iPhone 17 Rumored to Feature Mechanical Aperture

uh...first of all a smaller aperture would create a sharper background

secondly, fixed aperture in current phones means it's already wide open. being able to control the aperture would only mean you make the background less blurry compared to the current setup

Camera companies must be getting worried. I'm a huge fan of dedicated camera equipment, but the iPhone keeps getting better and better at capturing and already is the king of easy distribution.

LOL..... NO.

The difference in quality between even your most precious iPhone doesn't come anywhere near even cheapest entry level camera of the last 10 years. Take a Micro Four Thirds camera, that gets mud thrown at it all the time for its 'small sensor' still performs leaps and bounds better than an iPhone; noise, dynamic range and resolution; all better. Compare a smart phone to a full frame and the difference is even more painful.

But the one differentiating factor are the lenses; take something like a Sigma 56mm f/1.4 lens... you're gonna be getting a ton of light coming through the lens and beautiful REAL bokeh that smartphones cannot and will never be able to do; the AI stuff and that fake 'portrait mode' always looks like ass, especially around hair so there's really no comparison.

If all you care about are flat looking snapshots with everything in focus from a camera that can fit in your pocket, then any smartphone from the last 4 years will be more than adequate.

"With a mechanical system, users could manually set a smaller larger aperture. This would allow photos to be shot with a shallow depth-of-field effect, where the subject stays in focus while the background is blurred."

A larger aperture, but smaller f number (e.g., f/5.6 is a smaller aperture than f/2.8).

This article makes no sense because as usual writers and most average users don't understand aperture. Camera phones by virtue of having small sensors already are all shooting wide open which gives you the shallowest aperture. There's literally no option to go larger, so I'm not sure what this will change.

If you look at the 15 Pro Max, all 3 lenses are basically the largest possible aperture.

Yet another reason to skip iPhone 16 and all the AI fluff

Camera companies must be getting worried. I'm a huge fan of dedicated camera equipment, but the iPhone keeps getting better and better at capturing and already is the king of easy distribution.

You will always be limited by the sensor size.

Camera companies have already gone through the pain of smart phones being in everyone's pocket, it's why they focus on professional and high-end consumer cameras now, and point and shoots essentially no longer exist.