Apple may be about to break one of its longest-running iPhone launch habits.

The company’s supplier Pegatron recently teased a major schedule change for a key smartphone client. As reported by Economic Daily News and MacRumors, Apple plans to stick to a September launch for the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, but will hold off on releasing the base iPhone 18 until Q1 2027.

If accurate, this would be a pretty significant change from Apple’s recent iPhone strategy. The standard iPhone has traditionally launched alongside the Pro and Pro Max models in September. That has been the case from the iPhone 11 through the iPhone 17.

Supply constraints could be driving the change

There seems to be a practical reason for the change, as the shift in launch timing appears tied to ongoing supply constraints affecting memory and other components.

According to Economic Daily News, Pegatron executives discussed how shortages of memory and other chips are affecting smartphone production and shifting the industry’s peak shipping periods. Suppliers and smartphone manufacturers are left trying to allocate the limited components they can get across their product lines, while smartphone makers increasingly prioritize higher-priced devices with larger margins.

That could help explain why Apple would lead with the release of its premium iPhone 18 models. The Pro and Pro Max models carry higher price tags, and Apple could use the limited supply of components to prioritize its higher-margin devices. Launching those devices first would allow Apple to use its available components on its most profitable products while giving Apple more flexibility in managing component supplies for the less expensive models.

The strategy could also make Apple’s iPhone lineup more complex for consumers. Rather than choosing between the standard and Pro models in the same fall shopping season, those who want the regular iPhone 18 may have to wait until early 2027.

Apple’s premium iPhones are still on track for fall

Apple’s premium iPhone 18 models are reportedly still scheduled for a September launch. Bloomberg has reportedly identified Sept. 9 as the likely date for Apple’s event. Meanwhile, Forbes notes that the date would fit Apple’s usual pattern of holding its major iPhone event on the second Tuesday or Wednesday of September.

Apple has generally introduced new iPhones on the second Tuesday or Wednesday of September, except for 2020, when pandemic-related production delays pushed the iPhone 12 launch into October.

There could also be another major addition to the lineup this year. Reports also point to a foldable device, reportedly called the iPhone Ultra. That would make this year’s premium iPhone event particularly important, even with the standard iPhone 18 missing from the lineup.

Meanwhile, Apple’s more affordable iPhone 18 and reportedly the iPhone 18e and second-generation iPhone Air are expected to arrive in a later launch window.

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A major shift in Apple’s iPhone business

The latest Pegatron comments don’t constitute direct confirmation from Apple, but they make the rumored change harder to dismiss. Apple itself has not announced its plans for the iPhone 18 launch.

Splitting the iPhone lineup could ultimately give Apple more flexibility over its supply chain and product calendar. It could also encourage consumers interested in the latest technology to move toward Apple’s more expensive models.

With the premium iPhones arriving first, customers who do not want to wait until 2027 for a new iPhone may have fewer options and may therefore be enticed by the options available.

The reported delay of the standard iPhone 18 could signal a bigger change in how the company manages its flagship product lineup, responds to component shortages, and balances supply constraints against the profitability of its premium devices.

For consumers and the wider technology industry, September’s iPhone event may provide the clearest sign yet that Apple’s traditional annual iPhone cycle is becoming a thing of the past.

More Apple News: The company is reportedly negotiating multiyear deals with publishers to license current news content for its revamped AI-powered Siri. 

Anthropic is reportedly considering a $6 billion acquisition of Decart, which develops AI training and operational optimization tools alongside models designed for real-world applications, according to Bloomberg.

The startup would provide two potential benefits for Anthropic: improving the efficiency of its own AI model training and operations, and expanding the AI lab’s model portfolio.

It is not clear which part of Decart Anthropic is more interested in. The chip efficiency software could provide much-needed improvements in training costs, reducing the overall compute burden for the lab. At the same time, Decart’s physical AI models have a wide range of potential use cases, from autonomous vehicle operations to retail.

One example is Lucy, an AI model that can take a short video of a person and generate a real-time video of them trying on an item of clothing. This has attracted interest from ecommerce companies such as eBay, which is an investor.

Anthropic stepping up its dealmaking

If completed at the reported price, the Decart deal would represent a major escalation in Anthropic’s acquisition strategy. Its previous largest disclosed acquisition was the $400 million purchase of Coefficient Bio earlier this year.

Compared with its rivals, Anthropic has been relatively inactive on the M&A front. OpenAI has spent more than $7 billion, with acquisitions ranging from Jony Ive’s io hardware startup to business talk show TBPN. SpaceX has made even larger splashes, including its $60 billion acquisition of Cursor.

The tech giants have also been less acquisition-heavy than in previous technology cycles, largely due to the difficulty of getting major deals past regulators. Instead, Meta, Google, and Microsoft have completed several acqui-hires in the AI space.

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Demand for AI spurring higher spend

Anthropic is in the market for greater efficiency and more resources. It has reportedly been in discussions with Samsung about developing a custom AI chip, following similar efforts by the tech giants and OpenAI. The chip would be designed specifically to improve the efficiency of Anthropic’s AI model training and operations.

At the same time, Anthropic has increased its spending on compute as it tries to meet huge demand for its services. It signed a $1.25 billion-a-month deal with SpaceX, one of its key rivals, to access the company’s Colossus 1 data center. It has signed similarly large deals over the past few months, including a 20-year lease with bitcoin miner Riot Platforms worth $9.1 billion and another agreement with bitcoin miner TeraWulf worth $19 billion.

While the AI lab was initially hesitant to sign such large contracts, it has changed its tune as revenues have skyrocketed. It even reportedly recorded its first profitable quarter in June, a significant milestone for a company spending so heavily on compute and staff.

A Decart acquisition would suggest Anthropic is beginning to think about infrastructure differently. The company has already committed billions of dollars to securing the compute needed to train and operate its models; buying Decart could give it technology designed to make that compute go further.

Whether Anthropic ultimately spends $6 billion to do that remains uncertain. But even the reported talks point to a growing reality for the AI industry: competing at the frontier increasingly means investing not just in more computing power, but in ways to use that power more efficiently.

More Anthropic news: The Claude maker is reportedly in talks with Samsung to develop a custom AI chip as it looks to cut compute costs and reduce its reliance on Nvidia hardware.