Apple gave the world three new phones on Wednesday evening, and a price for each of them. The iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199, the Pro Max at $1,299, and the iPhone Duo, the company's first foldable, at $1,999. South Africa was not given a number at all, and was not named in either launch wave.
What that money buys is mostly a camera and a hinge. The Pro line gets a 48-megapixel main camera with a variable aperture, six laser-cut blades that open and close the way a real lens does, which is a first on an iPhone. The Duo opens to a 7.6-inch screen and folds down to a 5.4-inch one, and Apple's chief executive, John Ternus, called it the most transformational change to the iPhone since the original.
The dollar figures are worth reading anyway, for what they have in common. Each Pro model costs exactly $100 more than the one it replaces, and Apple put the same $100 on the older iPhones it is still selling. That is not a pricing decision about cameras or folding hinges. It is a components bill.
The same hundred dollars, everywhere
The Verge, which has been tracking this year's launches, reports the identical step landing across the industry. Google's Pixel 11 starts at $899, where last year's Pixel 10 started at $799. Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra arrived a hundred dollars above the fold it replaced. Sony's new Xperia went up by rather more, in pounds, and this year's Moto Razr phones went up too, neither of them offering much extra to go with it.
The cause, on The Verge's reporting, is a shortage of components driven by the buildout of AI data centres. Memory here means the RAM inside the phone, and its price has climbed hardest of the lot. The shortage is showing no sign of letting up and could run for years.
What a South African buyer actually knows
Nothing official. Apple has announced no rand price for the Pro models or for the Duo, and South Africa appears neither in the first-wave list of more than 65 countries for the Pro nor in the 70-plus for the Duo.
IOL has done the arithmetic Apple has not, taking the US increase as a percentage and applying it to what iStore charges for the current generation, which lists the iPhone 17 Pro at R27,999 before discount. That produces about R30,550 for the iPhone 18 Pro and about R33,250 for the Pro Max. IOL is explicit that these are purely estimates, and local pricing carries taxes, duties and distribution on top of whatever Apple decides regionally.
Pre-orders for the Pro models open on Saturday, 12 September, with the phones in shops from 18 September in the countries Apple named. The Duo follows on 16 October. Where South Africa sits in either queue, and what it will pay, Apple has not said.
