What causes Black Boxes in iPhone 16 Pro Photos?

yeah… I’m having the same issue too. This photo I took in a parking lot, I have this black box on a vehicle that was there. I can’t seem to find a solution for this.

It's not a hardware issue as far as I can tell, I'm having the exact same issue with my new iPhone 16 Pro Max and iOS 18. I'm updating to 18.1 now to see if this is addressed.

The reason I don't think it's hardware is that if you go into the photo editor, edit the photo either on the desktop or on the phone, and change the key photo from the default one to any of the others, you'll see the original picture again. Sometimes some of the other key photos are also filled with black boxes but you can usually find one or several that don't. This makes me think that the picture is getting captured, but is being corrupted somehow during the storage/processing/upload process.

Anyway, it's not just you. And, it's really annoying.

Has anyone fixed it? Have same problem.

nah, I don’t think so

I’ve been having the same issue with my iPhone 16 pro max. Started the day after I got the phone. It happened 3 times within the first few weeks of having the phone. Took it to apple, they didn’t know what to do so they gave me a new phone. I’ve been having the same issue with the replacement phone too, it’s happened 4 times now. It’s so frustrating - random black bars, in different spots and sizes. I’ll have 5 of the same photo and 1 will randomly have a black bar. I always take Live Photos and the black bars aren’t in the live when you hold it down, just in the still shot. This just happened yesterday, using iOS 18.1

This has happened 7 times with 2 different phones, here’s one them:

Yup; I have the same issues of black boxes obliterating some of the frame.

i’ll try taking live off in future and see if this makes a difference…

Hi, I have the same problem as well. Did you manage to fix them photos or did it stop doing on the new iPhone that they have given you? TIA for your response.

Hi Marc, did you manage to fix the photos that have been corrupted? I have the same problem and I only got my iPhone 16 Pro for more than a month, I have the latest iOS and it still happening on mine. Anyone knows if Apple’s doing anything about it?

Update: I went back to Apple a few weeks ago. Since this has happened on 2 different iPhone 16 pro maxs, they thought it was a software issue. They wiped my phone and factory reset it. Took a photo today aaaaaand it had black boxes! This is now the 8th photo I’ve had this happen on - software is updated to iOS 18.2.

Apple wasn’t able to fix the photos. I had the same issue on the new iPhone they gave me. I went back to Apple, they wiped the phone and factory reset it. I’m still having the same issue with black boxes. I’m going to go back for a third time and see what they say.

Hi Julianna, thank you for the update and info this is really helpful as I thought of going to Apple as well and that saves me for making a trip. I really hope they do something about this! I’m going on holiday soon and I love taking photos and this is just making me anxious that this will keep happening again. Did it ever happen when you take live photos instead? TIA

I have had it happen randomly ever since I found this thread and posted. Hasn't been fixed in any of the latest iOS updates. I'm on 18.2 and it still happens.

For me, though, I have always been able to recover the photo by editing it and changing the key photo to another one in the series. What's bizarre is, if you then save it, go back in, and re-select the original key photo, it's just fine again and you can save it back to the way it should have been to begin with.

I haven't had any photos that became unrecoverable -- yet. Anyone else?

With all of us experiencing this, I'm sure it's not a defective phone -- although it still could be a hardware issue with the 16 Pro Max that needs to be addressed, I just hope they recognize this as an issue, and issue a fix, and that it isn't something in the design of the hardware that makes this impossible to fix.

\marc

I have the same problem and my photos are never on Live. I haven't found a way to remove the box as some others have.

All of the photos I take are live photos! I can move it to a different key photo and it won't have the black box, but the quality isn't as clear

It has to be an iOS 18 issue - there's a reddit thread and people are experiencing this issue on iPhone 14 and 15 pros/pro maxes.

I'm planning on going to the Apple store again next week. Not sure what they'll be able to do, but I'm hoping going in person will be more effective.