I Moved the iPhone 18 Pro Max’s Camera Blades With a Magnet

I was about to take apart the iPhone 18 Pro Max’s camera. Then I held a magnet near it, and the aperture started moving. Okay, that’s pretty cool.

Those are actual moving blades

The main camera has a variable aperture with six tiny blades. They move together to make the opening bigger or smaller, changing how much light gets in. In the teardown, I showed four settings ranging from f/1.48 to f/4. This is a physical mechanism inside the camera.

A magnet gave us a closer look

After separating the camera module, I brought a magnet close to the exposed assembly. You can see the blades move together as the opening changes. It gave us a look at the mechanism without pulling all those tiny pieces apart.

The movement suggests a magnetic drive mechanism, but it doesn’t tell us exactly how every part inside works. And this was an exposed camera on my workbench, not a test of everyday MagSafe use.

Did it survive?

Yep. After all that, the camera still worked. I’m glad I didn’t have to put six tiny aperture blades back together.