Apple, like most phone makers, puts a lot of focus on improving the cameras from one model to the next, and we now have an idea of what the next two generations of camera updates might look like.
Numerous leaks have already pointed to 48MP telephoto cameras for the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, with the whole iPhone 17 line possibly getting 24MP front-facing cameras. But with the iPhone 18 line, Apple might focus on the aperture rather than megapixels.
This is according to reputable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who in his latest post on Medium (via @Jukanlosreve) claimed that Apple will be equipping the main camera on the “high-end” iPhone 18 models with a variable aperture.
By high-end he presumably means the iPhone 18 Pro Max and likely also the iPhone 18 Pro, but he doesn’t mention the phones by name.
What Kuo does say is that this variable aperture would "significantly" enhance the photography experience. The aperture – the size of the lens opening – on most cameras is fixed, and having a variable aperture means you can control how much light reaches the sensor. This in turn gives you more control over exposure – you can open the aperture to its widest setting for better low-light shots, for example – and it also enables you to create optical depth-of-field effects to blur backgrounds, rather than relying on software processing.
So this sounds like it would be a worthwhile upgrade, and while we’d take Kuo's reporting with a pinch of salt for now – especially as this is a very early leak – he does have a great track record for Apple information.
Not the first variable-aperture phone
If this claim does prove to be accurate, the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max wouldn't be the first smartphones with a variable-aperture lens. Samsung equipped the Galaxy S9 series with variable-aperture cameras way back in 2018, and also used variable aperture-cameras in the Samsung Galaxy S10 line.
We were quite taken with the tech in our Samsung Galaxy S9 review, noting that it particularly aided low-light shots, but it wasn’t something Samsung stuck with beyond the S10 series, so it presumably didn’t lead to increased sales.
More recently, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra also has a variable aperture camera, which coupled with a 1-inch sensor resulted in “fantastic low-light performance and unrivaled image quality” according to our Xiaomi 14 Ultra review.
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