5 things we want from the iPhone 18 and iPhone 18 Pro
With the iPhone 17 series, Apple has made major improvements, including all-new designs, new cameras, and more. But there is still room for improvement.
That’s why we’ve listed below five of the things we’d really like to see offered in the iPhone 18 series. Some of these wishes are for specific models and others for the entire lineup.
The iPhone 18 rumors are still in their early stages, so we can’t say with too much confidence whether we’ll get most of them or not. But we can make some educated guesses, and these are all things that could significantly improve Apple’s iPhone offering.
1. A telephoto lens for the iPhone 18
Even basic iPhone models are expensive phones, with the iPhone 17 for example starting at $799 / £799 / AU$1,399, but for all that money you still don’t get a telephoto lens.
This is even worse since the similarly priced Samsung Galaxy S25 has a telephoto lens, and it’s probably the iPhone 17’s main rival. The Google Pixel 10 also has a telephoto lens, so it seems really stingy of Apple not to include one.
So that’s one thing we’d like to see with the iPhone 18: a telephoto lens to go along with its wide and ultra-wide lenses.
However, we are not optimistic that this will happen. After all, Apple just increased the base model’s refresh rate to 120Hz, which seems like an even more basic feature for a high-end phone.
2. Improved AI
Apple is known for delivering quality hardware and software on its phones, but AI is one area where it is particularly lacking. Compared to Google’s Gemini and other AI offerings like ChatGPT, Apple’s attempts simply can’t compete, so this area is in dire need of some upgrades.
Of course, since AI is largely software, any improvements could potentially affect existing iPhones anyway, but the iPhone 18’s superior specs could allow an AI overhaul to really shine.
Fortunately, it looks like we might get some big improvements before long, although they may not depend on Apple itself. Apple would instead use a customized version of Google’s Gemini to power the long-awaited Siri AI upgrade.
This upgrade could arrive in March or April according to reports – so before the iPhone 18 series scheduled for September. But again, this will likely be faster, smoother, and generally optimal on the iPhone 18 series, and we may well see some iPhone 18-specific AI features that require next-gen hardware to work.
3. Longer distance zoom on the Pro and Pro Max
The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max have reasonable telephoto lenses, with 48MP sensors offering 4x optical zoom. That’s not far off the competition, although the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and Google Pixel 10 Pro zoom slightly further 5x, but we’d like to see the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max pull ahead.
Specifically, we’d like to see zoom in the 10x range – although ideally it would also be capable of shorter-range zoom, perhaps by adding an extra lens like Samsung does with its Ultra phones, or by equipping those phones with a variable zoom lens, which can move between different optical distances.
This would also allow Apple to equip the base iPhone 18 with a zoom camera (as we wanted above) while still being able to indicate how the iPhone 18 Pro is better, if the base model only has 5x or 3x zoom.
4. Better battery technology
When it comes to Apple phone batteries and charging specs, there’s still a lot of room for improvement.
The main thing we’d like to see is larger capacity batteries, especially now that Chinese phones like the 7,300mAh OnePlus 15 are ahead.
Right now, the biggest iPhone battery only tops out at just over 5,000mAh, so we’d like to see a significant increase in capacity for the iPhone 18 series, and ideally this would be achieved by using silicon-carbon batteries. This technology is what OnePlus and a few others have used to get batteries of such capacity, because it allows for higher capacity in the same space, so the phones don’t need to be thicker.
We’d also like to see charging speeds increase, because while Apple is a bit vague on charging specs, it says the iPhone 17 Pro Max can reach up to 50% charge in 20 minutes with a 40W or higher adapter, or that it can reach the same level of charge in around 30 minutes with a 30W or higher MagSafe charger.
For comparison, the OnePlus 15 supports 120W wired charging and 50W wireless charging, which in both cases is considerably more charging power than any iPhone supports.
If Apple increases battery capacities, more charging power would be especially helpful, but either way, it’s something we’d like to see.
5. More RAM
Finally, we’d like the iPhone 18 series to include more RAM than the iPhone 17 lineup. With current models, you get 8GB in the iPhone 17 and 12GB in the Pro handsets, which isn’t bad, but it’s less than many Android flagships offer.
In the past, this didn’t matter much, but RAM is becoming more and more important in the AI age, and especially if Apple is about to improve its AI features, it would be nice if this were coupled with an increase in RAM.
Ideally, we’d like there to be at least 12GB in the base iPhone 18 and 16GB in the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, and we wouldn’t say that either.
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