Camera app crashing on my iPhone 16 Pro Max

I agree they are issues with certain batches. My husband has the 16 pro max which we got the same day (9/20) and he has had no issues. Meanwhile my troubles began day 1. Apple support is trying to tell me a replacement phone may have the same issue, but I’m willing to see if I will get lucky with one from a batch that doesn’t have these issues, especially since I starting having overheating of the battery whenever the camera issue occurs, which worried me as to how much it’s affecting my overall battery in the long term.

There are a few reasons why, with two devices with identical hardware, one might exhibit a problem and the other doesn't. So it is not a 'bad batch' smoking gun. Even if it is a device problem (rather than iOS), most of the time these can be worked around in the operating system.

W3JNP indicates that there is a fix in test. So it might be possible to get that via the beta update (Settings > General > Software Update > Beta Updates). Or simply power-cycle every morning until around the 28th as W3JNP suggests. Anything else is just speculation.

Or just return the existing (faulty) device and get a new one. I none the less appreciate your clear sighted summary of the issues, and 'pray' that Apple sorts this out. My experience is that the online / telephone support staff have still not noticed this problem is happening and have now wasted many hours going through it all with them.

(I have now bought a replacement 16pro from a re-seller) in case the issue cannot be solved and have asked to have my trade in 12 pro back as my backup device while I wait for a replacement device direct from Apple. It looks like the wait for my old device to return and then time to return the 16pro and replace cycle could last 2/3 weeks so I am not happy like everybody else here. In the meantime maybe they will fix it but it's not looking terribly promising is it?

I cannot manage without a mobile phone so in future I will wait a good few weeks before trading in my old device while testing a new model - as that would have saved a lot of angst. Lesson learnt.

How many of your phones have this option in the picture I’m have the same issue where every 48 hours my phone will crash with the camera app. The camera will work with other apps such as Facebook or Snapchat but not with the native app if I don’t restart the phone, the phone will then degrade in performance get hot loose sound and eventually reset itself I’ve checked other iPhone and they do not have that setting, which is picture the above I have a Pro Max 512 GB

I am on my second phone and it's no better. I reboot every day to use camera. Very sad because i found out it's faults 2 days before vacation. Saw the most beautiful sea turtle. Needed to reboot..... missed the picture.

Before the new.01 update i couldn't even reboot to get it to work. Hopefully it will get better soon. I love my Apple.

Same here 16Pro phone only a week old. Assume it’s a bug that will get fixed? Not going to wipe and reinstall from scratch either…very annoying restart is the only temporary fix. Phone is overheating also.

Same issue on iPhone 14 Pro Max. When I open the camera, I have black screen and crash. I have to restart the phone to solve the problem until the next one.. so sad…

since iOS18, my phone is also very very slow..

Apple, please help us🙏

Same problem, but noticed not only does the screen turn black, and then crashes, but after a restart, the image quality is degraded and no sound for the shutter (Live turned off). 2nd restart fixes for awhile. And the image quality does not seem as good as on my old iPhone 15 pro.

Apple is a trillion dollar company with over 160,000 employees. So when you speak 'to Apple' I assume you're speaking to Apple Support. They don't necessarily have a direct line to the iOS or iPhone developers, so the 'bad batch' is not necessarily correct and may be an attempt to mollify customers. I have worked as a software developer for similar companies to Apple so I know how it works behind the scenes.

Even if the 'bad batch' is correct, then quite often issues in the hardware can be worked around in the software. I've tried the Greek B (Apple removed my posts mentioning this explicitly) update and it looks like it has fixed the issue. Others have indicated the same. So, at the very least, it has been worked around in the software.

However, the fact that resetting the phone and doing a clean install solves the problem leads me to believe that it is a software issue related to the process of transferring from another phone. I was tempted to go down this route purely to have a clear out and remove any cruft. But experiences of the process vary, so I'm using the not-yet-released update.

HTH.

I upgraded from an iPhone 12, and used the backup from that to set up my new iPhone 16 Pro. So far I've found the iPhone 16 Pro painfully slow, sticky, the battery drains within 5-6 hours with minimal use and it gets very hot. And, of course, the camera is CONSTANTLY crashing. Disastrous. My old iPhone 12 was twice as fast and reliable as this 16 Pro. Why is Apple dragging their heals to fix or even properly acknowledge these issues?

I am also having the same issue. Nothing has resolved issue, hard wipe, reset cache, new phone setup, it still randomly crashes, battery drain, gets burning hot. This causes a significant problem as most of my job is taking pictures on my phone…

Without being too technical about it, modern devices are infinitely complex and a lot is going on under the hood. Both in the operating system and in the software within the chips themselves. Things happen in tiny fractions of seconds. So even if two devices are identical in hardware and run the same OS, they are unlikely to be identical in the user settings, apps installed, and usage. And even the temperature of the device can affect things. So if those 'things' that happen in tiny fractions of seconds happen in a certain sequence it can trigger a problem. Sometimes it just needs one thing to happen in a different sequence. It's called a race condition. Essentially if you have a sequence that is normally A-B-C, but for some reason B is occasionally slower than usual and it goes A-C-B, that might trigger something unpredictable.

While all iPhone 16s are not exhibiting the problem, it looks as though a significant number are.

For avoidance of doubt, I wasn't saying it a faulty batch. Just that if some phones have the problem and not others doesn't mean that the phones with the problem are part of a faulty batch. Although they could be. But if it was a bad batch I wouldn't have expected a reset and re-install to work unless the reset causes some update of something not part of the transfer-from-another-phone process, which is entirely possible. But the fact that you have to install apps from scratch on the app store leads me to think that is not the case.

Got this today from Apple Support:

"Currently it’s being actively investigated by our Engineering Team to determine the best solution. There’s no timeframe as of yet, since this is still under investigation, but the solution may come in a form of update or a troubleshooting step.  Your case is open here and you can follow up with us anytime and we’d be glad to let you know of any updates about this issue and given solutions. So we just have to wait for now.  But our Engineering team is working on this."

I have returned my iphone 16pro and awaiting replacements under the same terms as well...so your story sounds interesting . Are you saying do the first in option 2 here? Reset iPhone settings to their defaults – Apple Support (UK)

Please update us all when 3/4 days has passed as 36 hours seems too short a time to be sure it's fixed given the other comments on this forum but I wish you lots of luck!

AkaAki157 wrote:

It’s so disappointing to see Apple acting like this is an isolated issue when clearly, it’s not.

It actually is a relatively rare issue. I have taken several hundred photos with my 16 Pro Max since launch day, both launching Camera conventionally and via Camera Control, and have never seen this issue occur.

That having been said, I know that doesn't help when you experience it, which is why it's important to follow the advice of the Apple Store folks, no matter how silly it may seem to you. There's something reasonably unique about your configuration that is causing this to occur when it's not for the majority of owners. The only way to find out what is causing it on yours when it doesn't happen on others is to be grindingly thorough, and yes, restoring from a backup can be one of the causes.