I'm noticing that using apps like FedEx, UPS and snapchat, that the rear facing camera doesn't want to auto focus at close distances. The focus seems to be set about 10-12 inches away, which is ok, but you can't tap to adjust it or swap to the difference lenses. Might be a 3rd party app problem but not sure. Wanted to see if anyone else is noticing the same. iPhone 14 pro IOS 16.0.1
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Camera not auto focusing in 3rd part apps - IOS 16 iPhone 14 pro
- Thread starter jacox3
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I would update to iOS 16.0.2. Apple specifically mentioned in the notes a fix for the camera on 3rd party applications.
Last update did not fixed that. I have the problem too. Auto focus works well at short distance with the native camera app but not in 3rd party apps, so i cannot scan qr code or anything else…. Really annoying do not know if it’s an ios bug or if those apps need to update.
I confirm it's also happening on 16.0.3.
The trick I've found to circumvent this is to zoom (pinch) just a little bit.
As soon as you do, autofocus on 3rd party app works and object or doc is focused properly.
I hope that the same way it's fixed on native Camera app it can be fixed on 3rd party apps. Most likely the latter shares the same API to call camera, and there is where the fix should be applied.
If each dev needs to address this at app level, shared OS APIs wouldn't make sense.
The trick I've found to circumvent this is to zoom (pinch) just a little bit.
As soon as you do, autofocus on 3rd party app works and object or doc is focused properly.
I hope that the same way it's fixed on native Camera app it can be fixed on 3rd party apps. Most likely the latter shares the same API to call camera, and there is where the fix should be applied.
If each dev needs to address this at app level, shared OS APIs wouldn't make sense.
The problem is that the minimum focus on the 14 pro's isn't the same as on the 13 pro's, the native camera app gets around this by switching to the ultra wide up close so you don't notice it. 3rd party apps ideally need to use the ultra wide lens instead of the main one, weather they will bother to update to do this is another thing.
It *seems* to be better on 16.1, at least with the very limited testing I did. It seems like this could be fixed very easily by allowing these types of apps to use “macro mode”. As in the stock camera app, you can get a close up photo of bar codes etc no problem when that is switched on.
It needs to be fixed by the various third party apps. The new camera can't focus as close as the old one, and the app needs to switch to the 0.5x camera which can focus closer. That's not up to iOS to do. You should contact the companies who write the apps that still give you problems.
It is annoying, especially for scanning barcodes as you have to hold them so far away they are tiny on the screen, makes scan and shop type apps a chore to use.
I think this is a general issue of the lense. I have the same issue on my iPhone 12 Pro Max and what I usually would do is hold the phone further away and then zoom in to get it to focus. However, some apps do not let you zoom in. The other day I was supposed to show my ID for verification in one of those online videocall verification things and it just did not work. I had to take out my old iPhone 7 Plus to get it verified because the 12 PM simply did not focus when I was holding it too close to the ID