Or, rather, it might introduce it first on the iPhone Air, and then bring it over to the iPhone 18 Pro series, as the slim handset is rumored to be pricier than the 17 Pro Max even. Still, that is rather unlikely given Apple’s newfangled fragmentation strategy, which tries to set apart each and every member of its iPhone quarter now.
That’s not to even mention how a bumpy camera with variable aperture will fit on the back of a phone whose main added value will be how thin and elegant it looks. Therefore, an introduction of Apple’s first wide-angle camera with variable aperture to the iPhone 18 series is way more likely than seeing this drastic upgrade as soon as next year.
What can variable aperture bring to Apple’s iPhones?
Needless to say, variable aperture cameras are nothing new when it comes to smartphone photography. The freshest examples is Huawei’s new Pura 70 series that sports a main camera with variable aperture from f/1.6 to f/4.0, augmented by sensor-shift anti-shake technologies, but there are plenty of examples on phones from yesteryear. Huawei was also the one that brought the world’s first variable aperture cameraphone way back with the Honor 6 nearly a decade ago.
Heck, even Samsung had one such camera at one point with the Galaxy S9 series, so a variable aperture isn’t a sight unseen on phones, as it’s been used by many other brands like Vivo or Xiaomi since.
Samsung variable aperture camera | Image credit – JRE
In short, variable aperture cameras haven’t really caught up on phones and standalone camera lenses alike as they are often a way to cut costs and the touted benefits during extreme low-light snaps or during high frame rate videos are about the only things going for them.
Still, depending on the execution, variable main camera aperture could bring plenty of advantages to the iPhone 18 Pro series, though they will most likely be valid only for the iPhone 18 Pro Max at first, as Apple often does these days.
A bigger aperture with a smaller f-number can be set despite having plenty of light around if one wants to make excellent portraits with plenty of background blur, for example, or the f-number could be made larger in order to make landscape snaps sharper throughout the frame.
Who is making the iPhone 18 variable aperture camera?
In any case, a camera with variable aperture will be an intriguing toy for Apple’s vaunted phone camera department, and could churn out interesting plays on light and bokeh with the help of artificial intelligence and computational photography.
Tucked in an analyst report about a significant order increase to Apple’s camera components maker Sunny Optical, Ming-Chi Kuo hides one of the reasons as becoming the second-largest supplier of variable aperture lenses for Apple’s 2026 iPhones after Largan Precision.
Sunny Optical’s Apple lens orders are gradually recovering from 2H24, with an estimated market share of about 5% in 2024. This shift is reflected in significant stock price corrections among Sunny’s competitors, indicating the market is already pricing in this shift. Looking ahead to 2025, benefiting from the ultra-slim iPhone 17 and more mature Apple Intelligence, 2025 iPhone shipments are expected to grow by about 5% to 230 million units, further boosting the impact of Sunny Optical’s market share recovery.
Ming-Chi Kuo, November ’24
Sunny Optical is becoming the main shutter supplier to Apple, too, followed by Luxshare, as it will not only benefit from the predicted increase of 2025 iPhone shipments on account of the iPhone Air/Slim introduction, but also because it is a tier-one supplier of camera parts for the MacBook Pro.
In short, the wheels are already in motion for the first iPhone with variable aperture main camera, and it is now just a matter of whether Apple will introduce it next year, or when it is time for the iPhone 18 crop.