Matt Campion, co-founder and creative director of Spirit Studios, announced a “breakthrough” on LinkedIn. “BREAKING: Apple has finally cracked the future of television,” wrote the television and digital executive about the new iPhone. The joke lies in the aspect ratio. According to him, Apple discovered it back in 1998, with the old 4:3 format.
Behind the irony lies a real shift. For years Apple has been building a professional camera into the phone, and Campion provides the framing for it. “Apple is now in the race with YouTube to become television, and they’ve taken the bold strategic decision to start by reinventing 1998,” he continues in the post. “Forget YouTube. Welcome to TheTube.”
What the new iPhone camera brings
At the “Surprise and shine” event on 9 September, Apple introduced the iPhone 18 Pro with a 48MP Fusion main camera and a variable aperture. Six laser-cut blades move smoothly between values from f/1.48 to f/4. It is the first time an iPhone has had a physically adjustable aperture.
The controls are aimed at professionals. In the Camera app, you can set the aperture, shutter speed and white balance manually and monitor exposure through a histogram. The aperture range is also exposed to developers through an API. Pre-orders began on 12 September, and sales followed six days later.
The 4:3 ratio returns to filming
Campion’s point has support in the previous generation. Last year, the iPhone 17 Pro received an Open Gate mode, which records from the full sensor in 4:3 at 4,224 by 3,024 pixels. The feature is operated through the Final Cut Camera app and requires an external SSD and the ProRes RAW codec.
The purpose is reformatting. A single recording from the full sensor lets you crop the output to portrait for mobile, to 16:9 for the web, or to a square for social media, without losing resolution. The aspect ratio is now decided in the edit suite.
The hardware is moving in the same direction. At the same event, Apple unveiled the first foldable iPhone, the iPhone Duo, which unfolds from a passport-sized phone into a display inspired by the iPad, the largest in iPhone history. The price starts at $1,999.
TV in the living room has become YouTube
The numbers answered the question of what television is today before Apple did. According to the July report from Nielsen’s The Gauge, YouTube reached a record 14.2% of all television viewing in the US and leads distributors by five percentage points. Streaming as a category reached 49%, broadcast 19.5% and cable 18.7%.
YouTube does not pay for the content and is growing on the screen that broadcasters used to hold. This is precisely the “television” that, according to Campion, Apple is competing for.
In Europe, YouTube is also watched on the TV set
European data shows the same movement. According to the British measurement body Barb, TV sets accounted for the largest share of home viewing of YouTube over WiFi in the second quarter of 2025: 43% among viewers over 16, compared with 32% on smartphones. Among children aged 4 to 15, 53% of home YouTube viewing went through the television.
Formats are meanwhile continuing to split. Vertical microdramas, which Campion mentions as the previous “next big thing”, are now a separate market in their own right. Deloitte estimates that revenue from short series in apps will more than double in 2026, to $7.8 billion from last year’s $3.8 billion. Apps such as DramaBox and ReelShort are driving this.
The centre of what is called television has moved from the big screen to the phone and the platform. Apple sells the tool used to film, while YouTube holds the screen on which the result is watched. “TheTube” is simply a name for a state that the numbers have been describing for months.
Comments