The Deepdive

Heavy Is The Crown: Inside iPhone 18 Pro

• Allen & Ida • Season 3 • Episode 40

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We map Apple’s rumored 2026 plan: a heavier Pro built for battery and satellite, underscreen Face ID with a pinhole camera, and a split release that turns timing into a premium. We also unpack A20 Pro silicon, wafer-level memory, mechanical iris optics, and a possible Apple-run network.

• heavier Pro Max as battery-first design
• split release that prioritizes Pro and Fold in September
• underscreen Face ID and pinhole placement debate
• Dynamic Island as a virtual, vanishing UI
• full 5G satellite internet beyond SOS
• Apple as potential carrier with C2 modem
• A20 Pro on 2nm with WMCM memory fusion
• mechanical iris for real depth of field
• stacked sensor shift and simpler camera button
• foldable form factor and price shock
• earthy colorways with unified materials
• the buyer’s choice between cost and patience

What feature that we talked about today? The underscreen face ID, the mechanical camera, the global satellite internet, what would you pay the premium to get six months early? Or are you happy to wait?


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Ida:

Welcome to the Deep Dive, where we dig into the mountainous source material you've sent us and pull out what really matters. Today we're looking way, way into the future. We're talking about Apple's 2026 lineup, the iPhone 18 Pro, the Pro Max, and the big one, the first ever iPhone fold.

Allan:

Yeah, the sources are looking about eight months ahead into early 2026 reports, and the picture they paint is, well, it's one of glorious high-stakes engineering. This is the year Apple really doubles down on the whole premium idea.

Ida:

Aaron Powell And we have to start with, I think, the most gloriously absurd rumor of them all. We need to talk about the iPhone 18 Pro Max, which I'm now officially calling the gym membership handset.

Allan:

Yes, the kettlebell phone. It's definitely the easiest thing to poke fun at, isn't it?

Ida:

I mean, come on. The reports say it's going to hit a record-breaking 243 grams. That is that's a hefty piece of equipment.

Allan:

It is. It's significantly heavier than any iPhone before it. But you're right to bring it up first because that weight isn't an accident. It's really the cost of entry for everything else we're about to talk about.

Ida:

So what are they cramming in there? What demands that kind of mass?

Allan:

It's all about power. That weight is almost entirely about making room for a much, much bigger battery. We're talking potentially up to 5,500 mil R.

Ida:

Wow.

Allan:

Yeah. If you're going to power underscreen sensors, a faster chip, and especially the new satellite stuff, you just need more juice. And more juice means more weight, period. Aaron Powell Okay.

Ida:

So that weight is a symptom of a much bigger strategy, and frankly, a more controversial one, the split release.

Allan:

This is maybe the most important piece of the puzzle. Apple is basically splitting the iPhone launch in two.

Ida:

Yeah.

Allan:

The premium stuff, the 18 Pro, the Pro Max, and that new iPhone fold, which is rumored to be well over$2,000.

Ida:

Well, of course it is.

Allan:

Right. All of that launches in September 2026, the usual time.

Ida:

Aaron Powell, but and this is the big but if you just want the standard iPhone 18 or the new iPhone Air 2.

Allan:

You're waiting. You're waiting until spring 2027, probably around March.

Ida:

That's a six-month gap.

Allan:

A huge six-month gap.

Ida:

So isn't that a massive risk? You're telling people who are ready to upgrade during the holidays, hey, sorry, come back in half a year. Aren't they just going to go buy a Samsung? You're creating a vacuum.

Allan:

And that's the bet Apple's making. They're betting that the brand loyalty and the idea that the pro phones are the real new phones will make people either pay up or wait. They're turning availability into a premium feature.

Ida:

It definitely punishes anyone with patience. Okay, let's move from strategy to the screen itself, because this is what everyone's been waiting for. The end of the notch, the end of the pill. Are we finally there?

Allan:

We are seeing the death of the pill, yes. And it's happening through some incredibly complex engineering. The big rumor is underscreen face ID for the Pro models.

Ida:

How does that even work?

Allan:

They're using a material described as spliced microtransparent glass, basically a part of the screen that can become see-through when the face ID sensors need to fire.

