We’re in the final furlong before the iPhone 17 series is released (read this for exactly what’s happening when), but it looks like there could be a major shake-up next year, and that the base model of iPhone 18 simply won’t happen at all.
The report comes from ETNews, picked up by WCCFTech, which says that there’ll be no iPhone 18. “Apple will not release the ‘iPhone 18 (tentative name)’ general model next year. With the expansion of the product line with the appearance of the foldable iPhone, it is understood that the lineup has been reorganized and the release time of the general iPhone has been changed,” it says.
Or, “the base iPhone 18 will be getting phased out, and while that potentially means that customers will have to prepare a higher amount to upgrade next year, the technology giant is introducing two new models in its place, making it quite an extensive launch,” as WCCFTech puts it.
Closer reading suggests that the iPhone 18 won’t quite be gone forever, but instead held until spring 2027, alongside the release of the iPhone 18e. That chimes with other reports which have hinted that the spring release would, from 2018 be the lower-priced iPhone “e” series, as well as a belated regular phone.
Could there really be an iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, iPhone 18 Air and, as rumored, iPhone 18 Fold, but no iPhone 18?
Well, there’s a kind of precedent. Right now, there’s a MacBook Air and a MacBook Pro but no MacBook — though that could change, if reports are right.
And if there really are four iPhone 18 models, including the first folding iPhone, then there might not be room for a regular iPhone 18, at least not straight away.
What’s interesting is that it would mean the most affordable iPhones, in this scenario, would be saved for a spring release in the following year instead of fall in the current year.
Perhaps Apple has let us know this is the future, when it released iPhone 16e this year.
