iPhone 18 Pro Max vs iPhone 17 Pro Max: 5 biggest rumored upgrades

The iPhone 18 Pro Max's launch event is coming up fast, and with it should come all the details on what Apple has planned for this new Max-sized phone. The biggest question most people have isn't just what the iPhone 18 Pro Max will have, but rather what it will offer than the iPhone 17 Pro Max does not.

The iPhone 17 Pro Max is an excellent phone, it's actually our pick for the best phone thanks to its design, strong battery life, excellent cameras and some of the best performance in a smartphone. Raising that bar is going to be a challenge, but it seems as though Apple could ensure the success of the iPhone 18 Pro Max compared to its predecessor with these five major upgrades.

iPhone 18 Pro Max vs iPhone 17 Pro Max: Rumored Specs

Variable aperture

The biggest upgrade rumored to be coming to the iPhone 18 Pro Max is a variable aperture camera. Multiple other phones have offered adjustable or variable aperture through the years, but it's never actually happened on an iPhone. Essentially this upgrade means that, rather than having a fixed aperture, users would be able to control how much light actually enters the camera.

While it may not mean much for novice photographers, this could enable a way for the iPhone 18 Pro Max's camera to adapt its light intake based on the surrounding conditions. It may also allow experienced photographers even more control over what the camera can do — much like they can with standalone camera equipment.

The cameras themselves are expected to have more or less the same hardware as last year, but the addition of variable aperture could be the thing that helps the 18 Pro Max steal the title of best camera phone from Samsung.

Even bigger batteries

iPhone battery life has made massive improvements over the past several years, but it's still dwarfed by batteries from the likes of OnePlus, Asus and Motorola. So news that the iPhone 18 Pro Max may have an even bigger battery pack this year is quite exciting, especially when you remember that the iPhone 17 Pro Max was already able to last almost 18 hours in our custom battery test.

There are conflicting reports on how large the iPhone 18 Pro Max's battery will actually be. We assume that there will be two variants, with larger batteries afforded to devices that don't have a physical SIM card, but it's unclear what the upper limit will be. Still, reports suggest it could be somewhere between 5,321 mAh and 5,567 mAh.

Whichever way you look at it, that's a huge upgrade compared to the iPhone 17 Pro Max, which topped out at 5,088 mAh in eSIM-only models. Combine that larger power pack with Apple's continual push for efficiency, and you have the makings of a massive increase in battery life.

Under-display Face ID

The long-awaited under-display selfie camera isn't expected to arrive with iPhone 18 Pro Max; that's reportedly being saved for the 10th anniversary iPhone. However, we could still see Apple finally hide the last visible remnants of Face ID below the screen — nine years after the first Face ID-equipped iPhones went on sale.

It's unclear what this might mean for the Dynamic Island. Apple may opt for a hole-punch camera design, which almost every Android phone has used for several years. However there are reports that the iPhone 18 Pro Max will still feature an obvious Dynamic Island pill — albeit one that's smaller than the one on the iPhone 18 Pro Max.

Regardless of whether Face ID goes fully under the display, we may still see a smaller version of the Dynamic Island pill. This means slightly more screen space on your phone, and less of a black void seemingly doing nothing when your phone is idle.

2nm A20 Pro chipset

Performance has become Apple's bread and butter, and we don't expect that to change with the release of iPhone 18 Pro Max. Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips may have caught up with Apple's A-series, but we can still expect the new A20 Pro chipset to offer a big leap in performance compared to iPhone 17 Pro Max's A19 Pro.

The new chips are widely expected to utilize TSMC's 2nm process. The smaller size compared to the current crop of 3nm chips means higher transistor density, which translates into improved performance and better energy efficiency.

According to reports, we could see an 18% increase in performance compared to the A19 Pro chipset, and a 30% boost in power efficiency. In other words, we can expect a more powerful iPhone that doesn't need as much energy to run — which can only be a good thing for the battery life.

C2 modem

It's not often that you can get excited about a new modem in a phone, but 2026 is full of surprises — and the possible addition of the C2 modem could be quite important. The original C1 was the first modem Apple built in-house, and debuted on the iPhone 16e, which was followed by the C1X modem in iPhone Air and iPhone 17e. However this could be the first time an Apple modem is utilized in a flagship iPhone model.

We don't know a lot about the C2 modem, but the fact it's built and designed by Apple means it should be better optimized for the iPhone system and software. Much like we saw with the A- and M-series chips, this should ensure better performance, while reducing the amount of power the modem draws from the battery.

Or, in other words, it's another thing that could help the iPhone 18 Pro Max increase its battery life even further.

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