Apple is planning a massive iPhone camera upgrade, but it won’t come soon

Apple is planning a major camera upgrade, but it might not arrive until 2026.

According to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the company is working on adding a variable aperture main camera to its iPhone 18 Pro series.

That wasn’t a typo: We’re talking about the iPhone 18 Pro, the one that’s likely to arrive in 2026. Yes, we know that’s very far in the future, but Kuo gets his info from Apple’s supply chain, and the company often does plan this far ahead.

Kuo’s post focuses on the potential suppliers of this new camera; he thinks they’ll be Sunny Optical, Largan Precision, and Luxshare.

Notably, an earlier report from The Information claimed that Apple would bring the variable aperture camera to the iPhone in 2025, but it appears that the launch has been delayed for a year.

For the end user, the variable aperture main camera should bring noticeable improvements; the camera should perform better in low light, as the variable aperture allows the camera to control how much light hits the lens. It could also improve portrait mode, as variable aperture should allow for more precise depth of field control.

While we’ll apparently have to wait two years for an Apple phone with this tech, phones with variable aperture cameras do exist on the market already. One example is the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, which Xiaomi unveiled (as a global device) during Mobile World Congress in February this year.