New iPhone leak reveals Apple's groundbreaking camera upgrade

Apple will soon unveil a powerful new iPhone camera technology that could significantly improve image quality by working more like the human eye.

According to a recent report from famed industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is preparing to unveil a range of new camera lenses with variable aperture control – a first for the iPhone range. Kuo predicts that Sunny Optical, followed by competitor Largan Precision, will become the leading provider of these variable aperture lenses and will launch with the iPhone 18 in 2026.

These new lenses bring significant quality improvements to the iPhone 18's camera, helping it adapt to a variety of lighting conditions while giving the camera more creative control over focus and sharpness. Variable aperture lenses have been used with great success in revival devices such as Huawei's top-of-the-line Dxomark Pura 70 Ultra. However, Samsung has ditched a similar dual aperture feature on the Galaxy S10 series and has reverted to a fixed aperture lens on the Galaxy S20 series.

So what is a variable aperture and why might you need one?

Variable aperture: Why Apple might use one

Most smartphone camera lenses, including the current iPhone lineup, have a fixed aperture that cannot be changed. In the case of the iPhone 16 Pro Max, this aperture is specified as f/1.78 and, in simple terms, tells us how much light the lens can let through to the sensor when you take a photo.

Low numbers after the “f/”, such as B. f/1.4 means that the lens has a larger gap or aperture through which light can pass, whereas higher numbers, such as. B. f/8, mean a much smaller aperture, which limits the amount of light that reaches the sensor.

Choosing a wide aperture means the camera performs better in dimly lit situations because it can capture more light in each photo. Too much light, however, overwhelms the sensor. In bright light, a large aperture can be a significant disadvantage. If there is too much light, bright areas of the image become pure white and lose all details.

In this case, reducing the aperture size can reduce the light intensity to a manageable range. Our eyes perform the same function: they open our pupils wide in the dark and shrink them into small holes in bright light.

Changing the aperture has another important effect: it affects sharpness and focus. In general, images taken at the widest aperture may be less sharp than those taken at a moderately smaller aperture. Very large apertures also mean that the focus is only sharp at a certain distance from the camera, with the foreground and background merging into a blur, which is often, but not always, desirable.

This effect is also noticeable in the human eye when one squints to see an object or perhaps tiny text more clearly.

Apple's variable aperture lens allows the camera to adjust the size of the aperture depending on the shooting conditions, achieving improved image quality in the dark and sharper images with well-controlled highlights in bright light. It also opens up the possibility of manual aperture control, allowing users to make creative decisions about how they want their images to look.

Unfortunately, we won't see the results until Apple launches the iPhone 18 lineup in 2026.

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