Pre-orders for iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max opened at 5 a.m. PT today, Saturday September 12, which is 12:00 UTC everywhere at once. Apple’s own buy page put it in one sentence ahead of the clock: “Choose your new iPhone today, then speed through checkout when pre-order starts at 5:00 a.m. PT…
Mike Peterson
Mike is a technology journalist with a deep focus on Apple’s Mac ecosystem. He has spent years tracking macOS development, Apple Silicon architecture, and system-level changes across major macOS versions. His reporting covers everything from kernel-level enhancements and Swift-based APIs to hardware teardown analysis of M-series chips.
Articles by Mike Peterson
iPhone 18 Pro or Pro Max for Video: Apple Lists the Same 4K120, ProRes and Apple Log 2 on Both
A video shooter choosing between the iPhone 18 Pro and the iPhone 18 Pro Max is not choosing between cameras. Apple lists the same three 48MP rear cameras, the same 4K Dolby Vision up to 120 fps, the same ProRes at 4K120 with external recording, the same Apple Log 2 and Genlock, and the same…
iPhone 18 Pro Max Costs $4.17 More a Month Than the Pro, and Six Apple Stores Publish No Monthly Figure
Apple’s own installment figures put the size upgrade at $4.17 a month. The iPhone 18 Pro is quoted at $49.95 a month over 24 months and the iPhone 18 Pro Max at $54.12, and the same gap appears as C$6.25 in Canada, £3.34 in the UK and ₹2,500 in India. In six of the ten…
iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max share Apple's 40% sustained performance claim
If you are choosing between the iPhone 18 Pro and the iPhone 18 Pro Max because you want the one that holds its speed longest in a long game or a long take, Apple’s published numbers won’t settle it. Apple describes one cooling design for the generation: a next-generation vapor chamber with three times the…
iPhone 18 Pro Ownership: Your $1,199 Is Fixed, and Four Other Costs Are Not
The $1,199 on the iPhone 18 Pro price tag is the one number in a cost of ownership sum that stops moving the moment you pay it. Almost every other figure a buyer uses this morning is one Apple can change later, and on September 9 it changed several of them in a single day…
iPhone Duo and iPhone 18 Pro Max: 14 Spec Lines the $700 Gap Does Not Touch
An iPhone Duo costs $700 more than an iPhone 18 Pro Max at every one of the four storage tiers, and on 14 published specification lines the two phones are identical. Same chip, same radios, same modem, same port speed, same wireless charging ceiling, same water rating, same Ultra Wide camera, same storage ladder. iPhone…
iOS 27 Communication Safety Now Covers Gore: The Four Operating Systems, and the Gap Apple Left
Communication Safety, the feature that blurs nude images in Messages, now covers gore and violent content as well, and Apple lists the change across four operating systems: iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27 and watchOS 27. Apple has not published where the assessment of a shared image or video takes place. Apple set out its…
iPhone Duo: Seven Hardware Features No Other iPhone in Apple's Lineup Has
Most of the iPhone Duo’s specification sheet is shared with the iPhone 18 Pro Max, down to the chip, the radios and the water rating. Seven hardware entries on it are not, and they are the only places where Apple’s $1,999 foldable is genuinely alone in the lineup: two displays, a nano-texture finish, Touch ID,…
iPhone Duo Accessories Cost Up to 2.6 Times an iPhone 18 Pro's: $79 and $129 Against $49 and $59
Apple charges $79 for the iPhone Duo Case and $129 for the iPhone Duo Folio with Kickstand. The cases it has priced for the iPhone 18 Pro run from $49 to $59, which makes dressing the fold cost between 1.3 and 2.6 times as much as dressing the Pro, on our arithmetic on published figures.…
iPhone 18 Pro Max Cost Per Year: Apple's Trade-In Ladder Says $414 for One Year and $166 for Seven
Apple publishes exactly one trade-in number for iPhone and it is a range: customers trading in an iPhone 13 or later can get $175 to $885 in credit, instantly. Set that against the $1,299 Apple charges for a 256GB iPhone 18 Pro Max, and the values recorded for older Pro Max models imply a cost…
AppleCare One Family Is $599.88 a Year for Six People, With Six Shared Theft-and-Loss Claims
AppleCare One Family goes on sale on Monday, September 14 at $49.99 a month, covering up to six people set up through Family Sharing. That works out to $599.88 for a year and $1,799.64 over three years on our arithmetic on published figures, and the whole household shares six theft-and-loss claims a year between them,…
How Long Should You Plan to Keep an iPhone 18 Pro? Apple Publishes One Age Limit, and It Is Four Years
