 here in Australia.
01:07And if you're watching this video, they can just go in store and get one, assuming they have availability.
01:11The Pro Max model, on the other hand, starts from $2,199.
01:16So it's about a $100 price leap across the board.
01:18And you can even go up to a 2TB model, which is closer to $5,000.
01:22That is a big price to pay, but quite frankly, when I got the press release and saw how much
01:27this thing costs,
01:28I expected it to be more based on all the storage price increases and chip shortages and everything like that
01:34that we've seen in hard drives.
01:35I mean, even shooting this video right now, I'm getting anxiety about how much space this is taking off.
01:40I'll know right away that, yeah, this pretty much looks like the exact same phone as last year, that 17
01:45Pro Max.
01:46They've gone away from the orange personally.
01:48I really like the carrot phone look.
01:50They've introduced four new colors.
01:52You have this new glacier color here, which is what I've been rocking.
01:55But you can also get the flagship burgundy color.
01:57And then there's silver and black.
01:59I honestly think the black is super stealthy and it looks really good.
02:02It's a very rich black.
02:03You guys let me know what color you'd be picking in the comments.
02:06The display sizes, they're also a carryover, but let's be honest, I'm not sure if I want a much bigger
02:10phone than this.
02:11The standard Pro model is a 6.3 inch Super Retina XDR display.
02:15This Pro Max is a 6.9.
02:17It honestly feels really good in the hand and there's a little bit of reach to it, but it's not
02:21too bad.
02:21It's kind of what we've been used to these last few generations.
02:25It still looks great.
02:26It has the same 3,000 nits of peak brightness as we experience in the 17 Pro and Pro Max.
02:31So if you're upgrading from a 16, I think that'll be a big change,
02:35but not so much of a big change for people that are thinking about upgrading from last year's model.
02:39It can also go all the way down to one nit peak brightness for the always-on display as it
02:43is right here.
02:44So it conserves battery life, and I honestly recommend keeping it on.
02:47But a lot of the big changes happen underneath the glass.
02:50So let's talk a bit about that.
02:52Apple's introduced a new redesigned central vapor chamber with three times the surface area of the previous generation,
02:58and it's paired with an industry-first nano-twin copper display plate and thermally conductive graphite to pull the heat
03:03away from the screen.
03:05Now, you don't really need to understand exactly what this means.
03:07I had a session with an engineer, and they were explaining to us and showing us a lot of the
03:11thermal loading.
03:12But all you need to know is that it basically increases the battery life massively.
03:15So to piggyback off that new vapor chamber and heat dissipation torque,
03:19Apple transitioned to an M-series-inspired packaging design here
03:23that places the system on chip side-by-side with memory while expanding memory bandwidth by up to 50%.
03:28Under the chassis, the Apple C2 modem uses AR algorithms to stabilize connection quality
03:33while consuming 15% less energy than the outgoing architecture.
03:36Local wireless continues to be managed by the dedicated Apple N1 chip for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and threat
03:42integration,
03:43alongside the returning second-generation ultra-wideband chip for precision finding, find my, etc.
03:48Also on the screen, you'll notice that the dynamic island has shrunk a whole lot.
03:52It's almost invisible now.
03:54Apple showed us that the Duo can have an underscreen camera,
03:57so I'm honestly expecting that maybe in a future iPhone generation,
04:01potentially the Air or that new 18 if it does come out.
04:04And you can get three different things here now on the dynamic island,
04:08so you can write a timer, you can see the weather, and get mapped.
04:10That's better than the two on the previous generation.
04:13Is it something that you're going to notice immediately?
04:15Probably not, but it's a nice little quality of life update.
04:18It's the same Heat Forge 7000-series aluminium utility body
04:21that carries over the lightweight feel, thermal advantages over that older titanium models,
04:25being 20 times more thermally conductive than the iPhone 16 Pro,
04:29but it's durability that gets a noticeable upgrade here,
04:31not that I want to test that out,
04:33with Ceramic Shield 2 on the front panel
04:35that has three times the scratch resistance of the iPhone 15 Pro.
04:38There's also a new surface treatment that cuts screen reflections by 35%
04:42and delivers twice the outdoor contrast compared to that iPhone 16 Pro.
04:46Colours are now managed via a new Apple colour matching function
04:49that ensures professional consistency across devices.
04:52So it's had a bunch of upgrades to the display,
04:55but I think most of these won't be super noticeable for iPhone 17 Pro users.
05:00It's the iPhone 16 Pro users that I think will get the most out of those upgrades.
05:04Sure, the dynamic island is a little bit of an upgrade,
05:07but it's not a massive quality of life one.
