Camera app crashing on my iPhone 16 Pro Max

I have an iPhone 16 Pro and same problem. Curiously it seems to be happening when the phone is hot. It gets super slow and when the camera app crashes I hear the chime of the MagSafe a couple of seconds later. Like some sort of soft reboot.

also noticed that when it’s in that “hot state” I can’t wirelessly charge it. Like it doesn’t do anything to it.

I am having the same camera issue with my 16 Pro like all the others who

have posted here.

I’ve had one phone exchanged only to get another with the same issue. The

Genius Bar has wiped my phone and did a complete fresh IOS install and I

reloaded my apps one at a time. Same problem.

I’ve been on the phone and sent several diagnostic logs to Apple

Support.

No resolution yet other than an email stating Apple Engineering is aware of

the problem.

Same problem here with a iPhone 16 PRO. Contacted support and they suggested to do a hard reset. If that wouldn't solve the problem, I should make a back up and reset the phone completely. But the problem isn't fixed.

Update friends ... as guided by Apple support on call ... delete and clean install of iOS 18.0.1 through Mac done. Device restored from backup done yesterday. Issue reappeared today so this tedious process does not resolve the camera crashing issue on my iPhone 16 Pro Max 512 Gb. Anyone has a resolution. This needs an urgent fix from Apple as the camera app and even the Halide app is unusable.

Updated to 18.0.1 which is supposed to fix the issue.

Its better than it was but still getting lots of frozen screens (Not camera related) and lots of screen flicker particularly where I have a stacked section on screen where it appears the phone is trying to redraw the screen.

Same issue, 16 pro max camera crashes when trying to launch. Restart fixes it for a short time then starts all over Also experiencing some fairly extreme lag across the entire device when the camera is also crashing. This was occurring before the 18.0.1 update and after.

Also, nearly 13 days after setting the device up, it still gets quite warm with only minor tasks.

My iPhone 16 pro max has the same issue with camera crashes every other day. I spent an hour with customer support over phone. Then took to the Apple Store, they did factory reset and installed 18.0.1 from their support system and then after restarting, WiFi switch stayed always disabled and no way to turn it on. So they decided to give me a replacement phone. After a couple days, the camera started crashing again. And again crashed today. And looks like Apple has no clue. I have a support call scheduled tonight again. Very disappointing. Didn’t expect this from Apple.

The one and only reliable workaround for me is to restart the phone within a few minutes of needing the camera, which is absurd. This has clearly been widely reported; I keep expecting a firmware update or even just an acknowledgement and roadmap update from Apple. Silence. Purposefully or not, we are the new camera’s Beta testers and that’s not why we buy Apple.

I'm having the same issue. My phone is the iPhone 16 Pro Max, and I synced the data directly from the 12 Pro Max.

In normal mode, the camera screen goes black when taking pictures. It only works properly when I switch to raw max mode.

I have tried everything on the iPhone 16 pro 256 gb, but have experienced persistent crashes and overheating when using the camera. After wasting some 2 weeks and more hours than I care to count talking with Apple staff who are not fully up to speed on the subject I have now have concluded that only a new device (might) be the answer.

I cannot afford to be without a phone. I regretted sending in my 12 pro for trade in the day I did it....

After a 2 week wait I have managed to get my old iPhone 12 pro back from Apple trade in system ( it took a lot of work to get it back) and have happily restored data to that. At least it works!

I have a relative who has the identical 16 pro model to me and he has no problems with his so I am gambling that a new device might be the solution.

Apple have confirmed that my 16 pro "came from a faulty batch". So I wonder how big that batch is?

Looking forward to receiving a replacement 16pro from Apple and lets see if that suffers the same problem. I was not satisfied to wait for a software fix if other devices did not suffer this problem.

I feel that persisting with a faulty device is a hostage to fortune, and would prefer a new device without the problem.

Individually Apple staff are good people but overall this is shoddy performance by Apple. My respect for the company is very damaged. Far too 'corporate and *** watching' by half. It's a big thumbs down from a very long term Apple customer.

I will update when I get the replacement 16 pro.

If that is faulty too I will return and maybe get a iphone 15 and save the money.

grahame_r wrote:

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?

As this is a user to user only forum, we can't speak for Apple or know what Apple is working on. I can tell you I have none of the issues on my 16 Pro Max or 16 Pro you or some of the other users are having in this thread. That means that only a subset of the people who own iPhone 16 Pro models have such issues. And when an issue doesn't affect ALL users, it takes time to determine the root cause. We've heard from several that for the Camera app crashing, who are testing iOS 18.1 that when released, it completely solves this issue. People just need to trust that Apple is working on issues as they are found and updates will likely be rolled out to solve them. This isn't different than any other year.

I faced the same issue, the camera app crashed and blacked out multiple times and so far that happened to me 4-5 times in total and every time i had to restart the phone for it to function properly. I also faced some issues with Siri not responding at times for "Hey Siri" prompt on both apple carplay and phone, i had to turn off Siri and do the voice prompts again for it to function. I hope Apple rolls out a new bug fix IOS update soon and i am on IOS 18.0.1 right now.

There are a number of clues in this thread that will help you get around the issue possibly without going through what I went through. When the actual answer is posted, it is immediately deleted, so I can't say more. None of them seem to completely fix all the issues for everyone, but they can reduce the severity. I waited about two weeks for a replacement phone and then set it up as new, taking many hours to do what should have been automatic. After all this effort and 5 days of use now, the 16 Pro Max still feels less stable (jittery, halting animations, slow opening apps, occasionally less responsive touchscreen) than my old 15 Pro Max and I wish I had not upgraded. However, I can open the camera app without crashing, make phone calls without audio issues, and I have not experienced the 1% power bug or apps regularly crashing. It's sad that this is the level of quality acceptable now.

My husband and I both upgraded from our iPhone 14s to the iPhone 16 Pro Max with 1TB of storage. Our college kids had much older phones, so we passed the iPhone 14s down to them, and they’re loving them just like we did. However, the iPhone 16 Pro Max has been a different story. I’m really glad I took my iPhone 14 on a trip in early September before we picked up the new phones on September 21.

Both of our iPhone 16s have had camera issues—mine from day one, and my husband’s within the first week. We thought the updates would fix the problem, but they haven’t. When you try to take a picture, the camera goes black, and no photo is taken. I’ve missed so many moments because of this. The same thing happens with video recording—it crashes, and only rebooting helps, but even then, it only works for half a day, if that.

We went to the Apple Store for help, but they were no use. They claimed we might have downloaded something corrupt and told us we needed to erase the phones and restore them to factory settings. They advised against using our backups, saying the problem might be there. I suggested using my iPhone 14 backup instead, and they said, “Oh, maybe.” Honestly, they offered fewer solutions than I could come up with myself.

[Edited by Moderator]

SJ-1 wrote:

1. Hello Dogcow-Moof, here's what we know:

It happens with 18 and 18.0.1, but not 18.1. That's my experience.

2. It happens if you have transferred from an old iPhone to a new iPhone 16 (the variant does not seem to matter although the majority seem to have Pros, Max or otherwise).

So when you say it happens to very few users, that might be true across the majority of iPhone 16 users.

Thanks for the information.

For what it's worth, I transferred everything from my iPhone 15 PM to my 16 PM and have turned my phone off once in the past two months.

I have never, ever seen this issue, so there's got to be some other factor causing this.

I've never had Sound Recognition turned on, so I can't speak to that.