Apple only launched the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max in September, after plenty of reports said the vanilla iPhone 18 would be delayed until next spring. Today, a tipster on Weibo has shared a hint as to when production of the standard model will start.
According to the tipster, the iPhone 18 is scheduled to enter production at the end of November. The tipster also says that, judging by the stock volume alone, Apple is preparing quite a lot of units.
iPhone 17
Interestingly, a few days ago the same tipster claimed that expected iPhone 18 stock would be lowered, while Apple shifts its focus to the iPhone 18 Pro Max and its foldable. That seemingly contradicts today's claim, though "quite large" doesn't tell us what the stock is being compared to.
Anyway, an end of November production start fits well with a spring release, and the aforementioned tipster says the iPhone 18 will launch in March alongside the iPhone 18e. According to past rumors, it will come with a 6.3-inch OLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, the A20 chipset, and 9GB of RAM. Obviously, Apple hasn't confirmed any of this yet.