iOS 27 Split Screen and iPhone 18 Pro’s Variable Aperture

Four days before Apple’s WWDC 2026 keynote, the iOS 27 and iPhone 18 Pro leaks have settled on three headline features: split-screen multitasking Apple is calling Parallel View, a rebuilt Siri running on Google’s Gemini model, and a variable aperture camera slated for the 2026 Pro lineup, the first in iPhone history. The keynote streams Monday, June 8, at 10 a.m. Pacific, per Apple’s official WWDC26 announcement.

The Parallel View feature, first reported by MacRumors citing Weibo leaker Fixed Focus Digital, is designed primarily for a foldable iPhone Apple plans to ship alongside the 18 Pro in September. The Siri rebuild rests on a deal with Google that Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman estimated at roughly $1 billion a year. And the variable aperture lens costs Sunny Optical, the component maker Apple has engaged, about 50% more to manufacture than the part it replaces, a premium Apple is reportedly swallowing as a margin sacrifice.

Split Screen and the Foldable Driver

iPhone multitasking has been frozen in place for years. iPadOS got proper split-screen in iOS 9 back in 2015. Android smartphones gained the same capability with Android 7.0 Nougat in 2016. Through all of it, the iPhone managed one app at a time, and Apple’s software architecture gave developers no reason to think about landscape or side-by-side layouts.

The foldable iPhone changes that calculation. Its inner display reportedly opens to an iPad-like 4:3 aspect ratio, a canvas that existing portrait-only iOS apps have no built-in framework to fill. MacRumors, citing Fixed Focus Digital’s Weibo posts, describes Parallel View as Apple targeting its “longstanding weakness with large-screen and landscape layouts.” The solution operates at the system level: apps adapt to wide and landscape displays automatically, without publishers needing to push individual updates.

On the inner screen when open, two apps run side-by-side. Two-column sidebar navigation, already standard in iPadOS, carries over to iPhone apps through the same system. When the device closes, the interface reverts to standard single-column iOS 27. On a regular iPhone, the feature brings landscape layout optimization to regular iPhones, without the full side-by-side split the foldable’s inner screen enables.

• System-level adaptation to wide and landscape layouts, no per-app developer update required
• Two-column sidebar navigation matching existing iPadOS layout conventions
• Two apps running side-by-side when the foldable is open
• Standard single-app layout on regular iPhones and when the device is closed

iOS 17 introduced a landscape layout mode that developers largely ignored, because there was no hardware to justify building for it and Apple offered no ecosystem incentive to change that. A device with a near-iPad-sized inner screen is both the incentive and the deadline. Apple can’t ship the foldable without an OS built for that canvas, which is why Parallel View is reportedly landing in iOS 27 whether the foldable itself gets a keynote spotlight on June 8 or not.

The Variable Aperture Gamble

Samsung tried this in 2018. The Galaxy S9 launched with a camera that toggled between two fixed aperture values: f/1.4 in low light and f/2.4 in bright conditions. Critics liked the concept. In practice the binary switch was too coarse to replicate the nuanced control a real camera delivers, and Samsung dropped the feature entirely in the Galaxy S10 the following year.

Apple’s approach, per supply chain tracking by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo (who flagged Sunny Optical as the supplier in December 2024), uses a continuously variable mechanical iris across a range multiple supply chain sources consistently cite as f/1.5 to f/2.8. Every iPhone Pro from the 14 through the 17 Pro has used a fixed f/1.78 aperture on its main camera. The new design physically opens and closes in response to scene conditions.

In dim settings the aperture widens for a brighter sensor capture; under direct sunlight it stops down to reduce diffraction. The lens delivers real optical bokeh and depth control; Apple’s image processor adds computational enhancements on top. The A20 Pro chip, Apple’s first built on a 2-nanometer manufacturing process, still layers computational photography on top of the hardware, adding scene optimization above the optics. A stacked image sensor co-developed with Samsung is also reportedly part of the package, with supply chain reports suggesting it improves dynamic range and noise performance across aperture settings.

Cost is what sets this apart from a standard spec refresh. Supply chain data cited by Notebookcheck puts the variable aperture component at an average selling price 50% higher than Apple’s current high-end 7P primary lens. Apple is reportedly absorbing the difference as a calculated margin sacrifice against Android rivals pushing flagship prices up. Sunny Optical is expected to supply between 40% and 50% of the components, per Kuo’s reporting.

• f/1.5 to f/2.8: the continuous aperture range reported for the iPhone 18 Pro’s main camera, per supply chain leaks
• 50% higher average cost for the variable aperture lens vs. Apple’s current 7P primary lens
• 2nm: the A20 Pro chip’s manufacturing process, down from 3nm in the A19

Siri’s New Engine

The New Interface

iOS 27 is set to ship a dedicated Siri app with both text and voice input, saved conversation history, and a chat-style interface that competes directly with the standalone ChatGPT and Claude apps already on most iPhones. It gives Apple’s assistant a persistent space users can return to, beyond the transient overlay that Siri has been since 2011.

