Would you be shocked to hear that the “Portrait Mode” on your iPhone all these years was ‘fake’? Well, it’s real as in the background is actually blurred, but it isn’t blurred because the camera captured it that way, it’s all been software trickery for the past decade… until now. Six laser cut blades, each thinner than a human hair, are about to change that. The iPhone 18 Pro’s new main camera can physically open and close its lens for the first time in iPhone history, and that single mechanical change rewrites how the blur behind your subject actually gets made.

Here’s the quick version of how Portrait Mode has worked since 2016. Your iPhone takes the shot, uses a second lens or depth data to figure out roughly where you end and the background begins, then runs software over the image to blur everything behind that outline. It’s a clever guess dressed up as photography, and it’s why hair strands sometimes disappear into a smudge or a stray earring gets blurred along with the wall behind it. The new aperture system skips the guessing entirely. The lens itself controls how much of the scene stays sharp, the same way it’s always worked on a real camera.

Designer: Apple

So how does a phone this thin pull off something that usually needs a chunky lens barrel? Apple built a system of six laser cut blades, each one thinner than a strand of hair, arranged around the main lens and moved by a tiny rotor mechanism. Together they shift the aperture through four stops, all the way down to f/1.48, with the camera defaulting to a f/1.8 for everyday portraits and opening or closing automatically depending on what it’s looking at. In low light it opens wider to pull in around 50 percent more light, which should mean cleaner night shots and sharper astrophotography without cranking up the ISO and adding grain.

Because this is optical now instead of computational, the depth falls off the way it would on an actual camera lens. Hair, glasses, jewelry, the fine stuff that always tripped up the old software blur, should render properly instead of getting smeared into the background by accident. Close the aperture down and you get more of the scene in focus for group shots, which is the same tradeoff photographers have been making with real cameras for a century. It’s just that now your phone gets to make that tradeoff too.

Apple didn’t stop at making the hardware smarter, it also handed a lot of that control directly to you. The redesigned camera app now includes Pro Controls, letting you manually pick one of the four aperture settings yourself, check exposure with an actual histogram, dial in white balance, and adjust shutter speed for motion blur or freeze frame shots. Third party camera apps are getting access to the same aperture system through an updated API, so this isn’t going to stay locked inside Apple’s own app for long. Photography folks who like getting hands on with their settings finally have a real reason to poke around the camera app instead of leaving everything on auto.

The upgrade carries over into video too. Cinematic mode effects can now be applied after you’ve already shot the footage, and it supports 60fps for smoother half speed slow motion. Time-lapse jumps to 4K with Dolby Vision HDR. None of that depends directly on the aperture blades, but it’s part of the same larger push this year to hand serious creative control to people who just want to point their phone and shoot something that looks intentional.

All of this sits inside a redesigned Pro body that now uses color matched aluminum and back glass, available in Black, Silver, the new Glacier, and a genuinely gorgeous Burgundy that photographs beautifully next to the camera module. The iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199 and the Pro Max at $1,299, both up for preorder September 12 and shipping September 18. For a feature that lives entirely inside a few hair thin blades you’ll never actually see moving, it might end up being the most noticeable camera change Apple has made in years.

The post Your iPhone’s Portrait Mode Was Fake for a Decade – The iPhone 18 Pro Changes That With A Real Aperture first appeared on Yanko Design.

Apple’s Sept. 9 event could bring the iPhone 18 Pro, its first foldable iPhone, and a split release schedule extending into 2027.

The post Apple’s Sept. 9 Event: What to Expect From the iPhone 18 Pro and the Reported $2,099-Plus Foldable appeared first on TechRepublic.

Apple's September 2026 event could bring the iPhone 18 Pro, Apple's first foldable iPhone and new Apple Watches. Here's what the most credible rumors suggest.

The post Apple September Event Predictions: iPhone 18 Pro and Other Rumors Ranked appeared first on TechRepublic.

Apple’s next iPhone Air could arrive in spring 2027 with camera and battery upgrades as the company shifts toward staggered iPhone launches.

The post Apple Reportedly Preparing Second-Generation iPhone Air for Spring 2027 appeared first on TechRepublic.

Apple has spent four years refusing to touch the Dynamic Island, treating it like some untouchable monument to software-hardware integration. Samsung cycled through three foldable generations in that time. Google rebooted the Pixel lineup twice. Nothing went from startup curiosity to legitimate competitor. And the iPhone 14 Pro’s pill-shaped cutout just sat there, exactly the same width, height, and visual footprint on the 15 Pro, 16 Pro, and 17 Pro. Leaked screen protectors sourced from Weibo now suggest Apple has finally decided four years is long enough, and the company is gearing up to shrink the Dynamic Island by roughly 35 percent on the iPhone 18 Pro. The mechanism is straightforward: move the Face ID flood illuminator under the display, leave only the infrared camera and front lens in the cutout, and suddenly that wide pill becomes a narrow sliver sitting unobtrusively at the top of the screen. The infrared flood illuminator that powers Face ID is moving under the display on the iPhone 18 Pro, leaving only the infrared camera requiring a physical cutout alongside the front-facing lens.

But the Dynamic Island shrinkage is hardly the headline here, because the iPhone 18 Pro is also the phone where Apple trades in its most iconic color for something it has never tried before on a Pro model. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that Apple is testing a deep red finish for the 18 Pro lineup, a shade closer to burgundy than the bright Product Red tones the company used on standard models years ago. Apple removed black from the Pro lineup with the iPhone 17 Pro, the first time in the series’ history that no dark option existed, and the 18 Pro appears set to continue that direction rather than course-correct. September 2026 is the expected launch window, which makes this arguably the most important incremental iPhone in years. It is widely believed to be the last model in this design language before Apple delivers a radical overhaul for the 20th anniversary iPhone in 2027, so whatever ships this fall is likely your final chance to buy an iPhone that looks like an iPhone has looked since 2017.

