On September 10, the morning after Apple's "Surprise and Shine" keynote at Apple Park, Rosé posted a fifteen-second teaser. She is holding a purple lollipop in burgundy packaging. Stamped on the wrapper, in small white text: "Shot on iPhone 18 Pro."
The music video for "new trick" releases on September 17. The iPhone 18 Pro goes on sale on September 18. This is not a coincidence, and Apple is not pretending it is.
The lineup, and why Rosé stands out in it
Apple has been doing this for a few cycles now. In July 2023, NewJeans shot their "ETA" video on the iPhone 14 Pro. That September, Olivia Rodrigo shot "get him back!" on the iPhone 15 Pro. In 2024, The Weeknd shot "Dancing in the Flames" on the iPhone 16 Pro.
I have watched each of these land and each time the pick makes a kind of sense you can reconstruct after the fact. NewJeans were the hottest fourth-generation K-pop act going global. Olivia Rodrigo was the most bankable young pop act in the English-speaking world. The Weeknd brought cinematic credibility and a specific visual identity that made the camera feel serious.
Rosé is the one I did not see coming. She is a BLACKPINK member whose solo crossover arrived not through a label rollout but through a single that nobody expected to do what it did. That is a different kind of pick. And it is the one worth paying attention to.
Why Rosé
"APT." came out in October 2024. It is a collaboration with Bruno Mars, it is two minutes and forty-nine seconds long, it mixes Korean and English, and it spent more than twelve weeks at number one on the Billboard Global 200 while running nineteen consecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart. That run made it one of the longest-charting number ones that chart has recorded from a Korean act.
What made "APT." interesting was what it was not. It was not a calculated crossover attempt. It was a traditional Korean drinking game turned into a pop single. The Bruno Mars collaboration happened because Mars had become a fixture of Korean pop culture in his own right, deeply embedded in the music that Rosé and her BLACKPINK peers had grown up on. The song's success felt, in the way very few crossover moments do, like it actually emerged from something rather than being engineered toward something.
Rosé did not renew her individual solo contract with YG Entertainment, moving her solo career to The Black Label and Atlantic Records. "new trick" is her first solo single of 2026. The director is Dave Meyers, one of the most in-demand music video directors in the industry, whose visual grammar has shaped the look of mainstream pop for over two decades.
The pairing of Rosé and Meyers, with Apple providing the camera, is a different kind of move than "APT." was. It is more explicitly constructed. But the reason Apple chose Rosé rather than any other act available to them is precisely because she has spent the past two years building a credibility that most commercially positioned pop stars do not have. Apple needed someone whose association with a product launch would feel like an endorsement rather than a transaction. After "APT.," Rosé is one of the very few people in pop music right now for whom that is true.
What Apple is actually selling
The iPhone 18 Pro has a variable aperture camera. This is worth pausing on, because it has been a rumor for years and it is now real hardware: a six-blade mechanical aperture system with four selectable positions, f/1.48, f/1.8, f/2.8, and f/4.0.
To explain why this matters: every iPhone camera before the 18 Pro has had a fixed aperture. You could adjust exposure digitally, and computational photography could simulate some depth-of-field effects, but the physical opening of the lens never changed. A mechanical aperture changes how much light the sensor receives at the hardware level. It gives the shooter control over depth of field and exposure that was previously unavailable on a phone camera in the way it has always been available on a DSLR.
This is, genuinely, a significant hardware change. I have seen a lot of iPhone camera launches and this is the first one where I think the spec itself is the story, not a refinement of the previous spec.
What that means for "new trick" is that the camera Rosé is working with is not the same as the one on previous Shot on iPhone MVs. The variable aperture gives her and Meyers control over depth of field at the hardware level that simply was not available on an iPhone before. Whether that shows up in the final video is a question for September 17. But it means the collab is not just a marketing move on top of the same phone. The tool is genuinely different this time.
What I actually think
"APT." worked, in part, because it felt like Rosé bringing something of herself to a collaboration. A song she genuinely wanted to make, with an artist she genuinely connected with, that reached people in a way that purely strategic pop rarely does.
"new trick" is more explicitly constructed: English-language, major director, major tech company co-sign, timed to a product launch. The song could still be great. Dave Meyers has made some of the most visually arresting music videos of the past decade, and Rosé is a genuinely compelling performer on screen. But I find myself wondering whether this is the moment where the "APT." authenticity gets spent. Not wasted, not betrayed: spent. The way credibility gets spent eventually in pop music, on the campaign that converts cultural weight into commercial positioning.
The precedent says otherwise. The Shot on iPhone collaborations have not historically damaged the artists involved. Olivia Rodrigo's association with Apple solidified her status rather than diluting it. The Weeknd has absorbed far larger commercial partnerships without any erosion of his artistic identity.
What makes Rosé's case different is how specific her credibility is. It is not general fame. It is the particular thing of having broken through on her own terms, with a song that felt like it came from somewhere real. If "new trick" is good enough, the collab reinforces that. If it is not, this is the moment the Apple stamp starts to define her more than "APT." does.
Both outcomes are possible. The song is not out yet. The camera goes on sale in three days. I will find out which kind of campaign this turned out to be in about six months, when I can see what the video actually did and what people made with the phone they bought in September 2026.
For now, Apple picked the right person. The surprise is not that Rosé and Apple found each other. The surprise is the path she took to get here.
FAQ
What is "new trick" by Rosé? "new trick" is Rosé's first solo single of 2026, releasing September 17, 2026. The music video was shot entirely on the iPhone 18 Pro as part of Apple's Shot on iPhone campaign. The video is directed by Dave Meyers. Rosé is signed to The Black Label and Atlantic Records.
What is the Shot on iPhone campaign? Shot on iPhone is Apple's long-running marketing campaign showing photographs and videos captured on iPhones. In recent years, Apple has commissioned music videos from major artists as part of the campaign, timed to coincide with new iPhone Pro launches.
Which music videos have been Shot on iPhone? Notable Shot on iPhone music videos include NewJeans' "ETA" on the iPhone 14 Pro (2023), Olivia Rodrigo's "get him back!" on the iPhone 15 Pro (2023), The Weeknd's "Dancing in the Flames" on the iPhone 16 Pro (2024), and Rosé's "new trick" on the iPhone 18 Pro (2026).
What is the iPhone 18 Pro camera upgrade? The iPhone 18 Pro introduces a mechanical variable aperture camera, the first in iPhone history. The six-blade system offers four selectable aperture positions: f/1.48, f/1.8, f/2.8, and f/4.0. This allows physical control over depth of field and light intake that was previously unavailable on iPhone cameras. The 18 Pro also includes the A20 Pro chip on a 2nm process.
When does the iPhone 18 Pro go on sale? The iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max go on sale September 18, 2026, starting at $1,199 and $1,299 respectively. Pre-orders opened September 12, 2026.
Who directed the "new trick" music video? Dave Meyers directed the "new trick" music video. Meyers is one of the most prominent music video directors in the industry and previously directed BLACKPINK's "Jump" in 2025.
What was Rosé's biggest hit before "new trick"? Rosé's "APT." featuring Bruno Mars, released October 18, 2024, spent more than twelve weeks at number one on the Billboard Global 200 and nineteen consecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart.
"new trick" by Rosé is out September 17. iPhone 18 Pro is on sale September 18. Tracking what arrives next at incoming.to.