It seems that in the world of smartphone technology, time is a flat circle. Just when we thought we had moved on to a future dominated entirely by AI and software tricks, Samsung is reportedly reaching back into its archives to revive a hardware feature it killed off years ago. According to new reports coming out of South Korea’s supply chain, the tech giant is seriously looking into bringing back variable aperture cameras for its future flagship phones.
If you have been following the Galaxy lineup for a while, you might remember this feature from the Galaxy S9 and S10 days. It was a brilliant, if slightly ahead-of-its-time, piece of engineering that allowed the camera lens to physically open and close – much like the pupil of a human eye – to control light. Samsung quietly axed it starting with the Galaxy S20, citing cost and the fact that it made phones too thick.
So, why bring it back now? The answer, unsurprisingly, seems to be Apple.
Reports suggest that Apple is planning to debut variable aperture technology on the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro models. In the high-stakes game of smartphone dominance, Samsung refuses to be caught on the back foot. Sources indicate that Samsung has already tapped its major partners, including Samsung Electro-Mechanics and MCNEX, to start churning out prototypes for a modern version of the system. While it is still in the “testing phase,” insiders describe Samsung’s commitment to the project as strong.
Why hardware beats software
For the last few years, we have been living in the era of “Computational Photography.” Your phone takes a mediocre picture, and then a powerful processor uses AI to fix the lighting, reduce the noise, and artificially blur the background. It works, but it has limits. We have all seen those Portrait Mode photos where the software accidentally blurs someone’s ear or fails to cut out a stray strand of hair.
A physical variable aperture solves this at the source.
In bright daylight, the lens can “squint” (stop down), which ensures that everything from the flower in the foreground to the mountain in the background is crisp and sharp. In low light, it can open wide to suck in every available photon, reducing that grainy look you often get in night shots. Natural Bokeh: Perhaps most importantly, it creates real background blur. You get that creamy, professional separation between your subject and the background without an algorithm having to guess where the edges are.
The comeback kid
It is funny to think that Samsung had this tech in 2018. Back then, it felt like a neat party trick, but the sensors were too small to really make the most of it. Today, smartphone sensors are massive – almost 1-inch in size. Putting a variable aperture over a sensor that big would yield results that could genuinely rival dedicated compact cameras.
Of course, this doesn’t mean the Galaxy S26 (or whatever is launching next week) will have it. The development cycle suggests we are looking at a 2027 timeline, likely for the Galaxy S27 Ultra. But the message is clear: the megapixel wars are cooling down, and the next battleground is going to be about bringing “real” photography mechanics back to our pockets. If Apple and Samsung are both racing toward this, the winner is going to be anyone who loves taking photos that look like photos, not computer-generated images.
