The main camera on the iPhone 18 Pro now physically opens and closes. Six laser-cut blades move to give four aperture settings, opening to f/1.48 in low light and stopping down to f/4 to hold more of a scene in focus, and the whole thing runs off a new rotor mechanism and a custom lens. Fixed apertures and computational photography have carried iPhone camera news for years, so a mechanism that moves is a genuine change of approach. Digital Trends walked through what a variable aperture actually buys you.
Everything else on the camera stack stayed where it was. Apple announced no changes to the ultra wide or the front camera, and its press release does not list specifications for either, which is not the same as saying they are unchanged. The other new thing is Apple Reference Image, an opt-in mode where a new sensor signs the data at pixel level as the shot is taken, sends it to Private Cloud Compute and produces a copy that sits next to the photo in the Photos app so you can compare the two. It will not be available at launch in China. The Mac Observer counted the lenses that got nothing this year.