should my iphone xs max camera look blurry?

So my front facing camera and rear camera are terrible on my iphone xs max 256GB... Even after the IOS 12.1 update i'm still having these issues. Here are some pictures that i took with my xs max and my old iphone 7 plus. The difference between both phones is HUGE!! Did i pay over 1400 dollars for this?????!!!!!! Also if i take pictures with apps like snapchat or instagram it's just worse than the normal camera app on my iphone.

Hello. I have an update. I’m calling this solved, at least for me. While I said previously playing with the settings helped the issue, my problem never went away. All pics are grainy and sometimes with lens flare. It’s much worse and move obvious in low light pics but the issue is in ALL pics. After going through every troubleshooting possibility (software updates, cleaning the lens, clearing cache, using other camera apps, etc.  nothing made my pics look as fantastic as everyone else on the web was claiming. How could a camera touted as the best ever look so awful in all my pics?  So I finally threw in the towel and took my phone to the Apple Store. In advance, I took many pics in many lighting situations to show examples. They ran diagnostics and said “it passed the tests just fine.”  I said just look at my pics. They agreed they look bad. But what happened next was the definitive proof. They took pics with the store camera and my camera. Side by side. It was immediately obvious that all of my pics are worse. The conclusion: a hardware defect. Thankfully i have Apple Care. They gave me a new phone. Guess what?  No issues!!!  It looks and works perfectly. The pics are beautiful. So if you are still making yourself crazy like I did. My advice is to stop the troubleshooting and take it to Apple. Cheers and good luck. I hope this helps. 

I am more inclined to believe now it's the lighting within the area, generally photos taken within areas of poor lighting are of low quality. Ensure you're making use of all the camera functions or try using flash instead.

Hope this helps,
OllieX

That makes sense. Here is a side by side comparison of my IPhone XR and my husband’s XR. I checked and both phones had all the same settings on the camera and both phones screen brightness all the way up. Mine is on left and husband’s on right. Especially look at the ceiling. And the pic was taken with my son’s 6s and his even looks better at the top where the ceiling is!! I also sent the two pics actually taken on each iPhone XR.

Hi Jeremy.

Almost definitely sounds like an issue to me, I'm not too sure on the troubleshooting procedure for this issue but I would definitely take advantage of your warranty and take it back to your local store or send it off to be checked out!

Hope this helps,

OllieX

Mine is the same. Good lighting, bad lighting, hdr on, hdr off, front camera, back camera , flash no flash, all my pictures look like crap. When you zoom in 0 detail and they all look pixelated. I compared it to pictures from my iphone 6 and they look 5 times better. Makes me very mad >< that this is happening.

I have the exact same issue. Have you found out anymore about this? I can hardly find any info about it when I google..... super frustrating since the camera is the main reason I upgraded to the XS :(

I have exactly same issue. All of my pictures taken in even decent lighting conditions looks smudgy. I contacted Apple support and they asked me to take it to the store and get a replacement but I don't think that will help. To me it seem Apple Post processing/Noise reduction algorithm is working too hard making image almost non usable. Can't believe hype about this camera. Look at Google Pixel photos. The difference is night and day.

It is with each and every XS and XS Max. I returned my XS and currently typing this on Max and it has same issue. Something seriously wrong with lost processing. I can’t get a clear pic on my son in low lights.

I am having the same issues. I contacted apple support and got my phone replaced. But as expected this one is exactly the same.
The main reason I upgraded was to get an updated better camera on my phone. I wish I had stayed with my iPhone 6plus. Much better photos, in all lights!

My Max 256 also has the same exact problem! All of my pics look exactly as yours do in any lighting.

It really makes me mad because my last iPhone was iPhone 6plus and it has a defective camera right out of the box and was a part of the recall. In that case I went to the store and immediately told them the camera wasn’t working properly and they tried to convince me it was just the camera settings that was effecting the photo quality, and I knew that it was not. This is ridiculous.

I have the XS Max and mine takes terrible pics too. ***** A friend at work has the X and it takes better pictures than this phone does. So much money for this and it takes images almost as bad as old flip phones. I have so far loved the way all the products work together etc but this camera is terrible for someone who always takes pictures of his kids etc.

[Edited by Host]

Same for me. I just got mine on Black Friday and haven’t really been able to use my camera much. Used it at my office party today. Everyone was so excited to use my phone for our group photos. It was AWFUL. Tried in different lights and even outside. My coworkers’ 3 year old Samsung and iPhone 6 Plus took better photos!!!! This is ridiculous. $1200 phone and this is what we get? My photos look like they were taken on a 5 year old phone. I tried all settings even saving in JPEG vs the high efficiency. No difference in any quality.

I had my husband take the same photo of our dog when I came home did by side with his Galaxy S9. Mine is so grainy compared to his. This is all rear camera. I bought this phone due to all the camera hype!! I had a 7 Plus and my photos were better on that. Grrr. Been Googling like crazy trying to find if there was an issue. Glad I found this thread. Obviously it’s not just me. Not happy at all with this problem. Wish I had went with the Pixel now.

I just wish they would acknowledge there is an issue and fix the problem. I dont mind there is one as long as they FIX it. No band aides no excuses, fix the problem. Its not like this phone was a couple of hundred bucks.

That one I cannot say for sure. I would assume so. I thought it pretty much had the same camera as the IPhone X has in it just with different features. I could be wrong though. This was my first Apple device. Ive been Android since my first smartphone that wasnt a Blackberry.