My iPhone's camera is not working correctly and it looks blurred

Because the camera system on the iPhone 14 has a longer minimum focus distance than on past iPhones.

To take close up photos you need to have a 14 Pro/Pro Max and use Macro mode.

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

Many third-party apps do not support Macro mode, so you may need to use Camera to take the photo.

I never said or even hinted that I spoke for Apple, I said I've never found a bar code that didn't scan with Scandit.

When you can scan bar codes 100% of the time with a third-party app, that puts the blame squarely on whichever app can't read them and/or the technique being used to read them. As I said, if you are used to filling the box with the bar code, you cannot do that with the iPhone 14/Pro/Pro Max because newer phones have a greater minimum focus distance - you have to back off until the bar code is in focus, and then it will be read instantly, at least by Scandit; I've had the same experience with apps from Amazon, Walmart and others.

What has Asset Tiger said about the issue? Reviews on the App Store seem to indicate a fair number of people are having issues with the app itself.

If you feel there is an iPhone issue, contact Apple Support directly as they are the only ones who can get an issue looked at; we are all just fellow Apple users here giving the benefit of our experiences to help people solve issues.

Contact - Official Apple Support

They can be, but the app you are using needs to be updated to be able to do so.

Contact the maker of your third party app and ask them to update their app for newer devices and iOS 16.

At present there are multiple third party apps that can read bar codes and QR codes, including the apps for Amazon and Walmart.

A great demo is the Scandit app, which acts as a showcase for their technology.

It does work, the app I mention is not the Camera app.

I have done extensive testing, scanning bar codes, QR codes, driver license bar codes, the bar codes on the back of customer loyalty cards, and the app can read them all.

The app is of course a demo app written by a company that specializes in reading codes, but if their app can do it, so can others.

The key is to have the code in focus, and to back away from the code until it is.

You may think the code is then too small for the device to read, but it's not; for both QR and bar codes my phone can easily scan them from 11" (roughly 28 cm) away.

The problem is trying to scan from 2" (5 cm) away; the minimum focus distance is around 3.5" (approx. 8.9 cm).

There's nothing to fix.

The ID verification programs you mention either need to be reworked to support macro mode like Apple's Camera app or they need to be able to deal with a smaller apparent ID area in a photo from further away.

The camera system has a longer minimum focus distance, that's a physical parameter of the larger sensor used in the iPhone 14.

That's because they are likely trying to fill the camera image with the bar code rather than back off until the bar code is in proper focus, or the AssetTiger app needs to be updated.

I've yet to find any barcode my 14 Pro Max will not scan using standard tools.

Download and try the free "Scandit" app; if it can scan it, but AssetTiger cannot, that's purely AssetTiger's issue.

For example, Scandit scanned the sample bar code on the left from the AssetTiger website immediately as a "1D Industrial" bar code (AT-1008).

Can confirm. Same issue with all pro 3-camera models. It's not only about QR, there are a lot of KYC apps that require to scan documents and ID-cards. These apps rely on the standard API of the phone to take a picture and the iphone is always giving them access to the main camera. These are not specialized camera apps. They don't have a custom library with raw access to the camera, they use the OS's public API which reports a single camera, not 3 separate ones. The app does not know how many lenses there are, it sees only 1 camera (probably the selfy camera in addition). Apple needs to provide automatic switching to macro mode when camera is accessed by the API, so apps that need it should not rewrite everything from scratch just to add some non-essential feature. Apparently this problem is quite old and probably won't be addressed anytime soon, meaning end-clients will struggle and suffer..

Hello brocklame,

Is the camera working as expected in the Camera app? If it is, then we would suggest you work through these steps found at If an app on your iPhone or iPad stops responding, closes unexpectedly, or won’t open - Apple Support

1. Close and reopen the app

Force the app to close. Then open the app to see if it works as expected.

2. Restart your device

Restart your iPhone or restart your iPad. Then open the app to see if it works as expected.

3. Check for updates

To see if updates are available for the app, open the App Store, tap your profile icon, then scroll down to see if updates are available. If updates aren't available for the app, update the software on your iPhone or iPad.

4. Delete the app, then redownload it

Delete the app. When you do this, you might lose data that was stored in the app. Then redownload the app. Then check to see if the problem with the app is fixed.

If these steps do not resolve the issue, reaching out to the developer may help: How to contact an app developer - Apple Support

Have a good day.

Sorry Dogcow-Moof, you are in the wrong. If Apple introduced feature, that 3rd party developers need to implement switching to macro camera (and did not tell them), then this is epic fail from their side. 15 pro has is as well.

Try Revolut app and try to add a card using camera. You will not be able to, because this app forces you to fill the rectangle with the card and therefore dictates you how far away you should be. The same issue is with any app where you need to provide your ID card to verify identity. And please, dont tell me to contact Revolut myself to fix it. We pay to apple premium because "it just works". However, in this case it clearly does not.

So no thanks, your advices to be more far away from code are completely useless and the issue is major problem that Apple completely underestimated and you are bagatelising it all over again.

My previous SE 2020 (budget product line) works flawlessly, I regret upgrading to this "flagship".

I am attaching screenshot from forti client two factor authenticator. Even their devs are more aware of this issue than you are. So can you please get there any Apple representative to finally take a look at this?

This changed on the iPhone 14 with a recent software update. When I got my iPhone 14, I could import all my Google Authenticator codes by scanning the QR code from the screen of an iPhone 8 without a problem. I added two more codes to the iPhone 8, and now I want to export them to the iPhone 14 by scanning the bar code on the iPhone 8, and the image on the iPhone 14 is all blurry, cannot scan it.

This is a software issue affecting the camera on the iPhone 14, is not the apps scanning bar codes.

The issue is that it doesnt actual focus.

Ive had this issue for a while now and finally decided to see that I could do fix it so its interesting to see that it looks like it hasn't been solved and some are saying ... "There's nothing to fix." There clearly is. Most 3rd party pass will not scan QR or barcodes because it doesnt focus. Sometimes Im back to manual focus by pulling the device away far enough ... but most of the time then the code is too small to actually scan. Huge pain in the butt.

It happens with me on several apps like:

Amazon Alexa (scanning a device)

Google Authenticator

Blink Cameras.

In fact, the built-in QR scanner (accessible from the clock dropdown) is not switching to Macro, neither allow zoom-in or implement any of the Apple's own suggestions

It doesn't need to switch to macro.

Just back the camera away from the code until it is in focus and it will scan immediately.

You do not need to fill the marked area on-screen with the code.

It does focus, but it will not focus if you try to hold your device too close to the code.

If you hold your device far enough away from the code for the camera to focus, the code will be read instantly.

The code in no way needs to fill the "box" apps draw to put the code into, merely a small fraction of it.

I don't see that and there are not other complaints about focus issues with a recent update.

Also make sure the camera lens on your iPhone 14 hasn't been smudged.