IOS 26.0.1 camera are blurry on iPhone 17 Pro Max and older iPhones.

I have contacted Apple senior support for over 3 days about the camera quality, where i take photos of a book page (none macro, normal 1x) and only where it focuses is good quality and the rest of the texts and the edges of the photo and the content of the book are blurry/smudgy. I have only owned my iPhone 17 Pro Max for 5 days, my IOS 18.5 six years old iPhone 11 Pro Max outperforms today’s iPhone, with much sharper photo and clarity all sides and edges. Not even the senior support could point out if it was a hardware or a software issue. And they booked me in on a official apple reseller and even there they ”couldn’t see a problem” with the iPhone 17 Pro Max, yet it was pretty obvious. Until i tried the cameras on the demo iPhones both in Apple official reseller and a retailer store and they all had the same photos i got. Even the employees with their older iphone (15 pro max and 13 pro max) had the same issue since they had IOS 26 upgrade. So either please fix the issue as soon as possible, or recall the devices and refund them.

Also Apple senior support team tried to tweak some camera settings while i shared screen for them on my iPhone 17PM, and they told me to factory reset my iPhone and still absolutely nothing changed.

I can provide photo evidence of how blurry images are on the edges and smudgy on texts, and i would really like a confirmation if the camera of the new 2025 device supposed to be this bad, so that i can return it as it didn’t fill my expectations at all.

Posted on Oct 6, 2025 8:41 AM

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buglvr

Level 1

12 points

Posted on Oct 27, 2025 12:03 PM

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74 replies

Zubbuz

Level 1

4 points

Oct 11, 2025 5:10 PM in response to PlsFixMyProblem

I had the iPhone 13pro. Great phone great pictures but it was time to upgrade to 17pro. I’m getting the same blurry/pixelated photos too. Very disappointing. Especially when I’m taking landscape photos. Everything is blurry when checking quality. Cropping or even the native 4x lens blurry. 8x almost embarrassed to share these photos. Leaves, blurry, trees blurry, anything I try and zoom in to check my photos, just not up to snuff. I’m pretty disappointed. IOS26.01.

dof hard to believe this nonsense

Jeff Donald

Level 8

45,528 points

Oct 12, 2025 4:14 AM in response to Jonrow

Hi, this is not Apple Support. Apple and Apple Support do not participate here. Everyone posting and commenting are fellow Apple users, just like you.

If there were an issue, as you suggest, don’t you think every tech YouTuber in the world would be reporting it? A few people have unrealistic expectations of what each new iPhone camera will produce. They are of the mindset that every aspect of the camera will improve and that’s not the case. I hear occasionally that my old iphone camera took better photos than my brand new iPhone and I spent all this money and the photos are worse. In specific types of photography this may be accurate. Look at the close-up/macro photos that started this discussion. Some of the earlier models, under specific circumstances, may produce sharper macro photos. Apple made design, cost and engineering decisions that affect the quality of close-ups. Astrophotography is the other area that Apple evidently feels they don’t need to concentrate on.

This is nothing unique among camera manufactures. Camera models change and some features are added, some change, some are even eliminated. It happens. The consumer needs to research the available models, prioritize the types of photography that are most important to them, and choose the camera best suited for their needs. Once the camera is delivered spend a week testing the camera, examining the photos, asking the opinions of other qualified photographers and then deciding if they’ll keep the camera or return it for a refund. But whatever you do get out of the mindset that a new model will excel in every aspect over an older model. I have several cameras from the 1960’s and ‘70’s that under certain conditions take better photos than a $5,000 camera currently on the market.

If you want camera reviews from experts, look at the DXO Mark website. They are highly regarded for their reviews and test interchangeable lens cameras and non-interchangeable lens cameras, including cellphones.

Mofasa7

Level 1

8 points

Oct 12, 2025 3:04 PM in response to PlsFixMyProblem

I got this problem too, my older iphone 11 pro is outperforming the new 17 pro and when i send pictures to apple support they claimed to be identical and both were good. Even a blind man with three sunglasses that isn’t even looking will spot the difference, Vertical is 17 pro and horizontal is 11 pro. did we just get a downgrade for 1550€?

[Edited by Moderator]

Nov 3, 2025 7:58 PM in response to PlsFixMyProblem

I have an iPhone 17 Pro. Before the iOS 26.1 update, I could take a picture of the moon and it was clear and focused. After the update, I only get a circle of light. This goes for planes and other lights in the sky.see pics. This sucks

Mstrjay4

Level 1

18 points

Nov 6, 2025 10:23 AM in response to PlsFixMyProblem

I am sorry, the most common business use case for a traveling employee is submitting reports and receipts on work trips. My previous phone worked like a champ, an iPhone 14 Pro Max, upgrade to the 17 Pro Max, and I get worse image stabilization. Think receipts, business card sized documents.

For street, portrait, and landscape shots, yes, it excells, but I need this phone to work for capturing flat documents. I am only asking for this phone to work as my 3 year old phone did.

Apple, I really don't think it is asking too much.

Nov 18, 2025 6:11 AM in response to PlsFixMyProblem

I also have same problem with iPhone 17pro max. This is not a DOF problem who ever stated that. There's something severely wrong with the OIS or focusing. Nothing in this picture is in focus! I have > 60% of my pictures like this. I never had issues like this with iPhone 16 pro max. I regret trading it in.

Jeff Donald

Level 8

45,528 points

Dec 4, 2025 4:02 AM in response to Abdul6677

There are multiple issues being discussed. If you want possible solutions it’s a best practice to create your own thread and include several examples of the issue you’re experiencing. Posting in long, multi page threads is not going to lead to individual solutions.