05:09What is a massive quality of life upgrade over that 17 Pro series
05:13is the new battery, thanks to all that vapor chamber and some of the new processors.
05:18Apple sent out this phone just a few days ago,
05:20and I haven't really honestly thought that much about charging it.
05:23This iPhone 18 Pro Max delivers up to 43 hours of continuous video playback,
05:27while the standard iPhone 18 Pro offers up to 34.
05:30When you pair it with a 35W or higher USB-C adapter with that adjustable voltage supply,
05:35both models can charge from 0% to 50% in just 15 minutes.
05:38In fact, a quick 5-minute wired charge on the Pro Max delivers up to 7 hours of video playback,
05:43while MagSafe wireless charging maintains its 25W capacity.
05:46But that's just when we compare it to the 17 Pro series.
05:49When you look back at that 16 Pro,
05:51this new model delivers 18 hours more of video playback.
05:55And then if you go one step further and look at a 15 Pro,
05:59you're getting an additional 11 on top of that.
06:01So you can start to understand just how serious this battery upgrade is.
06:04So you've got the upgraded screen, battery, new dynamic island, things like that,
06:09but it still doesn't answer the question of whether or not this has become too much
06:12of a professional smartphone.
06:13Would you actually use the camera upgrades?
06:16So let me explain those.
06:17This is the first smartphone that I've used with a camera that has a mechanical variable aperture.
06:22I think we can go back to things like the Samsung Galaxy S9,
06:25which was honestly a little bit before my time when they introduced these things.
06:29But seeing it here on an iPhone was not entirely unexpected.
06:33People have been talking about this rumor for a little while.
06:36So when they announced it at first in the keynote,
06:39everyone was sitting there with a little bit of anticipation
06:41about just how they would execute it.
06:43Because fitting a variable aperture, a mechanical variable aperture,
06:47into a phone camera is kind of insane.
06:50You've probably seen the video from the keynote of these six rotor blades
06:54opening and closing on the variable aperture,
06:57but seeing them do it in person is honestly more impressive.
07:00So you can adjust the aperture in four stops in the native camera app.
07:04So if I jump in here, you'll see these new Pro controls at the top of the screen,
07:08which I've added to.
07:10So you can actually just add it by holding down and choosing what you want
07:13and don't want in there.
07:14I kind of want everything.
07:15You see I've added a histogram.
07:17But here's where you adjust the aperture.
07:19So you can jump up here and then you see there.
07:22So it's available on the main lens.
07:23So we've got to hold it up a little bit and then you'll see it pop up.
07:27So you've got F1.48, F1.8, F2.8 and F4.
07:32And then if you turn it over, you can see that lens there opening and closing,
07:38which is pretty cool.
07:39So I'll see the most satisfying thing about this 18 Pro.
07:42Other things that I really like with these new Pro controls is focus pulling.
07:46I didn't expect to be able to do that.
07:47In an iPhone, you used to just tap and it would autofocus,
07:50but you can actually focus pull now.
07:51So it's in the autofocus section.
07:53And then, yeah, you can adjust this slider and pull focus in and out.
07:57It even has focus peaking inbuilt into the camera app.
08:00So Blackmagic camera app is not entirely needed for much of this stuff anymore,
08:04although it's very much welcome when you're doing video.
08:07Some other things, focus tracking.
08:09So I played around a little bit with that on the weekend.
08:11I went out of Sydney Harbour and started tracking some boats and things like that.
08:15It actually works really well.
08:16It works exactly as they showed in the keynote.
08:18So I can hold the camera up, have video open,
08:22just double tap on the screen, and then it starts tracking.
08:25It'll even grow and shrink the tracking window
08:28based on how close the object is to the camera.
08:33So it's tracking ferries, little boats, big boats.
08:35When they go in and out of the camera as well,
08:37so if you miss the tracking, it'll pull it back in.
08:40I don't know how it does it, but super helpful.
08:42I think in the future, I'd like to see some gimbals and stuff like that
08:47work natively with this camera app to allow you to focus track,
08:50much like DJI Pocket 4 and things like that.
08:53So as far as the hardware is concerned,
08:55it's pretty much a carryover from the previous generation
08:57outside of that mechanical variable aperture,
09:0048 megapixel fusion cameras across the board,
09:02the ultra wide, and the 4x telephoto with the 8x optical processing as well.
09:08One thing to note is that mechanical variable aperture,
09:10it only works on the main camera lens,
09:13but you can actually use it at the different focal lengths.
09:16So 35mm, 24, 28, and even the 2x as well,
09:19which gets crazy compression.
09:20In passing, it's also worth noting that the software pipeline
09:23now retains and upgrades the photographic styles.
