Apple’s tech specs for the iPhone 18 Pro describe contactless in four words, NFC with reader mode, and that is the whole of the published specification. The iPhone Duo sheet goes one item further and adds Express Cards. Apple’s iOS 27 feature list does not mention NFC at all.
So if you are asking whether tapping changes this year, the answer available from Apple is that nothing about it was announced. No new contactless feature appeared in the press release, none appeared in the iOS 27 feature list, and the spec line carries no parameter you could test.
What the spec sheets actually say
| Key fact | What Apple publishes |
|---|---|
| iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max | NFC with reader mode |
| iPhone Duo | NFC reader mode and Express Cards |
| iOS 27 feature list | No NFC feature named |
| New pass feature Apple did name | Custom QR and barcode passes, in watchOS 27 |
| Apple Watch Series 12 other features | Apple Pay, GymKit, Apple Watch For Your Kids, international roaming |
| Tap range, antenna position, tag standards | Not published |
| Press release mention of NFC | None, on any of the six September 9 announcements |
| Where the line lives | The tech specs page, not the marketing page |
For comparison, the event itself produced six Apple press releases and a spec page for every product. NFC appears in none of the releases. It appears once per iPhone spec sheet, in a list of other technologies, between the wireless rows and the location rows.
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Express Cards appear on one sheet and not the other
This is the one genuine difference in Apple’s wording, and it is worth stating carefully. The iPhone Duo connectivity list carries NFC reader mode alongside Express Cards. The iPhone 18 Pro connectivity summary carries NFC with reader mode and does not repeat the Express Cards phrase.
A spec summary is not a feature list, and Apple has not said the two phones differ in what they support. The accurate statement is about the pages rather than the hardware: one sheet names Express Cards, the other does not, and Apple has published no explanation for the difference.
How much detail each radio gets
| Radio on the iPhone 18 Pro sheet | What Apple publishes | A number to hold on to |
|---|---|---|
| Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi 7, 802.11be, 2×2 MIMO | Standard and stream count |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 6 | Version number |
| Ultra Wideband | Second-generation chip | Generation only |
| Cellular | Apple C2 modem, 5G sub-6 and mmWave, 4×4 MIMO | 15 percent less energy than C1X |
| USB-C | USB 3 | Up to 10 Gb/s |
| NFC | Reader mode | None |
NFC is the only radio on the sheet with no measurable attribute attached to it at all. Wi-Fi gets a standard and a stream count, Bluetooth gets a version, the port gets a bit rate, and the modem gets a percentage. Contactless gets a capability and nothing to check it against.
The one new pass feature Apple named is not an NFC feature
The nearest thing to a Wallet announcement in this launch sits in watchOS 27, which adds custom QR and barcode passes for memberships and cards. Barcodes are read by a scanner rather than tapped, so the one new pass feature Apple published for September 2026 does not involve the NFC radio. It also arrives on the wrist rather than the phone, on the Apple Watch Series 12 and other supported models.
Everything else Apple dated for Monday sits elsewhere: Siri AI in beta, Camera, Photos, Messages, Mail, Safari, Accessibility, Health and Home features, all listed on Apple’s iOS 27 page. None of them is described as using NFC.
What Apple has not said
- What reader mode covers, in Apple’s own words, beyond the phrase itself.
- Tap range, antenna position or orientation on either new phone.
- Which tag or card standards the reader supports.
- Whether Express Cards behave the same on iPhone 18 Pro as the iPhone Duo sheet implies.
- Whether any card or pass still works when the battery is empty.
- Any change to developer or regional access to the radio.
- Whether the Duo’s folded and open states change anything about tapping.
iPhone 18 Pro pre-orders open at 5 a.m. PT on Saturday, September 12, iOS 27 arrives free on Monday, September 14, and the phones reach stores on Friday, September 18. If Apple publishes anything more specific about contactless, the most likely place is a support document after launch rather than the spec page, and nothing of the kind exists today.