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Counterpoint Research's China Weekly Smartphone Sell-Out Tracker found the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max drove Apple to a 33% share of China's smartphone market in Week 38, making it the top-selling brand. The Pro series saw 12% year-on-year sales growth in its first three days, reversing a 17% decline in overall Chinese smartphone sales since July.
Leaker Ice Universe claims Samsung's Galaxy S27 Ultra will weigh 218 grams, about 4 grams more than the Galaxy S26 Ultra, while keeping the same 7.9mm thickness. The extra weight follows earlier reports that the phone will carry a larger 5,700mAh battery, up from 5,000mAh in the current model.
Apple rolled out iOS 27.0.1, a bug-fix update arriving about two weeks after iOS 27. It resolves an iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max issue that could cause the device to restart when Face ID fails to authenticate, a color artifact appearing in certain zoomed photos, and a touchscreen freeze triggered by opening Notification and Control Centers together.
A week after Apple's iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max launched with new colors like Glacier, Burgundy and Deep Black, a 9to5Mac reviewer tested numerous third-party cases and shared personal favorites. Highlighted picks include Pitaka's ultra-thin Edge case, made of aramid fiber at 20g and 1mm thick with MagSafe magnets, priced at $59, and Nomad's Sport Case, which offers a soft-touch exterior, metal buttons and microfiber lining for everyday protection.
Xiaomi unveiled the Xiaomi 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max in Beijing, making it the first manufacturer to ship phones with Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chips. Both models retain a secondary rear OLED display next to the camera module, which shows notifications and widgets and lets users take selfies with the higher-quality rear cameras. The phones launch first in China, with a global rollout planned before the end of 2026, though Xiaomi devices continue to bypass the US market.
Xiaomi has launched the Xiaomi 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max, both featuring two 200MP Leica sensors alongside a 50MP ultrawide camera. The Pro Max runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 with an 8,500mAh battery, while the Pro uses the standard 8 Elite Gen 6 chip with a 7,000mAh battery. Both models add a hardware privacy screen, a functional rear display, UWB support, IP69 water resistance, and a customizable AI button.
Xiaomi launched the 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max in China, adding a hardware-based privacy display that can be set to trigger by app, location or via selfie-camera detection of onlookers. Both phones keep the rear secondary screen from last year's models, pack two 200-megapixel cameras, and use Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 chips, with the Pro Max getting the higher-end Extreme variant and a larger 8,500mAh battery. Xiaomi says a global release will follow later this year.
Apple deployed 14 iPhone 18 Pro Max devices among 30 total cameras to capture Friday's Apple TV Plus broadcast of the Dodgers versus Giants game at Dodger Stadium, marking the first live sports broadcast using the new iPhones without dedicated sports lenses. The phones were mounted on tripods, tucked into padded cushions near home plate and the backstop, and placed in dugouts, bullpens, and on a gimbal above the outfield wall.
Ahead of its launch, Xiaomi detailed the dual 200MP camera system on its upcoming Xiaomi 18 Pro and Pro Max, revealing that the primary sensor measures 1/1.28-inch, slightly larger than the ISOCELL HP2 used in Samsung's Galaxy S26 Ultra. The phones also feature a Leica-backed camera setup wrapped around a secondary rear display, in a design reminiscent of the iPhone 17 Pro's camera island but repurposed for screen functionality.
Testing by Bilibili channel Homolab found that the 1TB iPhone 18 Pro Max, which uses QLC NAND, suffers major performance drops compared to the 512GB TLC-based iPhone 18 Pro. Once its SLC and secondary TLC caches are exhausted, sustained writes fall to about 79.4 MB/s and can dip as low as 25.6 MB/s, worsening to just 1.1 MB/s once the drive is 60% full.
Apple's iPhone 18 Pro Max ships with a battery-firmware lock that caps capacity below the 20Wh threshold that triggers international shipping restrictions on single-cell batteries. Once a customer activates the phone for the first time, the lock lifts automatically, restoring the battery to its full rated capacity of roughly 21-22Wh depending on the model. A 'Prepare to Ship' setting can reimpose the cap, limiting charging to 80 percent over 14 days, for anyone sending the device in for repair or resale.
Apple has built a 'Prepare to Ship' firmware feature into the iPhone 18 Pro Max that temporarily caps its battery below the 20Wh transport limit enforced in the US, EU and other regions. Once the device is activated by a customer, the cap lifts and the phone's full 5,391mAh capacity becomes available. The same toggle can be re-enabled manually when shipping a device for repair, trade-in or resale.