09:26I think Apple is trying to take a page out of the Fujifilm book here
09:30with these photographic styles, and I have been able to dial in
09:33some photographic styles that sort of mimic the Kodaks of the world
09:37and things like that.
09:37If you're upgrading from the iPhone 16 Pro,
09:40the new 18 megapixel center stage camera is something that you'll notice immediately.
09:45It's now a square sensor, so it automatically crops vertical and horizontal,
09:50and it honestly looks super clean.
09:52It looks just as clean as before,
09:53but just something quick to note if you're upgrading from a 16.
09:56Another thing that we saw in the keynote that I haven't had the chance to test just yet,
09:59but will come in a full in-depth review, is the new audio mixing.
10:03So I showed in the keynote, if I was sitting there recording a band,
10:07you can change some of the noise isolation based on what you want to listen to,
10:11more of the band, more of the ambience, things like that.
10:13You know that's straight in the Photos app, which is pretty cool.
10:15So the takeaway for me here in the early stages of testing
10:18is that the mechanical variable aperture isn't too professionally led.
10:23Obviously, it opens up a whole new world
10:24for the professional content creators and videographers out there.
10:27But for the casual user, that F4 and having that lens open 50% more
10:33than it did in previous generations will add to that low-light photography.
10:36And you can see some of these reference images, just how well that works.
10:39So the new camera system is a big upgrade, even over that 17 Pro,
10:45something that professionals and casual consumers will love.
10:48The battery life is a big upgrade,
10:50and the vapor chamber is too, and it aids in all of this processing power.
10:54But the big elephant in the room is Siri AI,
10:57which is something that I still haven't had the chance to test in depth yet.
11:00And it feels like that this phone is almost pre-empting that hitting the mainstream.
11:05So in a follow-up video in the future, we'll talk all about Siri AI,
11:08Siri Recap, Siri Rewind, which is available here on the new watch,
11:12and talk a little bit more about that,
11:14because it feels like this phone so far hasn't even really stretched its legs just yet.
11:19So what should we expect from Siri AI in the future?
11:22Well, Recap will be a big one.
11:24I think in the keynote, they showed off Rewind,
11:27which allows you with the Apple Watch to double tap the crown and listen
11:30or see a transcript of the last 15 seconds of conversation that you had.
11:34But Recap will be the big one, a total game changer, I think, for Apple's AI perception.
11:40So with the new Apple Watch, you can basically walk around for the entire day
11:44and then jump into the Siri AI app at the end of it
11:46and get a summary of everything that you did throughout that day.
11:50There's a lot more to it, so we'll unpack it in a later video.
11:53It's not quite as creepy as I guess it sounds,
11:55but things are moving fast with Siri AI.
11:59And I think this new iPhone hasn't even unlocked half of its potential just yet.
12:03You'll just need an Apple Watch as well.
12:05So this is just a little bit of a first impressions
12:08now that I've had this device in my hand for the last five days.
12:11But I want to open up the conversation to you guys watching at home.
12:14What do you want to see me test?
12:16We're thinking about camera videos.
12:18We're thinking about Siri AI deep dives.
12:20We're thinking about even bigger deep dives into thermal performance,
12:23chip performance, and things like that with this new iPhone 18 Pro.
12:27So let me know in the comments what you want to see.
12:29But in the meantime, I want to answer my first question.
12:31Does this new 18 Pro push Apple's flagship smartphone too far into the Pro category,
12:37or is it still fit for casual users?
12:40I think battery life upgrades, that dynamic island,
12:43some of the screen upgrades will especially be felt by 16 Pro users.
12:48But there's still a reason to upgrade for 17 Pro users as well,
12:51particularly in the battery life.
12:53But I think the variable aperture just opens up a whole new world
12:55for professional content creators, but also consumers as well,
12:59because that extra low light performance that you gain
13:02from being able to go to f4 will surely be noticed.
13:05But ultimately, I think it's about expanding the breadth of capability
13:08of the iPhone Pro series lineup as that new duo comes into the fold.
13:13And I still don't think we've seen the full breadth of capability
13:16of what this iPhone 18 Pro can achieve with that new vapor chamber,
13:20as well as the A20 Pro chip.
13:21So in later videos, we're going to explore Siri AI,
13:24the camera system, and really push it to its cinematic potential
13:27by shooting full videos on this 18 Pro.
13:30So make sure you stick around to see some of them.
13:32And if you've taken anything away from this first impressions video
13:35now that I've had the phone in my hand for a couple of days,
13:38let me know by hitting the like button down below.
13:40And make sure you're subscribed,
13:42and I'll miss out on any of those future videos.
13:44Thanks for watching.
13:45I'm going to go test this camera a little bit more.
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