The iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max use Apple’s N1 chip for wireless, which handles Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Thread. Apple has not quoted any speed figures for the connection.
Wi-Fi 7 is a label on the spec sheet for most buyers, so the practical question is what it does once the phone joins your home network. The short answer is that it depends on your router more than on the phone. Our iPhone 18 Pro announcement coverage has the rest of the hardware.
What Wi-Fi 7 adds over Wi-Fi 6 and 6E
Wi-Fi 7 is the consumer name for the 802.11be standard. Its main additions are wider channels in the 6GHz band and Multi-Link Operation, which lets a device use more than one band at the same time rather than picking one and sticking with it.
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In a home, the effect is lower latency and more headroom when several devices are busy at once, rather than a dramatic change to how fast a single download runs. Apple has not said which Wi-Fi 7 features the iPhone 18 Pro supports, so treat the label rather than any specific feature as confirmed.
What you need at home to benefit
- A Wi-Fi 7 router or mesh system. On a Wi-Fi 6 or 6E router, the phone works at that router’s level and nothing changes.
- An internet plan fast enough that your current Wi-Fi is the bottleneck. If your plan is slower than your existing wireless link, Wi-Fi 7 will not make pages load faster.
- Other Wi-Fi 7 devices on the network, since the phone alone does not upgrade anything else.
There is no need to buy a new router on day one. The phone will join whatever network you have, and the upgrade path stays open for whenever you replace the router anyway.
Thread and Bluetooth 6 on the same chip
Thread is a low-power mesh networking protocol used by smart home accessories, including many that support the Matter standard. Apple has not said what the iPhone 18 Pro does with its Thread radio, only that N1 includes it.
Bluetooth 6 is listed without further detail. Apple has not said which Bluetooth 6 features are enabled or whether they change anything for AirPods 5, which launch on the same day as the phones.
| N1 radio | What Apple confirmed | What Apple has not said |
|---|---|---|
| Wi-Fi 7 | Supported | Peak speeds, supported features, band details |
| Bluetooth 6 | Supported | Which features are enabled |
| Thread | Included | How the phone uses it |
Pre-orders open Saturday, September 12, at 5 a.m. PT, with the phones in stores on Friday, September 18. Our pre-order guide has the timing, and the live blog will pick up any networking details Apple publishes on its spec pages.