Designer: Volodymyr Lenard

Leaker Ice Universe claimed the Dynamic Island cutout on the iPhone 18 Pro models will be approximately 35% narrower than it is on the iPhone 17 Pro models, with a width of around 13.5mm down from around 20.7mm. That figure refers to the default on-screen Dynamic Island width including surrounding black pixels, not the physical hardware cutout itself, but the visual difference should be immediately apparent in daily use. The iPhone 17 Pro’s Island is a wide, commanding presence even at rest. The 18 Pro’s leaked cutout reads almost delicate by comparison, a narrow pill sitting unobtrusively at the top of the screen. Apple will still need to revisit four years of Live Activities design and the entire interaction vocabulary built around the existing Island’s dimensions, which is a reasonable explanation for why this transition is taking as long as it is. Android manufacturers have shipped under-display cameras for years, with visible quality tradeoffs that Apple’s user base simply would not accept on a thousand-dollar phone. Holding the line until the technology meets the standard, rather than shipping it to win a spec sheet argument, is the kind of call that frustrates people in the short term and builds loyalty over time.

Under the hood, the A20 Pro chip built on TSMC’s advanced 2nm process promises roughly 15% faster performance and up to 30% better power efficiency compared to the current 3nm A19 Pro. Paired with 12 GB of RAM across the lineup, the new silicon should power smoother Apple Intelligence features, enhanced on-device AI processing, and better multitasking. Connectivity upgrades include Apple’s first in-house C2 5G modem, replacing reliance on Qualcomm components. The modem supports improved mmWave performance and expanded satellite connectivity, potentially enabling always-connected cellular service via NR-NTN standards for emergency messaging and basic data in remote areas without traditional coverage. Battery life stands out as a major highlight, especially for the iPhone 18 Pro Max. Leakers report a capacity jump to 5,100 to 5,200 mAh, the largest ever in an iPhone, enabled by a slightly thicker chassis measuring around 8.8mm up from 8.75mm on the iPhone 17 Pro Max. The added thickness and weight would accommodate the bigger cell while the more efficient 2nm chip helps stretch usage even further. Some projections suggest up to 40 hours of mixed use on a single charge.

The deep red finish represents a significant departure for a Pro lineup that has historically favored controlled, conservative colors like graphite, silver, gold, and muted titanium shades. Rumors of purple and brown finishes have also circulated, but Gurman believes those are just variants of the same red idea. The decision to skip black for a second consecutive year has already generated polarized reactions among enthusiasts, with some welcoming the bold direction and others mourning the loss of the classic understated aesthetic. For buyers who want black, Gurman specifically noted that the foldable iPhone is being designed with conservative space gray and silver finishes, suggesting Apple is deliberately separating its color identity across product lines. The iPhone 18 Pro may read as a modest update on paper, but as the final iteration of a design language that has defined the modern iPhone for nearly a decade, it carries more symbolic weight than any spec sheet can communicate.

The post iPhone 18 Pro Leaks Reveal a 2nm A20 Pro Chip, 35% Smaller Dynamic Island, and a Deep Red Color first appeared on Yanko Design.

Four years is a long time in smartphone design, long enough for entire product categories to rise, peak, and fade. Samsung has cycled through multiple foldable generations. Google has rebooted its Pixel lineup twice. Nothing has gone from startup curiosity to legitimate contender. Apple, meanwhile, has kept the Dynamic Island exactly where it was when it debuted with the iPhone 14 Pro, same width, same height, same visual footprint. Leaked screen protectors for the iPhone 18 Pro, sourced from Weibo, suggest that Apple has finally decided four years is long enough.

According to the leak, the infrared flood illuminator that powers Face ID is moving under the display on the iPhone 18 Pro, leaving only the infrared camera requiring a physical cutout alongside the front-facing lens. The result is a Dynamic Island roughly 35% smaller than what ships on the iPhone 17 Pro today. Apple is also expected to pair this with its first 2nm chip, the A20 Pro, along with a variable aperture system on the main camera. The 20th anniversary iPhone in 2027 is widely expected to go further with a fully clean display, but the 18 Pro represents the clearest signal yet that Apple is working its way there on a deliberate schedule.

Image Credits: Weibo

The size reduction is more significant than the percentage suggests when you look at the two side by side. The iPhone 17 Pro’s Island is a wide, commanding presence even at rest. The 18 Pro’s leaked cutout reads almost delicate by comparison, a narrow pill sitting unobtrusively at the top of the screen. Apple will still need to revisit four years of Live Activities design and the entire interaction vocabulary built around the existing Island’s dimensions, which is a reasonable explanation for why this transition is taking as long as it is.

Android manufacturers have shipped under-display cameras for years, with visible quality tradeoffs that Apple’s user base simply would not accept on a thousand-dollar phone. Holding the line until the technology meets the standard, rather than shipping it to win a spec sheet argument, is the kind of call that frustrates people in the short term and builds loyalty over time. The iPhone 18 Pro may read as a modest update on paper. That smaller pill tells a different story.

The post Leaked iPhone 18 Pro Screen Protector Shows A 35% Smaller Dynamic Island first appeared on Yanko Design.