iFixit Teardown: iPhone 18 Pro’s new ‘winking eye’ camera is a marvel — and a repair dead end

iPhone 18 Pro innards via a Lumafield Neptune CT scanner
Apple’s first variable-aperture iPhone camera is a feat of miniature engineering. It is also, iFixit says, essentially unfixable at the component level.
In a teardown published September 20, 2026, iFixit opened the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max and zeroed in on the year’s headline camera feature: a six-blade mechanical iris in the main lens. The blades are about as thin as a human hair and are driven by electromagnets, independentl