iFixit has torn down the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, and the new variable aperture camera is the part repair shops will dread. It uses six blades that are each about as thin as a human hair, and iFixit says putting them back together after taking them apart is close to impossible. If the camera fails, the whole module gets replaced.
The teardown went up two days after the iPhone 18 Pro went on sale at $1,199 in the US. iFixit gave both phones a provisional repairability score of 7 out of 10.
The Variable Aperture Is Nearly Impossible to Repair and Hard to Justify on a Sensor This Small
Six overlapping blades sit in the same camera footprint as last year’s, and magnets move them. IFixit needed several rounds of heating and prying to get the lens cover off, and the blades scattered across the teardown room when it came free. The tolerances are tight and the glue is gummy, so iFixit calls this about as close to impossible as a repair gets.
The realistic fix is a new camera assembly. Apple hasn’t listed iPhone 18 Pro parts yet, and the iPhone 17 Pro assembly already costs $249 through Apple Self Service Repair. IFixit expects the variable aperture to push that higher. Some Samsung Galaxy owners have reported stuck apertures on phones that used the same idea.
The benefit is harder to see, the camera app offers four presets from f/1.48 to f/4.0, and f/1.48 is the widest aperture on any iPhone. The sensor is a little under half an inch diagonally, though, so the opening at f/1.48 is only 4.6 mm. A DSLR with a 50 mm lens at the same f-stop has a 33.8 mm opening.
In iFixit’s test shots, the iFixit logo and the toolkits on the wall behind the subject stayed readable even at f/1.48. That is a different take from the launch reviews, which were enthusiastic about the camera.
Cooling Improves While Storage Gets Buried Inside the Logic Board
The A20 Pro now sits on the outside of the logic board sandwich, with memory beside it instead of stacked on top. A thermal pad connects it to a vapor chamber Apple says has three times the surface area, and iFixit calls the cooling impressive. NAND storage went the other way, into the middle of the sandwich, so working on those chips means separating the board layers first. Encryption also stops data recovery shops from moving the NAND to another board.
Face ID’s infrared camera now sits beneath the display in the upper-left corner, which is how Apple got a smaller Dynamic Island. The USB-C port is harder to reach than on the iPhone 16 Pro, with a long flex cable and screws and adhesive in the way.
Every iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max carries Apple’s C2 modem, except the US iPhone 18 Pro Max which uses a Qualcomm chip instead. iFixit expects it to be the last iPhone with a Qualcomm modem.
The Screwed-In Battery Tray Is a Win, but Three of Four Display Frames Broke Getting to It
Every repair on both phones still goes through the front, as on the iPhone 17 Pro. The back glass comes off easily, but the only part behind it is the wireless charging coil. Getting to the battery means opening the glued-down screen.
That is where iFixit ran into trouble, the white plastic frame around the display cracked or pulled away on three of the four phones it opened. The frame is part of the display assembly, and fresh adhesive cannot fix broken plastic. Another iPhone 18 Pro teardown this week had the screen off in a few minutes, and iFixit says four phones are too few to call it a failure rate.
Past the screen, a metal tray held in by screws carries the battery, so the two come out together with no adhesive to fight. The eSIM iPhone 18 Pro battery is 16.76 Wh (4,288 mAh), and the iPhone 18 Pro Max, which got the larger battery bump, is 21.751 Wh (5,567 mAh). Physical SIM models are smaller.
The tray, the removable camera modules, and Apple’s repair support earned credit toward the 7 out of 10 score. Nearly every repair going through the screen cost points. The cracked frames have not directly lowered the score, since iFixit does not know what caused them. Parts availability and software pairing checks are still ongoing.
