iOS 27 code reveals 5 new potential camera features

Apple’s public iOS 27 betas may not tell the whole story of what’s coming to the iPhone’s Camera app.

According to developer pdfu, who goes by @itspdfu on X, the current software contains a broader set of camera-related code than what Apple has shown off publicly or made accessible to beta testers so far. Posting ahead of Apple’s iPhone event, pdfu detailed five Camera app features found buried in the iOS 27 code that have yet to be enabled for users.

None of the five features has been confirmed by Apple, and code found in beta software doesn’t guarantee a feature will ship, or ship soon. Still, several of these tools — particularly the aperture-blending system — align with earlier reporting about variable-aperture camera hardware expected in this year’s iPhone lineup and could offer an early hint of what Apple’s Camera app has in store as more of iOS 27 becomes public.

Exposure scopes

The first find is a more advanced set of exposure tools built directly into the Camera app: waveform and histogram views. Per pdfu’s breakdown, these are meant to help users judge exposure more precisely across different shooting formats. Normally, these tools are generally seen with prosumer video and photo editing software like Photoshop or Lightroom rather than a phone’s native camera app.

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The feature doesn’t appear to be user-facing yet, but pdfu demonstrated it running against sample images, showing both waveform and histogram readouts updating alongside an exposure slider.

Focus peaking and highlight-clipping overlays

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The second feature pairs two overlays aimed at more precise manual shooting. Focus peaking highlights edges with strong contrast to show what’s actually in focus, while a highlight-clipping overlay flags areas of an image that are becoming overexposed.

Once enabled, the two overlays can be displayed either separately or simultaneously in the camera preview, and demo images shared in the thread show the difference between a normal preview and one with each overlay active.

Burst-style timed captures

The third feature expands the Camera app’s self-timer capabilities. Rather than triggering a single delayed photo, the code allows users to set a specific number of repeat captures, each preceded by its own countdown at a chosen duration.

Pdfu noted that the timer resets automatically between captures, effectively turning the self-timer into a mini burst-capture tool — though this functionality currently appears to be disabled.

Manual focus

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A fourth feature revives manual focus controls for the Camera app, letting users directly adjust lens position rather than relying on autofocus. According to pdfu, Apple has been testing this capability on iOS 26 and iOS 27, but accessing it currently requires a compatible iPhone that originally shipped with iOS 27, meaning it will be a feature exclusive to the iPhone 18 lineup.

Aperture-dependent optical processing

The final, and perhaps most notable, discovery concerns how iOS 27 handles lens correction data. According to pdfu, the code allows the system to select and blend calibration data based on aperture value, pulling correction data from neighboring aperture settings and combining it in varying ratios depending on where the lens is set.

In plainer terms, because camera lenses aren’t perfectly precise, camera software will keep a “correction map” to digitally straighten out a photo depending on the aperture setting used. Normally, most phones have one correction map cause the aperture doesn’t change. However, if pdfu’s deep dive into the code is accurate, the implication is that the new iPhone has a variable physical aperture that can be opened or closed to varying degrees.

It’s a feature that’s been the subject of separate rumors about this year’s iPhone camera hardware, but nothing is confirmed until tomorrow’s event.