Cost of ownership is a price divided by the years you keep the thing, and Apple publishes exactly one number on the second half of that sum. It is four years, and it appears in the eligibility wording for AppleCare One Family: most devices less than four years old and in good working condition. An…
iPhone Duo Day One: Buy the Phone Apple Ships on October 23, Not the One It Has Promised
The strongest argument against buying a first-generation product is usually the roadmap, and the iPhone Duo has one. Apple has dated Apple Pencil support to later in 2026, the developer tools for the fold to later this month, and five more Siri AI languages to October, which means the phone that arrives on October 23…
iPhone Duo Has No Reviews Yet: Which of Apple's Numbers You Can Check, and Which Need Time
Nobody outside Apple has used an iPhone Duo, so every number attached to Apple’s first foldable is Apple’s own. That does not make the numbers useless, but it does mean a buyer has to sort them, because some are measurements anyone can confirm on October 23 and some are claims with no published test behind…
Can an iPhone Duo Replace a Small Tablet? Apple Never Makes That Comparison
Apple’s published case for carrying one iPhone Duo instead of a phone and a small tablet comes down to four figures: a 7.6-inch inner display it calls 50 percent larger than the iPhone 18 Pro Max’s, a body 5.2 mm thick open and 11.3 mm closed, a weight of 254 g, and Apple Pencil (USB-C)…
iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone Duo and Ultra 4: Every Free Extra Apple Includes, and When It Runs Out
Three of the things Apple includes with a new device this autumn are free for a fixed period and then are not: three months of five services with any Apple device purchase, three months of Apple One with an iPhone Duo, and two years of satellite access with an Apple Watch Ultra 3 or later…
iPhone Duo's Rear Cameras Read Like the iPhone 17's, Not the iPhone 18 Pro's
Line up Apple’s spec pages for its 2026 iPhones and the iPhone Duo’s rear cameras do not sit next to the iPhone 18 Pro’s. They sit next to the iPhone 17’s: a 48MP main camera at 26 mm and f/1.6, a 48MP Ultra Wide at 13 mm and f/2.2, and a 12MP 2x crop at…
AirPods 5 Cost of Ownership: $129 Buys the Buds, Not the Cable or the Adapter
AirPods 5 cost $129, or $149 with the Wireless Charging Case, and Apple’s own store page states they do not include a USB-C charge cable or a power adapter. On the $129 model that matters more than it sounds, because Apple’s specs list USB-C as the only way to charge its case. The $149 case…
iPhone Duo Reaches More Countries on Day One Than iPhone 18 Pro Did: 70-Plus Against 65-Plus
Apple’s first foldable opens in more markets on its first day than its flagship Pro does. iPhone Duo goes on sale Friday, October 23 in more than 70 countries and regions, with 28 more on Friday, October 30. iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max open in more than 65 countries on September 18. Image: Apple…
Three iOS 27 Features Built to Share Your Details: Tap to Share, Find My Timers and Wallet Passes
Three of the features in iOS 27 exist to pass your information to someone else. Apple Pay’s Tap to Share connects to a merchant’s iPhone to share your email, shipping and loyalty details, Find My gains location sharing that stops at a time you set, and Wallet can turn a scanned physical loyalty card into…
iPhone Duo Budget: The Four Costs Apple Has Not Priced Before You Pay $1,999
Apple has published the price of the iPhone Duo, its two cases, two ways to pay for it and the three months of Apple One that come with it. It has not published what AppleCare+ costs on this phone, what any repair to it costs, what a carrier will offer for it, or what your…
iPhone Duo Comes With Three Months of Apple One: What $1,999 Includes, and What It Does Not
Apple’s iPhone Duo release says buyers get three months of Apple One, the subscription bundle, rather than the list of individual services Apple’s store normally advertises with a device purchase. Apple has not published the same Apple One offer for any other product in this launch. Siri AI on iPhone Duo, part of the iOS…
Apple Watch Series 12 Reads Your Heart Every Five Seconds: What Apple Publishes About That Data
Apple says the Apple Watch Series 12 “measures heart rate every five seconds, all day long”, with 60x more frequent background heart rate readings and 24x more frequent HRV readings than Series 11. What Apple publishes about the handling of all that data runs to two sentences: health and fitness data in the Health app,…
iPhone Duo Monthly Prices: Five of Apple's 10 Storefronts Publish One, and Each Is Just the Price Divided
Apple’s headline monthly figure for iPhone Duo is $83.29 for 24 months, and it is the $1,999 price divided by 24 rather than a finance quote. Multiply it back out and you get $1,998.96, four cents short of the cash price. iPhone Duo in night sky and star white, the two colours offered at every…