GoKawiiliFixit has published its traditional teardown of the iPhone 18 Pro, which shows the variable aperture mechanism up close and explores a potential issue involving display repairs. Watch it below.
iFixit worries about possible display frame issue
iFixit’s teardown of the iPhone 18 Pro is now live, exploring not just the variable aperture, this year’s biggest camera upgrade, but also the device’s larger vapor chamber, the new under-display Face ID camera, and more.
When it comes to the variable aperture mechanism, iFixit notes that its six tiny blades are controlled by electromagnets, much like the optical image stabilization system, though the two mechanisms operate independently.
During the teardown, one of the tiny aperture blades flew out as iFixit dismantled the lens stack, underscoring how impractical a component-level repair would be. The group says that if the aperture gets stuck, it would likely require replacing the entire main camera assembly.
Another highlight of the new iPhone 18 Pro is its under-display Face ID infrared camera. For this year’s Pro devices, Apple moved the infrared camera beneath the display, while keeping the selfie camera and IR dot projector within the smaller Dynamic Island.
Under a microscope, iFixit found that Apple hides the relocated infrared camera by removing every other row of pixels above the sensor. iFixit notes that the effect fades toward the edges, and that there is an IR-pass filter beneath the OLED layer to block visible light.
Interestingly, the filter doesn’t extend all the way to the edge of the opening, creating what iFixit describes as an “eclipse effect” under certain microscope settings.
As for the iPhone 18 Pro’s bigger vapor chamber, the teardown offers a closer look at Apple’s redesigned cooling architecture.
As the company explained during its “Surprise and Shine” event, the A20 Pro uses a new package that places the silicon die side-by-side with the memory, removing the latter from the SoC’s thermal path and allowing the chip to connect directly to the vapor chamber. Apple also said the new vapor chamber has three times the surface area of the one in the iPhone 17 Pro.
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