The iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max have gained one of Apple’s most interesting camera upgrades in years: a mechanical variable aperture on the 48MP Fusion main camera. Announced at the September 2026 Surprise and Shine event, instead of relying entirely on software to deal with different lighting and depth of field, the camera can physically change the size of its lens opening.
Think of the aperture as the camera’s eye. A wider opening lets in more light, while a narrower one lets in less. Previous iPhones used a fixed aperture, leaving computational photography to do much of the heavy lifting. The iPhone 18 Pro’s new system uses six tiny laser-cut blades that physically move to create four different aperture settings (ranging down to ƒ/1.48).
The big upgrade
Variable aperture
Six laser-cut blades
New rotor mechanism
And a new custom lens
Big jump for the iPhone 18 Pro. #Apple pic.twitter.com/UmxJkKcTLC
In low light, the aperture can open wider to ƒ/1.48, thus letting in more light, potentially making Night Mode faster and improving low-light shots. In bright conditions or group shots, it can close down to ƒ/4 to keep more of the scene sharply in focus and control exposure without relying solely on software overrides.
But light isn’t the only thing aperture controls. It also affects depth of field, or how much of an image appears sharp. Open it wider, and the background can become naturally blurrier. Stop it down and more of the scene stays in focus. That means the iPhone 18 Pro can produce genuine optical background blur rather than asking software to fake the entire effect.
The benefits extend to video, too. A variable aperture gives the camera another way to control exposure, potentially allowing slower shutter speeds outdoors while maintaining more natural motion blur.
Apple is also pairing the hardware with new Pro-level camera controls, improved focus tracking, and other photography and video upgrades. The variable aperture sits alongside the upgraded 48MP ultra-wide and 48MP telephoto cameras, making this a pretty substantial camera overhaul.
The interesting part is that Apple hasn’t simply added another computational trick. It has given the iPhone an actual mechanical control over how its camera sees the world. That’s a small sentence for what could turn out to be a pretty big change in how iPhone photography looks.
Not long ago, Apple treated independent repair like an act of outright hostility. The Cupertino giant locked down parts with serial-number pairing, while repair tools remained firmly out of reach of anyone outside its authorized repair network. More importantly, the company waged a legal and lobbying battle against right-to-repair legislation.
I've covered enough of these fights over the years to know what a shift looks like. That's why what happened in October 2026 genuinely caught me off guard. The day the iPhone Duo went on sale, what may be the most mechanically complex iPhone to date, Apple pulled off a surprising about-face. It published teardown-style repair manuals for a handful of major components.
Apple's first foldable phone is now on shelves, in short supply, but with an unreal amount of buzz around it. After all, it's the first foldable iPhone, and there's plenty that this phone gets right. But there's also a lot that is either broken or underwhelming. What's peculiar is the dialogue around this phone, and how it has completely overshadowed every other attempt at making a phone with a similar form factor.
I've spent some time with the iPhone Duo, and I've used the Galaxy Z Fold 8 for almost three months now. In my opinion, Samsung deserves more credit. When the Galaxy Z Fold 8 arrived earlier this year, it was celebrated in some circles and ridiculed in others for supposedly copying what Apple would eventually deliver with the iPhone Duo. The dialogue was pretty odd, for multiple reasons. Samsung has been making foldable phones for years, so claiming that it copied a product Apple hadn't even launched was simply absurd.
For years, Samsung’s Galaxy A phones have been some of the easiest recommendations for anyone who wants to go the Android route without paying flagship prices. But that part of the lineup could soon become harder to find at a good price.
According to South Korea’s Electronic Times, Samsung is cutting Galaxy A production by about 20% in the fourth quarter compared to its original plans. Component orders have reportedly dropped by a similar amount, which could mean roughly 10 million fewer phones over the year. Samsung is also said to be considering another production cut of more than 10% next year.