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Apple's iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max bring a redesigned back where the glass camera cutout now matches the aluminum color, addressing criticism of last year's contrasting two-tone look. The phones also gain a variable aperture camera, faster performance, longer battery life, and added weight, and come in burgundy, glacier, silver, and black.
Apple's iPhone 18 Pro introduces a variable aperture camera with six blades controlled by a rotor, letting users choose between four settings from f/1.48 to f/4.0 directly in the Camera app. The update is paired with other imaging features including cinematic effects for standard video, Apple Reference Image, Photographic Styles 3, and an Audio Mix tool for music. According to early hands-on testing, the new aperture control produces more natural soft-focus effects than the phone's existing Portrait mode.
Apple has explained the technical workings of Reference Image mode, a new opt-in feature on the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max that cryptographically signs photos at the moment of capture. The camera sensor uses a unique private key generated during manufacturing to sign image data, which Apple's cloud service later verifies against a certified public key, while the phone's security processor also signs and cross-checks the sensor's identity.
WIRED's review of the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max highlights strong multi-day battery life, especially on the larger Pro Max, along with a significant performance jump from the new A20 Pro chip. The devices can run demanding console ports like Control, aided by a vapor chamber with triple the surface area for cooling. The phones also ship with iOS 27 and an upgraded Siri AI that remains less capable than rival assistants.
A group of hackers physically removed a Flock Safety license-plate camera, copied its internal storage, and recovered an encryption key that unlocked thousands of stored vehicle images. They shared the extracted files with 404 Media and WIRED, and separately with the transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets, along with details of how they pulled off the extraction so others could replicate it.
Evan Meyer, 24, initially faced three felony charges after destroying what he believed was a real Flock surveillance camera in Oviedo, Florida, but which turned out to be a 3D-printed decoy set up by police in a sting operation. An assistant state attorney's filing this week reduced the charges to two second-degree misdemeanors plus a petty theft count, after determining the actual damage totaled $200 or less.
Apple's iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max launched alongside the more radical foldable iPhone Duo, arriving next month, but the Pro models are largely incremental. They share the same case design as the iPhone 17 Pro and use a new A20 Pro chip with improved thermal management for sustained performance, while the standout hardware change is a moving aperture in the main camera that adjusts how much light reaches the sensor.
According to The Information, Meta is developing a new smart glasses line called Luna that omits the camera found in its current models. The glasses will reportedly come in two styles, Clubmaster and Burbank, and feature six microphones plus ear-facing speakers for interacting with Meta's AI assistant via a side button. Meta may reveal Luna at its Connect conference on September 23-24, with shipping possibly starting in October.
Apple published a Security Research blog post explaining how its new Reference Image camera feature, launching on the iPhone 18 Pro, verifies that photos are authentic from the moment they're captured. The system creates a secure digital negative with signed metadata and timestamps inside Apple's Private Cloud Compute environment, and uses a sensor-level trust chain with revocation lists to flag compromised hardware or fraudulent images.
Canon has launched the 24-megapixel EOS R8 II, an entry-level full-frame camera with a squared-off body inspired by its old EOS 650 film SLR, replacing the rounded look of the original R8. The update adds a joystick for autofocus point control, 40fps electronic shutter burst shooting, and Canon's first in-body 5-axis stabilization on this line, cutting shake by up to 7.5 stops while remaining the lightest full-frame stabilized camera at 546 grams.
Canon has unveiled the EOS R8 Mark II, a successor that finally adds in-body image stabilization, one of the biggest gaps in the 2023 original. The camera will launch in late October at $1,899 for the body alone, or $2,099 with a 24-50mm stabilized lens, positioning it between the original R8 and the pricier EOS R6 Mark III.
Apple's Home app now offers AI-generated descriptive summaries and natural language search for security camera footage. These features require a paid HomeKit Secure Video subscription, with top-tier plans reaching up to $60 per month.