The real story of the iPhone 18 Pro’s camera

It’s one of the most fascinating years in a while when it comes to iPhone camera upgrades. The big story of the iPhone 18 Pro is the variable aperture main lens, which lets you open the aperture up wider for better low light shots and make the aperture smaller for better depth of field in group photos. But all I can get anyone to talk about is the software upgrades: it turns out, they’re a lot more useful day to day than the aperture on a camera this small. This week on The Vergecast, David Imel and Allison Johnson are here for a deep dive into the iPhone 18 Pro’s camera. There’s a lot to explore here, from the aperture, to the camera app’s new manual controls, to the updated imaging pipeline and the improvements to ProRAW. Watch | Listen | Get ad-free After that, Hayden Field is on the show to discuss the state of the AI safety debate. Concerns are still boiling over after an Anthropic researcher quit his job to warn about the dangers of AI, and any chance for policy solutions seems to have hit a dead end. We discuss whether what’s likely to happen in the interim — third-party evaluators being embedded within the big AI labs — has any teeth, and where the safety conversation goes from here. Finally, it’s time for a Lightning Round. We discuss Waymo’s ability to call the cops, a new ereader from Boox, and a couple of tiny retro-style cameras. If you want to learn more about any of the topics we discussed, you can check out the stories below: * iPhone 18 Pro review: it’s all about the manual controls * The variable aperture isn’t the cool part of the iPhone 18 Pro’s camera * Apple’s new iPhone camera mode promises to prove your photo isn’t AI * Inside the suddenly explosive world of AI safety * Your robotaxi might be a narc * Waymo pulls over, calls cops on riders with a ghost gun * The Boox Palma 3 gets stylus support and a sleek redesign * Camp Snap’s 110D gives slim retro film cameras a digital upgrade * Fujifilm’s Instax Pal 2 is a tiny digital camera that may not disappoint