Macworld
The iPhone 18 Pro is almost here. On the eve of Apple’s big Surprise and Shine event, we have some last-minute info on what we might expect from the camera on Apple’s new Pro iPhone.
This latest leak comes via MacRumors, where one of its regular forum members found some code in the iOS 27 beta that points to five potential new Camera software features:
- Exposure scopes: Adds waveforms or histograms for the viewfinder to better see exposure across your shot.
- Focus peaking and highlight warnings: Another common professional camera feature, focus peaking highlights edges that are in focus, and highlight warnings mark areas of the viewfinder (usually with zebra-stripes) that are overexposed and will be blown out.
- Repeated self-timer shots: Lets you take several shots in a row, with a countdown timer in between.
- Manual focus: A control to set and lock focus, similar to what is found in the Final Cut Camera app. There was something like this in iOS 26, but the first iOS 27 beta removed it. MacRumors says the underlying focus-locking code is still there, but Apple has restricted it to devices that ship with iOS 27 or later.
- Aperture-based image correction: This is a change to the image processing pipeline to account for variable apertures on the same camera. A variable-aperture wide camera is one of the expected features of the iPhone 18 Pro Max and possibly the regular iPhone 18 Pro as well.
Only that last feature—which is more of an internal processing change—would rely on the new camera hardware in the iPhone 18 Pro, which has been rumored. The rest could easily come to all modern iPhone cameras, and in fact those exact features have been found in third-party camera apps for years (and the Manual Focus in Apple’s own apps). Still, Apple sometimes locks software features to new devices even when not strictly necessary as a way to make a new hardware purchase more appealing.
We’ll find out more on September 9 at Apple’s Surprise and Shine event.