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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Jeff Donald

Community+ 2026

Level 9

57,597 points

Posted on Oct 6, 2025 2:18 PM

Hi, this is a very simple issue of a concept called Depth of Field (DoF). DoF can be expressed as a mathematical formula. Rather than post a lot of math, you can see the formula and how it works here,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field

The concept though is fairly simple. There is a zone of acceptable sharpness/focus that extends both behind and in front of the exact point you focus upon. The further objects appear from the exact point of focus the blurrier they become.

You’re attempting to photograph a flat page in a book, but it’s not perfectly flat. Do you see the dip in the center of book, along the spine. You’ll achieve better results using a ½” or ⅝” polished plate glass to hold the book flatter. Not perfect, but better than what you’re currently doing.

Why did the DoF change between older cameras and newer cameras? Apple made a design decision to improve the camera and resulting images for the average photographer. One of the improvements was to a larger sensor and different lens design for the 24mm (1X) lens. The changes resulted in different parameters and the DoF changed and became narrower (less objects in focus both in front of and behind point of focus). This is why newer models will not produce images with less DoF when focused close. The newer models do produce better/sharper images with the 24mm lens that the average photographer will take such as portraits, seascapes, sunsets, sports etc.

Your options are to return the iPhone and purchase an older model, purchase a camera better suited for flat reproduction images, modify your current technique and equipment for better results.

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Oct 27, 2025 4:55 PM in response to Senator48

As someone that’s been involved with iPhones since 2007 and photography in general for almost 50 years, don’t expect much change from Apple. Every year a small segment of the iPhone camera community voice their concerns about the over processing of images. I’ve witnessed this since about iPhone 7.

Tge solution is simple and it won’t come from Apple. Instead look to third party camera apps and their developers. Apps such as Halide, Reeflex, Leica LUX, and ProCamera will do minimally processed Raw files. No computational photography. The ones I mentioned above all charge a subscription fee or a high lifetime purchase fee. However, there is one free app, FotoGear that does a Raw files will little to no processing. But If Apple hasn’t changed in almost 10 years, I wouldn’t hold out for them starting with iPhone 17 Pro models.

If you want to switch, you might consider some of the Chinese models or the Google Pixel 10 models. The Pixel does computational photography, but most photographers feel they do less than Apple or Samsung. Overall, the consensus is Samsung does the most computational photography and it’s notorious for digital hallucinations.

lrostoen

Level 1

9 points

Nov 20, 2025 4:13 AM in response to lrostoen

The 24mm comment was moderated out - it's an important comment to include :) - The current default lens is 24mm which is too wide which is causing images to be distorted and blurry. By changing the default to 35mm, it helps reduce the distortion and the camera's focusing issues :) .

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