Macro mode on iPhone 13 Pro/Pro Max (wait to upgrade if macro photography is your thing?)

My question earlier today appears to be marked as "solved". If only!

At the risk of cluttering up this forum: is there really no way to manually select & lock in macro camera mode on an iPhone 13 Pro (or Pro Max)?

I have everything fully updated & have the camera set with "Macro Control" on (also Settings>>Camera>Preserve Settings with "Macro Control" set on).

Those settings generally works reasonably well, EXCEPT when I'm trying to focus on a very small subject, say <0.25" inch in diameter. Then my experience (consistently) is that the camera fails to switch into the macro mode, no matter how close I get & no matter how I position the iPhone lenses relative to the subject.

I've done tricks to get the camera to switch into macro mode:

-- using a larger leaf behind a tiny subject

-- selecting 0.5x & zooming in

But I shouldn't need to use those tricks.... I can't figure out why I can't just select macro mode, just like I can select 0.5x, 1x, or 3x.

Without that option, seems like anyone serious about taking macro photos with an iPhone would do better using an add-on lens. That of course defeats the attraction of an iPhone 13 Pro/Pro Max for macro photography.....