Apps that scan barcodes or IDs blurry on iPhone 14 Pro Max

If it's the "wrong" camera then the wrong camera is being specified by the app, probably due to just specifying a

AVCaptureDeviceTypeBuiltInWideAngleCamera camera rather than the AVCaptureDeviceTypeBuiltInUltraWideCamera camera as a default, depending on what the app sees from its AVCaptureDeviceDiscoverySession.

From what I can tell the issue is:

…the solution is to use the minimumFocusDistance property of the capture device to derive a videoZoomFactor to make sure the users hold the phone at a larger distance than the minimumFocusDistance.

There was a session at WWDC 2021 that explicitly covered this (Apple Developer login may be required):

• What’s new in camera capture - WWDC21 - Videos - Apple Developer
• Sample code: Apple Developer Documentation

Regardless, if it's an Apple bug in iOS 16, they'll fix it, and if not, the app/library makers will need to.

The third party app needs to be updated to properly use the iPhone 14 cameras and/or the camera subsystem in iOS 16.

Apple’s apps work properly for this as do a variety of third party apps such as Toast and Walmart Pay.

I was able to use camera on iOS 16 - before updating to iOS 16.0.2. When I first set up the phone on iOS 16, in third party apps it would switch between the normal and the other camera, depending on the distance to the object that you wanted to take a picture of - just like it does in the literal camera app. After updating to iOS 16.0.2, nothing works. Now here is what I'm 99% convinced is going on:

People on Twitter have reported the camera shaking issues on the iPhone 14 Pro. The stabilizer and autofocus would just freak out whenever you have opened a third party app's camera screen. Apple, instead of resolving the issue, have simply disabled the "switch cameras to focus close objects" feature for all third-party apps. Now we can't take close pictures or scan product barcodes. It would've been better to just throttle the camera-switching to something like "once in 5 seconds" that would avoid the shaky-behavior but still let us use cameras up close normally.

The fact that they haven't publicly admitted to the problem, or that there is no announcement regarding iOS 16.0.3 solving camera issues makes me fear that we will have to stick with this for a long time because they probably have other priorities than that. If they are even aware of the issue at all (?)

It's not the app publisher's fault, it's Apple's fault because before before updating to 16.0.2 it worked fine in every app.

If you are experiencing any difficulty with third-party apps then please contact the app developer directly --> How to contact an app developer - Apple Support

As already explained to you in the other thread, Walmart Pay hasn't switched cameras either. It's just that you don't notice it because the physical product codes are large enough to be scanned with the wrong camera.