Ida:

So it looks normal, but it's also a window.

Allan:

Exactly. And you have to see this is a stepping stone. The sources all point to the 20th anniversary iPhone 20 in 2027. That's the endgame. A perfect seamless slab of glass with no visible sensors at all. This is the test run.

Ida:

Okay, so face ID goes under the screen, the big dynamic island cutout is gone. But it's replaced by something, right?

Allan:

It is. A single small pinhole cutout, just for the front-facing camera.

Ida:

Fine, I can live with a pinhole, that's way better.

Allan:

Ah, but that's where the new controversy begins. Yes. The rumors are split. Will that little punch hole stay in the center where it looks symmetrical and nice? Or will it move to the top left corner?

Ida:

No, no way. Why would they do that? Apple is obsessed with symmetry. Moving it to the corner would look wrong.

Allan:

And that's the point. It's visual segmentation. It's a design choice so polarizing that the moment you see it, you know it's the new model. Yeah. It's leveraging our dislike of asymmetry to make the phone stand out.

Ida:

That is just devious. I kind of love it. But wait, what happens to all the dynamic island software features? The live activities, the little bubbles.

Allan:

They stay. And this part is actually genius. The dynamic island becomes a purely virtual interface. It'll just expand out from that little pinhole when it's active, you know, for music or a timer, and then it'll completely disappear when you're watching a video or playing a game.

Ida:

Oh, that solves the single biggest annoyance. The permanent black bar is gone. Okay, I'm sold on that. Let's move from what we can see to what we can connect to, because this is arguably the biggest technical leap, the end of the no signal zone.

Allan:

This is the revolutionary part. We're talking about full 5G satellite internet for the pro models. And I need to be really clear this is not the emergency SOS texting feature they have now.

Ida:

So what's the difference? What does full mean?

Allan:

It means everything: full web browsing, high-res maps, sending photos, data, everything you do on a normal 5G network, but via satellite. It means true global connectivity.

Ida:

So I could be like hiking in the middle of nowhere and still checking my email.

Allan:

You could be in the Himalayas checking baseball scores, yeah. It's simultaneously the most impressive and for the average person, most ridiculously overkill feature.

Ida:

Wait, it gets better though. The sources hint at what Apple could do with this. This isn't just about signal.

Allan:

No. This is the Trojan horse. If Apple controls the pipe to the satellite, why do they need to rely on ATT or Verizon anymore? The implication is that Apple could launch its own cellular service subscription.

Ida:

Apple as a carrier, bundled into your Apple One subscription.

Allan:

Exactly. It would be the biggest disruption to the mobile industry since the original iPhone itself. The rumors even mention a potential partnership with someone like SpaceX and Starlink to build out that network.

Ida:

Of course they did.

Allan:

And this all ties back to their in-house chips. They need their own modem to pull this off. And the sources say the C2 modem is finally ready.

Ida:

The one that's meant to replace Qualcomm.

Allan:

That's the one. It will finally support the super fast MMA 5G in the US, but more importantly, it's built for power efficiency. You need incredible efficiency to make satellite connections work without killing the battery in five minutes.

Ida:

Better connectivity, getting rid of suppliers. Okay, that brings us to the brains of the operation. The silicon.

Allan:

Right, the A20 Pro chip. This is what'll be in the 18 Pro in the iPhone fold. It's being built on TSMC's next gen 2 nanometer process.

Ida:

Which in plain English means it's a big jump.

Allan:

A huge jump. Up to 15% faster speeds, but more importantly, up to 30% better power efficiency than the A19 before it.

Ida:

But there's a geekier detail in there, right? Something about how it's all packaged together.

Allan:

Yes. This is the really cool part. It's a technique called wafer level multi-chip module, or WMCM.

Ida:

Okay, break that down for me. WMCM, what is that?

Allan:

Think of it like this. Instead of putting the RAM chips next to the processor on the motherboard, they are baking 12 gigabytes of RAM directly onto the processor wafer itself. They're essentially fusing them into one superchip.

Ida:

And why do that? That sounds incredibly complicated.

