According to the latest industry news, Apple will continue to promote the card-free hardware strategy in this year’s iPhone 18 Pro series and folding screen iPhone Fold. By promoting eSIM technology in more markets, Apple is trying to further squeeze out internal space to accommodate larger-capacity batteries and improve overall battery life.
At present, Apple has completely bid farewell to physical card slots in markets such as North America, Japan and Saudi Arabia. The European market will also enter the eSIM era. However, considering the actual situation,The National Bank version of the model will most likely retain a physical SIM card slot.
Removing the card slot module will release a lot of internal space. Take the current iPhone 17 Pro Max as an example.The battery capacity of the US model using a pure eSIM solution is 5088mAh, while the Chinese version with a physical card slot has a battery capacity of 4823mAh. There is a 265mAh difference in capacity between the two.
With the iPhone 18 Pro series, this gap may widen further. It is rumored that the battery capacity of the eSIM version of iPhone 18 Pro Max may exceed 5200mAh, while the battery capacity of the non-eSIM version that retains the physical card slot is expected to remain around 5000mAh.
In terms of selling price, although 2nm process and memory costs are rising, securities analyst Jeff Pu believes that in order to stabilize market share, Apple still plans to make the starting price of the iPhone 18 Pro series the same as the iPhone 17 series.
This means that the iPhone 18 Pro’s release price this fall is likely to still start at $1,099, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max will start at $1,199. This is undoubtedly good news for those users who are waiting for 2nm chips and long battery life.
