[Updated] iPhone 14 Pro autofocus issues with close & regular distance subjects reported by some users (potential workarounds inside)

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Original story (published on September 30, 2022) follows:

Here’s the crux of the article in video form:

Apple recently launched the iPhone 14 Pro & 14 Pro Max which come with upgraded cameras, an Always-on display, and longer battery life.

But shortly after the release, users started noticing issues with the camera where it would start shaking uncontrollably and create noise.

iPhone 14 Pro autofocus not working

Many iPhone 14 (especially 14 Pro & Pro Max) users are reporting an issue where the autofocus is not working properly (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8).

There is an issue with the new iPhone 14 pro max camera, it doesnt focus when trying to take a pic up close, which it should, Im sure there will be a miracle cure eh @AppleSupport
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The iPhone 14 Pro main camera has a very far minimum focus distance. I can’t focus on things as close up as I could with the 13 pro using the main camera
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My brand new iPhone 14 Pro Max’s camera is blurry whenever attempting to take close up pictures in 3rd party apps like Amazon, Target, Walmart (ie barcode scans). Phone is brand new out the box, updated to latest iOS (16.0.2), and have reinstalled the apps.
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Users feel that their devices are having trouble focusing on objects that are relatively closer. Sometimes, the camera focuses in such a way that it causes flickering and stuttering even with regular objects.

It is also very difficult for some users to focus on close objects via 3rd party apps like Line, WhatsApp, Snapchat, and Instagram.

Surprisingly, the issue occurs while making videos as well which is accompanied by a muffled humming sound.

Owing to this issue, some users are also unable to scan QR codes as their camera is always out of focus.

When opening applications that have to use the camera to scan codes, I am unable to scan them because the image is out of focus and cannot be focused.
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It seems that the autofocus issues are primarily due to the bigger sensor size as they were evident on the Samsung Galaxy S20 as well.

There are also a couple of reports that suggest that the camera-related problems were there on previous (iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max) models too.

Potential workarounds

Unfortunately, Apple hasn’t acknowledged the issue where autofocus is not working on the iPhone 14 Pro. But we have come across a couple of workarounds that can help resolve it temporarily.

The first one involves going to the camera settings and enabling the Macro Control option.

Settings > Camera > Macro Control enabled to see whether camera is in macro mode or not switching back and forth.
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Affected users can also simply try restarting the camera app.

Yeah this happens to me too, I have to restart my camera app and it works again
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We hope that Apple comes up with a fix soon so that users can click good-quality pictures on their devices.

We’ll keep tabs on further developments and update the article as and when something noteworthy comes up.

04:47 pm (IST): According to the latest reports, it seems that the focusing issue on close subjects is still present even after a few iOS updates (1,2,3,4,5).

NOTE: You can also check the iPhone 14 bugs/issues tracker.

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