iPhone X Camera Picture Quality Significantly Worse Under iOS 12

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iPhone X Camera Picture Quality Significantly Worse Under iOS 12

Since updating to iOS 12 I've had significantly degraded image quality from the camera on my iPhone X when compared to photos I was taking under iOS 11.

The key problems I've noticed are:

Auto-focus is not as accurate or fast as on iOS 11.
There is significantly more aggressive noise reduction / image smoothing which looks very poor, certainly much worse than iOS 11.
The phone struggles under lower light conditions - much more than it did on iOS 11.
Bright lights (e.g. a cars headlights) cause very poor results both with HDR enabled and disabled regardless of the focal point - a problem I did not have under iOS 11.

At first I thought it was just a dirty lens or I was doing something wrong but I'm now convinced it's a software bug in iOS 12 and 12.1 beta.

I've tried the following:

Cleaning the lens.
Gently tapping around the lens.
Reset all settings.
Factory reset.
Full reinstall (using IPSW) in iTunes.
Installing iOS 12.1 beta.
Testing with HDR disabled and enabled.
Testing with AF lock.
Comparing with a friends iPhone 8, which now seems to take better photos than my X.

For a $1800 phone - I expect a lot better than this but it seems to me that this is a software (or firmware) bug.

iPhone X

Posted on Oct 29, 2018 3:15 AM

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Answer 1

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s_mcleod Author

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11 points

Oct 29, 2018 3:30 AM in response to s_mcleod

Example of struggling to focus (the dog was sitting very still and no zoom was used):

Example of struggling to focus even under good (bright and consistent) lighting and with a very steady hand you can see the image stabilisation seems to be doing nothing:

Example of struggling to focus under medium lighting conditions and foreground lights causing and overly strong bloom effect (note: with headlights off the image was even more blurry and a lot more noise reduction):

Example of focus and image stabilisation struggling under medium / low lighting but with a very steady hand, again foreground lights cause overly strong bloom effect:

Example of focus struggling badly even under bright outdoor light, note that the lighting was overhead and consistent despite it looking washed out and smokey over the front of the car:

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Answer 2

s_mcleod Author

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Oct 29, 2018 3:36 AM in response to s_mcleod

Example of a brightly lit projected keynote in a conference room when selecting the projection as the focus and light point you can see the camera failing to focus and a lot of noise reduction:

Example of an extreme close up under medium lighting conditions and no zoom, you can see the overly aggressive noise reduction / smoothing:

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Answer 3

s_mcleod Author

Level 1

11 points

Nov 4, 2018 8:17 PM in response to s_mcleod

Update on this: After online chat with Apple Support, Then a phone conversation (and an escalation to another more senior staff member), then a visit to the Apple store they replaced the camera unit (took about 1.5 hours so while I waited).

It seems a bit better (mainly less glare from light and the colours are better) although still definitely worse than it was under iOS 11.

I'm thinking it's likely that iOS 11 has indeed nerfed the camera quality, although I think it's likely my camera also had a fault that made it especially bad.

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Answer 4

s_mcleod Author

Level 1

11 points

Oct 29, 2018 3:22 AM in response to s_mcleod

Note: I notice the same issues on both the front and rear facing cameras.

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iPhone X Camera Picture Quality Significantly Worse Under iOS 12

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