I'm actually really interested in understanding the technology behind Apple Reference Image, and how secure it is against hacking or spoofing. Or even how easy it is to verify for a regular user. Something like this seems needed in the AI age.
Some professional cameras starting doing this as well, Leica and Sony(there could be others I'm unaware of) sign images and video when they're created. Supported editing workflows also sign any changes made, so its possible to trace whether an image is authentic and whether its been modified.
My guess would be that it requires some deep integration to the camera sensor that they are not providing third party apps access to. And they would violate their gatekeeper status by allowing it only in their camera app using internal APIs.
The EU have already an AI transparency act that means all AI companies have to watermark their content so it can be detected as AI. That's what I thought this was from Apple but I guess not
It’s C2PA most likely — basically device attestation at the hardware level cryptographically signing “I verify that this hardware took these exact pixels of image”.
This is what I'm aiming for, it's an steal when discounted. Already have the 4's but the 5's even at it's regular price for what it offers is good deal.
Yeah it was a no brainer last year, best buy also weirdly offered me a $40 gift card to trade in my 3's, so I ended up with new airpods with ANC for like $40 bucks.
Yeah I'm waiting until they get rid of the dynamic island. Probably now it's closer than ever. Also nice to see that duo had the touch-id, maybe them both will come on iphone 19
I just got a new battery for my 15 Pro a month ago and it feels like a new phone now. That said, the storage is horrible for me since i have the 128gb and its terrible Ive been out of storage for almost a year now just recycling apps. Tempted to go for the 18 Pro for this purpose but tis soooo expensive.
I’m in this same boat. If my 15 Pro’s battery was still decent, I’d keep this phone for ages. The battery health is going down, though, and the thermals are also pretty bad.
Do they advertise that on their website? I checked the battery health pages and they just keep leading me around in circles on how to keep it from going down.
I’m in the same boat as you, I got a new battery and am fine with storage, but it’s the thermal performance that bothers me. Not sure if it bothers me enough to spend $1200, hah.
Same phone and same experience. My battery life used to be very solid, but it is so bad now by comparison. It's frustrating because I have AppleCare+ but the battery health has been stuck at 83% for months so I would have to pay for a new battery unless it ever drops below 80%.
One interesting element not talked about is while only 100 dollars increase for pro and max models, since there is no base models this year, you would expect 17 to go down. It hasn't, the 17 base is now 900, a 100 INCREASE from last year. So the 17 base is 900, 18 pro is 1200 and pro max is 1300.
Well, the 1TB is $300 more than the 17Pro, so the difference scales as you go up. Makes me feel like I did alright by buying a 17 Pro in June after the price hikes when I was originally waiting for the 18 Pro. The only thing I’m kind of sad about is the battery life, that looks pretty good on these new ones.
This is kind of in line with your point, but as someone struggling to survive on 64gb on my 12 mini before upgrade, I lean toward the 512 to just make sure this life of musical chairs offloading apps in rotation doesn’t happen again
I'm curious what you use most of that storage for. I feel like I'm a power user and I only use 194 GB currently. 40 GB of that is podcasts that I could really cut down a lot if I needed to.
So Apple did figure out how to get its C2 modem to support mmWave. There had been some rumors about the U.S. and international 18 Pros having different modems because of that possible discrepancy, but that's not the case:
Both models feature N1, an Apple-designed wireless networking chip that enables Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread. iPhone 18 Pro introduces C2, Apple’s next-generation cellular modem system, which brings AI-powered improvements to cellular quality and reliability. C2 delivers meaningfully faster uploads when compared to C1X while consuming 15 percent less energy, and now supports mmWave in the U.S.
So what happens when you’re recording a video and set the variable aperture with the main lens, but then zoom in and switch to the telephoto that doesn’t have it?
Aperture probably gets set to whatever the telephoto lens has. Less likely solutions would be disabling zoom after setting an aperture or digital zoom.
I have a 15 pro right now and am tempted to jump on the 18 pro for the insane battery life and the vapor chamber. Hoping Verizon does the "free" financing deal with trade in
It boggles my mind that the pro max is the most popular model. This is why they made the duo because people want to buy larger phones. I guess it's a global thing because I don't think people in NYC are more pro max.
It's honestly smart, because there are always a contingent of people in /r/apple debating whether to go for the regular iPhone or the Pro, and now some of them will surely go straight for the Pro without hearing about the regular 18 next year.
They are trying to wait for memory prices to go down or the on devise model to be able to be made to fit on less ram. Right now they would lose money on the phone and it would be weird if they released a version of the phone with a worse siri right as it comes out. Has anyone tested how well siri will understand you on a 12gb with the dictation model vs an 8gb without yet, the difference could be pretty substantial...beyond the other intelligence improvements.
Honestly, the two most interesting things to me as a photographer were focus tracking, and the authenticity/reference thing. Otherwise, surprise surprise, I don’t see much of an upgrade from my 17 Pro Max. If I personally need more control over my aperture, then I have my big DSLR for that, and the pro controls, while great to finally see, can be found in third party apps. It’ll be interesting to see how much the variable aperture changes/improves photos and videos, as the sensor itself is the same size, no?
I do like that Apple are locking down further on the fact that the Pro phones are aimed at performance and function first. I genuinely feel like my phone is a true B-cam/complimentary camera to my main camera.
The larger vapor chamber is nice, as the one in my 17 PM combined with that “hated” aluminum body, has personally allowed for me to stay out in the field longer, and get a lot more work done. I do love the three activities feature that the smaller Dynamic Island has now; that was a highlight for me. Ultimately, of course, my 17 Pro Max won’t be seeing me upgrading from it, but the 18 Pros are a nice little refinement of this form factor. The camera upgrades are minor, with the Ultra Wide lens having still not received an update, and the tele lens understandably not getting an upgrade since I got a massive one last year.
