Apple isn’t expected to announce the iPhone 18 Pro for another few months, but luxury customization company Caviar is already taking pre-orders for its modified versions of the unreleased device.

The brand, which is known for replacing standard smartphone glass and aluminum with materials like gold, titanium, and crocodile leather, just announced its new Royal Colors collection. It is a series of custom iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max models that you can reserve starting May 20.

Reserving one of these phones now does not mean you get to see what the iPhone 18 Pro looks like ahead of time. Instead, you are essentially paying in advance for the custom exterior. Once Apple officially releases the iPhone 18 Pro series later this year, Caviar will purchase the retail devices, remove the original casing, and install the new materials before shipping them out to buyers.

The Royal Colors collection is based on historical themes, with four different designs available. The Imperator model uses purple crocodile leather and 24-karat gold plating, featuring a pattern meant to look like a Roman toga. The King model takes a different approach, using white crocodile leather and a silver-toned body that incorporates a French fleur-de-lis motif.

For a darker aesthetic, the Black Prince model is themed around medieval armor. It uses black leather and a matte titanium upper panel with a black PVD coating. The fourth option, the Pharaoh model, uses blue crocodile leather and 24-karat gold plating with an Art Deco palm pattern inspired by ancient Egyptian artifacts.

Every phone in the collection ships in Caviar’s custom packaging, which includes a signature key and a gold-plated coin. The company is making exactly 18 units of each design to match the iPhone 18 name.

Pricing for the collection starts at $10,060 for both the Black Prince and Pharaoh models, while the King and Emperor versions are priced at $10,200 and $10,340, respectively.

In related news, Caviar recently unveiled a luxury pink gold and diamond iPhone 17 Pro collection, alongside a $10,000 iPhone 17 Pro featuring an original iPhone 2G motherboard inside.

For more daily updates, please visit our News Section.

Stay ahead in tech! Join our Telegram community and sign up for our daily newsletter of top stories!

(Caviar)

The post Caviar launches $10,000 iPhone 18 Pro collection months before the phone exists appeared first on Gizmochina.

Apple might be circling back to Titanium in the iPhone 18 Pro, and if that happens, Samsung’s material roadmap for the Galaxy S27 Ultra gets a lot more complicated.

A Weibo post from leaker “Instant Digital” surfaced on May 17, claiming that Apple is quietly researching improved titanium alloys for future Pro iPhones. The company moved the iPhone 17 Pro to aluminum, so this would be a reversal.

Titanium is harder to machine, more expensive to produce at scale, and conducts heat poorly compared to aluminum. Apple later attributed the overheating to software and some third-party apps, which is technically accurate.

Apple has walked away from heavily promoted hardware decisions before when the tradeoffs stopped making sense. Titanium’s second act would require solving the problems that quietly killed its first one.

If Apple returns to titanium with real engineering improvements, Samsung faces a choice: match the material story or make a louder case for aluminum.

With on-device AI processing pushing chip loads higher than ever, thermal management is the vital spec that actually determines whether a flagship performs consistently over time. The leak also claims Apple is researching liquid metal and glass for future premium designs.

Here’s the real question: are consumers actually asking for titanium back, or are they asking for phones that don’t throttle during a 20-minute gaming session?

Samsung already knows the answer. The S27 Ultra’s material decisions will reflect it. If Apple comes back to titanium, having genuinely solved the heat problem, that changes the conversation.

The post Should Samsung copy Apple if iPhone 18 Pro brings back Titanium? appeared first on Sammy Fans.