Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max have been on sale for a week, but customers ordering one today can still face a wait that stretches well into October.
The new models debuted last Friday, and even before launch faced criticism for a price hike. There were also questions about whether the new iPhone Duo foldable would lure customers away.
But there’s undeniably enough demand that U.S. customers shopping for one of the two iPhone 18 Pro models online will wait at least two weeks for a shipment to arrive.
Expect to wait for your iPhone 18 Pro or Pro Max delivery
The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max went on sale September 18 after preorders opened September 12. Apple initially had some configurations available for launch-day delivery, but shipping estimates quickly slipped after pre-launch inventory was exhausted.
The iPhone 18 Pro currently has estimated delivery dates extending into mid-October, depending on the configuration. The Pro Max is even harder to get.
An iPhone 18 Pro in any color or storage configuration ordered online from Apple won’t be delivered until October 12 at the earliest. And it could be as late as October 19.
Order a Pro Max and the wait is even longer. In any color or configuration, the U.S. Apple store can’t deliver it before October 19, and the wait might stretch out to October 26.
Store pickup could be a shortcut
The online shipping estimates don’t necessarily mean customers have to wait until October to get Apple’s latest.
Apple Stores and other retailers receive inventory separately from units allocated for online orders. Availability can therefore change from day to day, making in-store pickup worth checking for anyone who wants a phone sooner.
What does this mean for iPhone 18 Pro demand?
The lengthy waits don’t necessarily provide a simple measure of demand.
With the ongoing global memory chip shortage that’s been dubbed RAMageddon, it’s possible Apple is struggling to make as many iPhone units as it has in the past. If that’s the case, then demand could be lower for the latest models than their predecessors, and wait times could still be long.
But an Evercore ISI survey of nearly 4,000 U.S. consumers found 53% of prospective iPhone buyers planned to choose an iPhone 18 Pro or Pro Max, compared with 51% in the firm’s previous survey. 32% of respondents preferred the Pro Max version.
Meanwhile, the survey found that 14% of prospective buyers are interested in the iPhone Duo.
Ed Hardy has been writing full-time about tech for 26 years, and using it for much longer than that. His intro to Apple was a Macintosh SE/30 (which he still has), but now he uses a 13-inch iPad Pro as his primary computer.
That’s because he’s a “tablet first” type of guy. Rather than use a Macbook, he connects a keyboard case to the iPad. And instead of a desktop Mac, he connects his tablet to a 27-inch display and full-size keyboard. (So don’t try to tell him that everyone has to use a Mac to be productive.)
Before coming to Cult of Mac, Ed wrote for NotebookReview, TabletPCReview and Brighthand, as well as other sites.
