Next year's iPhone 17 series is supposed to bring some interesting changes to Apple's flagship phone, but perhaps you might want to wait until 2026 and the iPhone 18, which is expected to feature a significantly upgraded primary camera しれない。

According to supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the Pro model in the iPhone 18 lineup will be the first Apple phone with a variable aperture lens.

To be fair to Apple, the recent iPhones feature 48MP sensors (slightly less than the 50MP found on Android rivals), tetra prism 5x telephoto cameras on the iPhone 15 Pro models and iPhone 16 lineup, impressive upgrades, including this year's camera control buttons. iPhone 17 is expected to feature a 48MP telephoto sensor and a 24MP front-facing camera.

Kuo's latest rumor comes from a post on his Medium blog. The post outlines his thoughts on cameras in several future Apple products, including the much-rumored iPhone 17 Slim, MacBook Pro with M5, and iPhone 18

. Kuo expects Sunny Optical to be the primary supplier of the new variable aperture lens in the iPhone 18.

At least since the iPhone 14 Pro, Apple's Pro model iPhones have had a fixed f/1.78 aperture lens in the main camera. Variable aperture allows the camera to control the amount of light entering the lens, which is helpful in a variety of lighting situations and could bring significant improvements in low-light photography.

Variable aperture also allows for more control over depth of field, which can produce sharper focus.

Kuo writes, “Sunny Optical's advantage in this order is that it already has experience in designing and manufacturing variable aperture cameras (for Android customers), and the shutter order advantage will help with lens orders.”

Kuo previously reported that Sunny Optical will incorporate a new compact camera module into the MacBook Pro, which could lead to thinner devices.

Assuming Apple maintains its normal release schedule, the iPhone 18 Pro model would be available around September 2026.