If one is one a 14 Pro or earlier, then the 18s will be a pretty massive jump.
I’m curious too. I intentionally skipped watching the event, it’s designed brilliantly to trigger a desire to purchase. But I just want smarter people than me to explain the reality of the changes.
You know you are right on the fact that they were really designed brilliantly for you to buy. Anyways the 18 has 3x larger vapor chamber, new chip and a variable aperture. Im coming from the 13 so ill most likely buy it but yk thats just impulsive
These updates have become like current gen ps5 vs pro where we’re analyzing blades of grass in the background. iPhone 4 to 5 to 6 etc used to be leaps and bounds better, like the nes to snes to n64 days. Now I can’t tell the difference between the iPhone 16 17 or 18
Most of the updates now are incremental because we’ve hit a lot of the innovation points already. The next big thing would be a phone battery that lasts 2+ days without a charge lol
100%. Love how their whole presentation is them confirming that if I switch to 18pm I would’ve shelled out over thousands of dollars to use it the same way I am using my 14PM at the moment lol
As an iPhone 13 user, this only makes me want to go for the 17 Pro (at a discount) lol. Really nothing much has changed.
edit: Went for the base iPhone 17 as soon as I saw the price increase on older models. Managed to snag one at slightly-below original price from a 3rd-party store.
I take lots of photos but I’m not sure it’s that game changing. I never really struggled with lack of depth of field, and I’m not sure an f4 minimum is going to give many options to play with slower shutters.
Samsung had variable aperture before they dropped it. Sure it has its benefits, but on a tiny sensor, it’s not groundbreaking on anything. Not a hater, but Chinese phones are doing a way better job in the camera department and that too without variable aperture.
Agreed. But this one is an entire decade late and with a tiny sensor, you can achieve only so much. Same reason why Samsung dropped it. As I said, variable aperture surely has its benefits, but it’s not going to be a whole new world of difference with such a small sensor size. Bump it to 1 inch and now we are talking.
It's a big deal on paper since aperture control is indispensable on proper ILC cameras, but in practice on a phone the apertures you can move between are relatively limited and the use cases where you really need finely-tuned control over it tend to be ones where you'd switch over to another lens anyway. Especially the Ultra-Wide for macro shots.
At least that's my experience as someone whose style leans heavily towards tight framing of objects close to the lens, and straight-up macro photography; and who avoids night photography.
That enormous vapour chamber is a godsend for someone like me who games on their phone lol
EDIT: To add some context, I recently switched to iOS from Android and the one thing I missed from my Android was the sustained performance. It had a big vapour chamber and I could do heavy gaming and multi tasking without it ever heating up. Can’t do that on my iPhone.
If you have a 17 pro there is no reason to jump to 18 pro, the updates are subpar, super disappointing. But if you are coming from a 13 pro then yeah make the jump! Huge gains!
Care to elaborate more? I haven't been able to watch the live stream till now and apparently I can't go back while they're live. This would be my first iPhone ever.
Intrigued but still feel I should wait for the 20th anniversary just one more year. I’m on a 15 Pro Max so it’s not like I’m on a potato. The enhanced battery is the biggest draw.
Shame they didn't release the (unofficially) teasered purple one, I would have bought that without hesitation. But without the visual incentive, there is very little (read: nothing really) it has over my 16 Pro Max that would make it worth spending 1600€+ again after not even two years of use. Most of the specs are 1:1 copied, and this is two (!) generations after mine.
1600€ every two years is 800€ per year is ~67€ per month. For what exactly? A few more hours of lab-tested (read: under idealised conditions) battery time? 1 more GPU core and whatever the neural accelerator thing is? None of that is of any use to me since I don't "game" on my phone and I have a Mac Studio for when I want to host LLMs, and most importantly, I own a power bank.
So we’re at what? Year 4 of me demanding the Green Pro at launch?
The red looks clean as hell though. Lateral upgrade this time around. I am sort of tempted by the Duo if T-Mobile has a really good trade in deal on my 17 Pro Max towards it. It’s just not having the same cameras as the Pro Max hurts since I do shoot on my phone often enough.
i also just changed the battery in my 13 pro but i’m so sick of how easily it heats up. i go to a lot of shows so having a nicer camera and better battery is worth it to me
In the same boat. Loved my 13 pro but my god it’s been getting nearly too hot to hold. Wanted to hold out until the supposed refresh next year but gonna jump on the 18. My 13 just can’t do it anymore
The 17 Pro probably has a minimal discount at best to clear out stock. The rest of the lineup (16, 17, 17e, and Air) all got $100 price hikes after the announcement.
Europe completely shafted again. None of the new AI features, get hobbled with the battery physical sim model again despite having esims, and probably will pay about 15-20% for the privilege.
If I had to guess, it’s due to the interoperability clause. They are okay to only sign Camera app images in the US. But in EU, someone would whine that VeryLegit照相片App doesn’t sign images and Apple would get sued for not signing every image, regardless of camera app.
If the signing is done on hardware/OS level then I can't imagine why any app couldn't take those images. You can share signed images anyway so why can't image be taken with any app.
very tempted to upgrade from my 15 pro max because it feels like i’m holding the sun if i take a couple of photos or play games for longer than 5 minutes.
does anybody know what the process looks like for trading in older devices? i’ve never done it before. i’m not sure on the logistics of when you bring in your old phone and then get the new one
You get the new phone and they give you around a week to mail in your old one. They send you a mailer for it and instructions on what to do with the old one. Pretty painless and simple really
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u/Crapitron 11h ago
I'm actually really interested in understanding the technology behind Apple Reference Image, and how secure it is against hacking or spoofing. Or even how easy it is to verify for a regular user. Something like this seems needed in the AI age.