mino21

"With a variable aperture, users who want the real thing can actually get it without any post-processing assistance. "

This is not correct. It is exactly opposite. Variable aperture will allow you blur the background less, not more. The lens has some size through which the light can go. For iPhone 16 Pro main camera, it is 3.8 mm. Variable aperture will not allow you to make this hole larger than 3.8mm, but smaller than that. Have you seen Stargate SG-1 and the iris there? It is not making the opening of the stargate larger, but smaller up to zero. When the opening is smaller, depth of field is larger, the background is blurred less, not more. The problem is that the background blur is so large today that we are facing different problem, tooooo much blur. Variable aperture will allow the photographer to get rid of the blur, increase corner sharpness and being able to have more things at focus.