Allan:

It's all about latency. The time it takes for data to travel between the processor and the memory drops to almost zero. And that provides a massive performance boost for one thing in particular, Apple intelligence.

Ida:

Ah, for the AI tasks.

Allan:

Exactly. For on-device AI, you need that instant communication between memory and processing. This is Apple building a chip specifically to dominate on-device AI.

Ida:

So it all connects. The chip is hyper-efficient to run AI and satellite, and the phone is heavy because it needs a giant battery to power that hyper-efficient chip.

Allan:

Recycling.

Ida:

Alright, I will grudgingly accept my new kettlebell if it means I get these features. Let's talk cameras, because that's why a lot of people buy the Pro models in the first place.

Allan:

The headline feature here is a variable aperture on the main 48-megapixel camera. They're calling it a mechanical iris.

Ida:

A mechanical iris. Okay, if that's actual DSLR level stuff, why does that matter so much?

Allan:

It means you can physically change the size of the lens opening. It's not just a software trick anymore. This gives you way better performance in low light. But the really exciting part is you get real control over depth of field.

Ida:

The blurry background, the bokeh.

Allan:

That beautiful, natural-looking background blur that you can only get with a real camera lens. You get artistic control that's just not possible with software alone.

Ida:

That's a huge deal. But there's other stuff happening too, right? A change in who makes the sensors?

Allan:

Yes. The reports are pointing to a potential shift from Sony to Samsung for a new three-layer stacked sensor. It's very technical, but it basically aims to give you better dynamic range and less noise, especially in tough lighting.

Ida:

And while they're adding all this complex mechanical stuff to the lens, they're simplifying something else, the camera control button.

Allan:

Right. The ultimate admission of, oops, we made that too complicated. They're apparently getting rid of the expensive touch-sensitive gestures on that button and just uh sticking to simple, durable pressure sensing inputs.

Ida:

Aaron Powell So they hit the repair cost spreadsheet and said, Nope, make it simpler.

Allan:

It seems so. Even Apple has a budget, I guess.

Ida:

Okay, finally, let's talk about the look of this thing. We have all this revolutionary tack packed inside what I'm now calling the latte aesthetic. The colors are something else.

Allan:

Aaron Ross Powell They are definitely a choice. The two standouts are burgundy and coffee brown.

Ida:

Coffee brown. Described as being slightly darker than beige. I just I can't picture it. It sounds like a 1970s shag carpet.

Allan:

I think sparks debate is the phrase the sources used. It feels like they're moving away from the cold industrial look and toward something more organic.

Ida:

Yeah.

Allan:

Earthy.

Ida:

Or maybe just brown. The burgundy, on the other hand, sounds amazing.

Allan:

Yeah, that's being described as a dark, rich, classy shade. It would be the first true red for a Pro Series iPhone, which is a big deal.

Ida:

And they're making the back glass and the frame match better, right? A more unified look.

Allan:

A cleaner, more seamless design, even if it is coffee colored.

Ida:

So let's wrap this up. We've got the iPhone 18 Pro. It's heavy, but it's incredibly powerful with its AI-focused chip. It's the last phone with a camera hole, maybe, but the first one with true satellite internet.

Allan:

And we can't forget the elephant in the room. Or maybe the foldable whale, the iPhone fold. A 7.8-inch screen inside costing over$2,000.

Ida:

Is that what finally gets people to switch from a normal phone to a folding one?

Allan:

Well, it depends on their patience, doesn't it? Because that's the real story here, this two-track future. The super premium pro and fold models in September, and then everybody else has to wait six months until March.

Ida:

The strategy is crystal clear. Segment the audience by how much they're willing to pay and by how patient they are. The best tech is always six months away for most people.

Allan:

It completely changes what the new iPhone even means. It's not one thing anymore.

Ida:

Which leaves the final question for you listening to this. What feature that we talked about today? The underscreen face ID, the mechanical camera, the global satellite internet, what would you pay the premium to get six months early? Or are you happy to wait? It kind of makes you wonder if every iPhone purchase from now on is just a negotiation with your own FOMO.

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Allan

Host
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Ida

Host