iPhone 14 Camera is Blurry

You are correct, there is usually no hardware issue as it works as designed, third parties need to update their apps as stated.

There are several third-party apps that work perfectly scanning bar codes on the 14 Pro Max, as does the QR scanning ability that is now part of the Camera app.

Scan a QR code with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

The Code Scanner that Apple provides in Control Center also works perfectly, the key is not to try to force the block to fill the square but rather back the phone up until the QR code is in sharp focus and the scanner will read it instantly.

This obviously won’t work but backing the phone up a few inches/several cm until the code is in sharp focus will, every time.

If it doesn’t work for you, then there may be something wrong with your device; I recently visited an Apple Store and it worked with every iPhone 14 they had on display, too.

The interesting thing is the Camera app will switch to the macro lens to be able to focus more closely where the Code Reader app instead requires you to hold the phone further away so it can focus.

Yes, and that's explained here:

About the Camera features on your iPhone - Apple Support

Again, for the 14 Pro and Pro Max, the normal 1x "wide" lens cannot focus on anything closer than about 8" away.

To focus on something closer, the "ultra wide" macro lens must be used.

If you are taking a photo yourself, the Camera app should auto-switch as described at the link above.

In a third party app, the third party app will be responsible for either switching lenses or reading barcodes from further away using the 1x "wide" lens - the apps for Amazon and Walmart to name two already can, as can multiple other third party apps.

It's not a defect, it's by design and due to the limitations of optics and lenses.

Don't hold the bar code close, as the camera physically can't focus on it at short distances.

Hold the code at a distance where the phone can focus sharply on it and most apps will read it right away, even if it looks tiny to you, the software can often read the bar/QR code.

For example, the Scandit app I referred to above had no issues reading a small UPC code on a package of crackers from 10.5"(26.6 cm) away.

The Apple camera should auto switch to the ultra wide lens to be able to focus on close objects unless you've shut that function off:

Take macro photos and videos with your iPhone camera - Apple Support

If you feel your phone has an issue, take your phone in to be examined:

Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

or contact Apple Support directly.

Contact - Official Apple Support

If you're worried that you can't scan codes, as I've said it's not an issue, scanning codes works fine; the way the camera system and iOS work together a bar or QR code does not need to be in what appears to the user to be sharp focus for the code scan to work.

The Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart and Walgreens apps can all scan on the iPhone 14 and 14 Pro model phones as can the third-party Scandit app.

If you're trying to take a photo and want to focus on something closer than the minimum focus distance for the wide lens, you need to use Macro mode on a model that supports it:

Take macro photos and videos with your iPhone camera - Apple Support

You are too close for the wide camera to focus and the photo must be taken by the ultrawide camera in Macro mode.

The iPhone 13 Pro/Pro Max had similar issues, but the 14 Pro/Pro Max does have a longer minimum focus distance with the standard wide lens, about 7.8" compared to 5.9" or so for the 13 Pro family.

Take macro photos and videos with your iPhone camera - Apple Support

Companies need to update their apps to properly use the new frameworks.

Try a free third-party app like Scandit and you'll see it can scan virtually anything, usually indicating it's the other app that's at fault, not iOS or the device.

If Scandit can't read it, it may show an issue with the code or yes, the OS.

I recommend Scandit as a test as the free app is basically an ad for their scanning solutions so their free app is highly optimized to read various codes from bar codes to QR codes to the format used on the back of many driver's licenses.

It's not a problem with the camera, you're either trying to use digital zoom by zooming in or are too close to whatever you want to take a photo of.

For the normal 1x camera, the minimum focus distance is about 20cm or a little under 8"; software is more than capable of reading codes from that far away, software like Walmart Pay does it without issue as does the Amazon app.

ProCam for one allows you to manually select which lens you want to use and focuses just fine when you select the ultrawide lens, allowing you to fill the screen as much as half way with a bar code that measures 1 5/8" x 3/4" on paper, so it is possible for third-party apps to request the proper lens based upon what it needs in terms of resolution and size.

The issue is apps are apparently just asking for access to the camera rather than properly following the specified API to ask the phone which cameras are available and selecting the one with the shortest possible minimum focus distance.

