Apple's keynote starts at 1am Malaysia tonight, and our live page updates as each announcement lands. We film most of our tech videos on an iPhone, so the part we are watching is the camera, and one reported change in particular that would alter how a phone shoots video.
First, what is reported and by whom, because none of it is Apple's word yet: Apple has confirmed nothing beyond the event itself. MacRumors has reported since 2024, citing analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, that the main camera gets a variable aperture, and both MacRumors and 9to5Mac note that one later leak puts it on the Pro Max only, so which models get it is unresolved. MacRumors separately reports a new stacked sensor design on at least one model, a telephoto with a wider aperture under test, an A20 Pro chip on a new, smaller manufacturing process, a Camera Control button reworked so pressure sensing does the job of its separate touch layer, and, as of 9 September, a smaller Dynamic Island. Each rests on its own leak, not one confirmed source. Here is what each would mean if real, for someone filming with the phone already in their pocket. This is how we shoot today, on an iPhone:
Table of Contents
Variable aperture: what it could mean for depth of field in video
The aperture is the opening inside the lens. A wide opening lets in more light and throws the background out of focus; a narrow one lets in less light and keeps more of the scene sharp. Current iPhones have a fixed opening on each lens: Apple's own specifications list f/1.78 on the iPhone 17 Pro main camera and f/2.8 on its telephoto, with no way to change either. The blurred background in Cinematic mode is, in Apple's own description, a simulated depth-of-field effect, and in our own shooting the edge around hair or a hand crossing the face is where the simulation shows. A lens that physically changes its opening could give some of that look optically rather than computed, within what a small sensor allows. It is the reported change we care most about, and the one we will only believe after shooting with it, because no report says how wide the range is, whether you can set it yourself in Apple's own Camera app in ordinary video, or whether it holds steady while recording.
Bright Malaysian sun: could it mean fewer ND filters?
The convention cinema cameras have worked to since film days is a shutter of about twice the frame rate, the 180-degree shutter rule set out in the American Cinematographer Manual, so 1/50 of a second at 25fps, and in full sun a phone held to that speed on a fixed wide lens runs out of exposure once ISO is at its lowest, and the fix left is a clip-on ND filter, a dark piece of glass that costs money, scratches, and falls off in a bag. A lens that can close down would give some of that control back on the phone itself. How much depends entirely on the range Apple ships, which no report has given, so we are not going to guess a number. We will test it instead: 25fps, 1/50, midday, no filter, and see whether the highlights survive.
Low light and the stacked sensor
A stacked sensor puts the light-gathering photodiodes and the processing circuitry on separate layers rather than sharing one surface. In general, a larger sensor mainly helps low light and a stacked design mainly helps readout speed, and faster readout can mean less of the rolling wobble that gives phone footage away on a fast pan; which of those Apple's reported sensor delivers is exactly what we will test. The wider-aperture telephoto matters here too. A wider opening admits more light, and the long lens is where a phone needs it most at night. Whether that becomes cleaner footage depends on the sensor and processing behind it, so we will check rather than assume. What we will check: a night market on the telephoto, and whether Apple Log in low light grades cleanly or still needs a denoise pass.
Camera Control and the chip: faster hands, longer takes
The reported Camera Control rework keeps its functions and changes how the button senses them. What we care about is the half-press: on the current button a light press and hold locks exposure and focus, one thumb doing what otherwise takes a tap and a hold on screen mid-shot, and we will check that survives the redesign. The new chip matters to us only as a question: in our own shooting, long ProRes takes in Apple Log warm the iPhone 17 Pro and drain it, and we do not know how much of that is the chip. So we will time a continuous take on both phones, and report the number rather than the rumour.
The variable aperture is the reported change worth losing sleep over, and the sensor and telephoto are the ones most likely to show up on screen. This page is updated tonight once Apple confirms, or does not confirm, each of these.
Every iPhone Pro since the iPhone 15 Pro shoots Apple Log, and the difference between footage that looks like a phone and footage that looks like cinema is not the phone, it is the workflow: exposing LOG on purpose, grading it, getting clean audio. That is exactly what our Pocket Cinematic course teaches, on the phone already in your pocket, the workflow we use on our own videos. The course page lists the founder price at RM349 with a free Hollyland Lark A1 mic while the founder boxes last.