Kurtosis12

Level 9

76,672 points

Nov 6, 2025 10:38 AM in response to Mstrjay4

Apple, I really don't think it is asking too much.

This is a user to user forum, Apple isn't here.

You can make a suggestion to Apple here -

Feedback - iPhone - Apple

Oct 6, 2025 2:19 PM in response to Jeff Donald

The distance i am from the book is enough not to trigger automatic Marco Mode. As i didn’t really see any issues with Macro Mode and it was actually very beautifully sharp all the wat and better then my iphone 11, bur when taken by standard mode with no Macro then it gets really bad.

Here is one example photos ’below’, and i got many more everytime i take a photo no matter the lighting. I really don’t want to hear about some ”the 17 lens is big thats why it’s blurry” and more excuses, because a very expensive camera and my 11 pro max does very good at this without blurring nothing.

Camera settings for both: Nightmode off, Live photo off, Prioritize fast shooting off.

Here is the iPhone 17PM PHOTO:

And here is the iPhone 11PM PHOTO:

[Edited by Moderator]

Oct 6, 2025 2:20 PM in response to Jeff Donald

Here is another photo. Of course the iPhone 17PM camera has much better quality in general than the 11PM, but the blurriness definitely doesn’t qualify.

Don’t forget to zoom to see it in clear. It has nothing to do with “zooming too much in” after photo taken, because my 11 pro max still don’t got those problems at all.

And absolutely not dirty camera lenses, because i wiped nice and shine.

iPhone 17 Pro Max PHOTO:

iPhone 11 Pro Max PHOTO:

[Edited by Moderator]

Oct 6, 2025 3:17 PM in response to Jeff Donald

I do appreciate your answer. But If that’s the case with the iPhone 17s-Pro Max, then why is it that older iPhones that worked perfectly fine started having the same exact blurry/smudgy photos issues as me after updating to IOS 26? one of them is iPhone 15 Pro max for sure, i tested it today from the phone of the employee in the official apple reseller store and she also complained about noticing the camera recently become blurry after she had updated to IOS 26?? So how is that possible? And why is it important for me to have a flat table or whatever to take a photo from the book? last week I was in a classroom and i started sweating trying to take one good photo of mathematics book but all were blurry and smudgy. But iPhone 11 pro max has 0 issues no matter how flat or curved the book are? About the depth field, why can’t we just turn that off as an option and get a normal sharp whole photo?

I could take a photo with the 17PM on the flattest structure on earth and still get the same result my friend.

I start to feel it’s just a software issue that is not been acknowledged yet. I wish for a quick fix. Let’s not forget it that 17 Pro Max costs $1199 in Usa and approximately $1700 locally in my region for a plainly big problem that means alot to me, the most important upgrade i made was specially for the camera..

Oct 7, 2025 5:28 AM in response to Jeff Donald

This as real life it can gets:

IOS 26.0.1 iPhone 17 Pro Max Photo:

IOS 18.5 iPhone 11 Pro Max Photo:

Do you see the difference of the sharpness and clarity of the texts? I’m having a stroke and getting blind looking and reading from my 17. How is this not a 4K evidence of a clear issue? im seriously baffled.

[Edited by Moderator]

Oct 6, 2025 5:46 PM in response to Jeff Donald

Aight bet. I will be back tomorrow, its 2am rn. I will try to give exact distans. But really its not that deep, just back up your iphone where the automatic Macro Mode doesn’t trigger (and sets to normal 1x). And just take a photo of a book page or whatever that has texts everywhere, then try to zoom and read 🧑‍🦯.

I’m just a student, and yeah im not so familiar or knowledgeable about how DoF works, im not much of a technician. And indeed i have yet to study physics.

And i did look up depth of field, but im just not going to study it, i might as well just learn it from you😂🙌🏻

You said ”It’s an issue of lens design, sensor design and choice of materials”, what do you mean? so you confirm a problem there or what exactly?

I just cannot comprehend how a 24MP camera preform worse than a 12MP despite the size of a censor. Don’t big Canon professional camera’s has big lenses too? how come they don’t (most certain) have this blurry smudgy photos at mid-range?

Oct 7, 2025 5:22 AM in response to Jeff Donald

You know, i totally understand that this is not a hardware issue at all. And thank’s all to you who taught me all about it.

It’s crazy that the senior apple support didn’t even know about these important things for their own product and company they work for. This should be considered by Apple management.

But however, i think definitely the blurry/smudgy issue is all about image processing or camera processing software wise where it had gone wrong with IOS 26 updates. Because i’m pretty sure that there is no way apple would just give us a wicked modern day system camera with old school problem.

Tho i really appreciate you, i’m not sure if you work for Apple in a higher rank or not other than it says ”Former apple store manager” and ”joined since year 2000”🫣.. But if you could, maybe you should bring it up to them to check if it really some IOS issue with image processing or camera processing shots.

Thank you very much for your time and help.

sohworks

Level 1

14 points

Oct 10, 2025 6:39 AM in response to Jeff Donald

Jeff - Your comment doesnt make sense at all. An average user is not doing Astrophotography on a daily basis but they could be taking photos of books, monitor screens more than Astrophotography. If a basic photo from a book or a text from monitor or really from any place cannot be clear on a 1400 phone then I dont think its worth it. If someone is paying this amount of money for a latest phone, there should be no issue at all. Asking for a clear photo of a book is not rocket science.

IOS 26.0.1 camera are blurry on iPhone 17 Pro Max and older iPhones.