Within the OS, Siri moves to the Dynamic Island. MacRumors describes a “Search or Ask” prompt with an animated glowing cursor when the assistant activates, styled in the color palette Apple has used in its WWDC 2026 branding. Users who prefer a specific model can route queries through Siri to a third-party engine: iOS 27 expands the existing ChatGPT handoff to include Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s AI as selectable options.

Several personalized Siri capabilities promised at WWDC 2024 and delayed through iOS 26.4, among them cross-app context that lets Siri read from Mail and Messages to answer questions about upcoming flights or lunch reservations, are folded into iOS 27. Whether Apple shows a fully functional demo on June 8 or another “coming later this year” placeholder is one of the few things the keynote will settle. That broader pattern of folding AI functionality into the OS at the expense of third-party app categories is examined in a separate look at which iOS 27 features threaten whole app categories.

The Gemini Foundation

On January 12, Apple and Google issued a joint statement confirming a multi-year collaboration where Apple Foundation Models will be built on Google’s Gemini technology and cloud infrastructure. Bloomberg’s Gurman placed the price at approximately $1 billion a year; neither company has confirmed the figure.

What the announcement did not address, The Information reported last week, is how Apple intends to keep its privacy commitments intact at that scale. The mechanism is distillation: Apple is using Google’s full Gemini model to train a compressed version that runs locally on Apple devices. Complex queries that exceed on-device capacity route through Apple’s Private Cloud Compute framework, which strips personal identifiers before any data leaves the phone. Some of those queries reach Google Cloud servers using Nvidia’s confidential compute chips, which encrypt data as it processes.

You should think of it as a collaboration. And we’ll obviously independently continue to do some of our own stuff, but you should think of what is going to power the personalized version of Siri as a collaboration with Google.

Apple CEO Tim Cook made the remark during the company’s Q1 2026 earnings call, as reported by MacRumors.

Apple’s long-term plan follows the same arc as its exits from Intel chips between 2020 and 2022 and from Qualcomm modems with the C1 launch in 2024: license the best available external technology while building proprietary replacements in parallel. The Gemini deal fits that timeline.

Which Devices Get What

The standard iPhone 18 and the budget iPhone 18e won’t be in stores this fall. MacRumors reports Apple is shifting both to spring 2027, concentrating September on the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and the foldable. Buyers who want a new iPhone in September are looking at a Pro-only lineup for the first time.

*Per Weibo leaker Instant Digital; Apple has not confirmed compatibility.

The Pro Max carries some distinctions the 6.3-inch model doesn’t share. Leaked supply chain specs put the iPhone 18 Pro Max battery at 5,100 to 5,200 mAh, which would make it the largest ever in an iPhone. Both Pro models share the A20 Pro chip, 12 GB of RAM per supply chain reports, and a Dynamic Island that CAD renders suggest will shrink by up to 35% through partial under-display Face ID. Display sizes hold at 6.3 and 6.9 inches, matching the current lineup.

Both Pro models also gain Apple’s C2 modem, the company’s second-generation in-house wireless chip. MacRumors reports it supports 5G satellite connectivity via NR-NTN (New Radio Non-Terrestrial Networks) and adds a Limit Precise Location privacy setting that restricts carrier-visible device location to neighborhood resolution instead of a precise address.

New Apple Intelligence features in iOS 27, including the personalized Siri conversation mode, are expected to require an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, per MacRumors, due to Neural Engine and RAM requirements. Owners of iPhone 12 through 14 models will receive the core iOS 27 update but miss the headline AI capabilities.

The iOS 28 Pipeline

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman characterized iOS 27 earlier this year as a “Snow Leopard-style update,” focused on stability and AI infrastructure, with the visual redesign already delivered in iOS 26. That framing fits the leak record: iOS 26 brought the Liquid Glass interface redesign, and iOS 27’s visible changes are largely about getting Siri, the multitasking framework, and foldable support ready for September.

iOS 28 development is reportedly already underway, per Zollotech’s coverage of Apple’s development pipeline. Apple TV and HomePod Mini updates that had been expected earlier in 2026 are being held for the next software cycle. AR glasses revisions and a next-generation Vision Pro update are also signaled beyond September.

Apple’s 37th annual Worldwide Developers Conference runs through Friday, June 12. More than 1,000 developers, designers, and students are expected in person at Apple Park on Monday, with over 100 video sessions planned across the week, per the official WWDC26 developer schedule. The Swift Student Challenge honored 350 winners this year, with 50 Distinguished Winners invited to Cupertino for a three-day experience.

Developer betas of iOS 27 go live immediately after the June 8 keynote. Public betas follow in July. The general release is expected in September, ahead of the iPhone 18 Pro launch.