Variable aperture iPhone: sounds good, what's the point of actually using it?

This will not be the hand of the iPhone 18 Pro. The device hasn't come out yet, and I haven't held it yet. I just want to sit down with you guys to discuss something that is quite hot around the September 2026 event: the news that iPhones, especially Pro Max, will have variable aperture, no longer fixed f/1.78 like from iPhone 14 Pro to 17 Pro. Gurman, Ice Universe, Digital Chat Station, Sunny Optical supply chain all speak in that direction. The part I'm more interested in is: what does changing the password on the phone really bring, does it really have much benefit, is it significant, have previous phone generations been equipped with it, how are those phones in reality?

Describes how the variable aperture works on the rumored new iPhone. What is variable aperture on phones? Most phones use a fixed aperture, meaning the aperture stays still, the aperture blades form a circle of fixed diameter. The camera automatically balances the light using ISO, electronic shutter speed and software processing to balance the light, producing a photo with reasonable brightness.

With a phone with a fixed aperture, the phone only has two parameters: ISO and shutter speed to control the parameters of a photo. Variable aperture is a mechanism to change the circumference of the circle that the aperture blades create in the lens using complex physical mechanisms, expanding or closing like a camera. There have been many generations of phones equipped with this feature such as: • Samsung Galaxy S9/S10, Note 9/10: jump in steps, choose 1 as f/1.5 or 2 as f/2.4. • New - Huawei Mate 50 Pro / P60 Pro onwards, Xiaomi 13/14 Ultra, some Honor devices: multiple or almost continuous steps, usually around f/1.4–f/4.0.

Huawei P60 camera cluster information at launch. These two generations look the same on paper, but in use are quite different as the analysis below. Actual benefits?

To put it simply, people on the internet often teach, open the aperture to make it brighter and blur the background a lot, close it to make it darker, have more sharpness, flare light rays (starburst rays) are more beautiful... Aperture also affects aberrations, light deviations when light passes through lenses. The larger the aperture, the more magnified these deviations are and vice versa. But closing too much and the inner line circumference being too small can easily lead to other unwanted phenomena that will be discussed in the disadvantages section. There are many more benefits than that, but it is quite technical and requires less digging and application, so I will limit mentioning it. Disadvantages If there are advantages, there must certainly be disadvantages, with more complex structural components, more research and materials, the price is higher and affects durability.

How Samsung Galaxy S9 step aperture works

Another view of the Samsung Galaxy S9. Samsung released this quite early, they talked about it a lot, but at that time it was probably a technology limit, so the aperture jumped in steps, F1.5 step and F2.4 step, there were 2 steps, not flexible, and only from 1.5 to 2.4 so the effects were not much, not enough to wow the user. Users just auto-capture, they gradually forget that this feature exists, and it's not mentioned much anymore, so with the S20 they completely abandoned it and went in the direction of high-quality long zoom, and from there it took off. The efficiency is not impressive, the price is higher, the machine is more difficult to make, it is right to give up, support Samsung.

Actual image when changing aperture on Huawei camera Huawei Mate 50 Pro, P60 Pro and later generations are better, talking about the good first, the aperture can switch smoothly from F1.4 to F4, jumping 10 steps, unlike Samsung.

Shot on Huawei Mate 50 Pro.

Shot on Huawei Mate 50 Pro, comparing F1.4 and F4 font removal The reviews when the camera was released were very good, many people took close-up shots, macro shots, closed aperture 4, took thicker DOF, and saw clear results.

Shot on Huawei Mate 50 Pro, night shot. If you like a lot of light, sharp focus, if you have a light background blur, adjust F1.4, for close-ups, macro, if you need thick exposure or low light, then F4 is fine. Basically, Huawei has received many compliments and good user response. Many people say that you have to know how to adjust it to take advantage of it, but in my opinion, if the machine handles well with auto, it will still be very good when used in practice. Next is Xiaomi 13 Ultra / 14 Ultra and also gets a lot of compliments, the aperture runs from F1.63 to F4 and is almost stepless. Although Xiaomi has a narrower maximum aperture range of only f1.63, in return they have a larger sensor, at 1", so the effect is also very impressive, and at that time users reacted quite well. I searched using AI and didn't see any records or complaints about any problems with the F4 aperture on these devices. I think it's true because F4 is quite normal, not enough to amplify unwanted negative effects.

Realistic expectations with iPhone According to recent rumors, the iPhone's aperture range is also good, from F1.4 to F4, just enough to match previously released devices, so we can expect it to produce effects as good as or better than previous phones. My expectation is that Apple will apply this to good auto photography, properly understanding the use cases, so that I don't have to adjust anything. I hold it up to take a photo but the camera still chooses the correct aperture I need. But when I need to make adjustments, using the Blackmagic Camera can still be actively controlled easily, mainly for better recording. When it comes to photography, the iPhone has been behind the Android world for a long time. Conclusion The rumors are there, but I guess it's just from Apple itself, the new points are there, the application is there, but when asked if I'm impressed and interested, no, I find it normal. The iPhone camera has almost accepted defeat in photography, and still earns money in terms of video recording, beautiful recording, standardization from codec, format, bitrate, to editing app, working with 3rd party apps is also standard, but still hoping for other breakthroughs rather than a feature that people are too bored with.