That is a technique that was recommended with the release of iOS 15, but apparently app authors just got away with not doing it on iPhone 13 and it's biting them now.

What’s new in camera capture - WWDC21 - Videos - Apple Developer

Maybe this will help some developers; I've found the issue, at least on my end.

TLDR: My previous hunch was correct. If you're not developing using native Swift/Obj-C you might be looking at needing an entire framework change to accommodate the Triple Lens.

Here's a quick fix if your app is a native iOS app:

Using AVCaptureDiscoverySession, list out all of your cameras. AVCaptureDeviceTypeBuiltInTripleCamera should be one of them if you're on iPhone 14 Pro; usually, this is index 7. You need to select this rather than the "rear camera" (index 0) when starting up your capture session, in order to use the Triple Camera functionality. It should auto-handle focusing and swapping between the lens (you can actually select only the Macro Lens / ultra-wide lens as well, but that removes the ability to let iOS's backend handle the lens swapping).

Here's why it's bad if you're not developing for native iOS (i.e., Flutter/Qt/Xamarin/React Native):

I'll use Qt as an example, since that's what is giving me trouble. The LTS version of Qt 5 has enumerations for only the "front" and "rear" cameras. When you use Qt to access the available cameras, it only lists out Apple's designators for those two cams (indices 0 and 1), and will only let you choose from those two lenses. If I try to force my camera object to use a device ID like the Triple Camera one, it forces it back into the default "rear camera" state, presumably because Qt 5 doesn't support controls for it. This means that I simply cannot use the Triple Camera through Qt. It seems like I would have to create an entirely new interface that pulls the camera directly from apple's native camera or change to another framework. There's a lot of reasons one could infer about why neither solution is desirable for a business that has an established codebase.

Check if your framework supports using Macro Lens/ Triple Cam device ids.

What could Apple do to mitigate this?

I'll be honest, as a dev myself it is frustrating that the Triple Camera isn't just interfaced to the "rear camera" device ID by default on the iPhone 14 Pro. I cannot imagine a scenario where an app that uses the camera in a one-dimensional way (i.e., an app that isn't used to gain extreme control over the camera) would not just want to use the Triple Cam like the default one. Releasing a new phone with an incredibly long minimum focus distance that requires special control to use up close is, in my opinion, bad foresight considering most APIs use the "general-purpose" rear camera accessor.

You may be asking "Why did no one care about this with the iPhone 13 Pro?" and that's because the minimum focus distance for the iPhone 13 Pro's normal camera was short enough that it didn't break document scanning apps. No one noticed it then, so no one thought to try and swap to the Triple Cam in their apps. But now that the 14 Pro increased that distance so much, it seems like the solution should be "let people who try to use the general purpose rear camera on the iPhone 14 Pro have their API calls redirected to the Triple Camera."

Then make an appointment to have your phone examined:

Contact - Official Apple Support

I don’t have some mythical device that is the only one that works somehow.

I’ve explained how and why things work and why many apps work but some don’t.

If however you are expecting your iPhone 14 Pro/Max’s 1x lens to focus on something 3” away, that’s simply not going to happen except in Camera if auto macro is enabled or if you select the Wide lens if it’s not.

You may not like my answers, but Apple can’t fix something that is normal.

You don't have to play with settings, but the fact remains that the only people who can fix third party apps are in fact those third parties. If you have an app that is currently failing, make sure to notify the app's maker so they know there is an issue.

Many third parties are improving their apps' bar code scanning functionality to properly work with newer iPhones; as I mentioned at least some third party apps that used to have issues now read bar and QR codes properly.

Move the camera further away from the QR code.

As the focus sharpens it will be read without issue, usually around seven inches away.

You don’t need to have it fill the screen or if the app shows a box, that box.

Scan a QR code with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

As I've stated before, you have to back away from the QR code, then it will be recognized and you will be taken to the web page represented by the code.

Here's how Camera saw a QR code; note how far away I was from the code:

Now, when I open the Code Reader, this is the initial view I see. Of course you can't scan it by filling the frame with the blurry code:

However, once you back away, moments after I backed up to a distance where the code was in sharp focus:

The frame animated to "zoom in" to denote it had recognized the QR code:

At which point it the code changed to a Safari logo and opened the link in Safari.