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Iphone Bug Apple Hardware

Bug in iPhone 14 Pro Max Causes Camera To Physically Fail, Users Say (theguardian.com) 66

Posted by msmash from the you-are-bugging-it-wrong dept.
mspohr writes: A major bug in Apple's latest iPhone is causing the camera to physically fail when using apps such as TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram, some owners have reported. The bug in the company's iPhone 14 Pro Max, the most expensive model in the iPhone 14 range, appears to affect the optical image stabilisation (OIS) feature, which uses a motor to eliminate the effects of camera shake when taking pictures. Opening the camera in certain apps causes the OIS motor to go haywire, causing audible grinding sounds and physically vibrating the entire phone. The vibration does not occur when using the built-in camera app, suggesting the problem's roots are in a software fault. However, some have warned affected users to limit their usage of apps that trigger the bug, in case excess vibration causes permanent damage to the OIS system. The company has previously warned users about potential damage to the OIS motor, particularly in situations where their phones are experiencing significant vibration. In January this year, the company published a long warning note for users about the risk of mounting their iPhones near "high-power motorcycle engines."
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Bug in iPhone 14 Pro Max Causes Camera To Physically Fail, Users Say More

Bug in iPhone 14 Pro Max Causes Camera To Physically Fail, Users Say

Comments Filter:

  • Don't shake the baby (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    LOL

  • may need an recall / warranty repair at no cost to (Score:3)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Monday September 19, 2022 @11:14AM (#62894939)

    may need an recall / warranty repair at no cost to end user

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      But first the normal multi-year denial by Apple.

    • Actually, sounds like a beneficial, undocumented behavior.

      Anything that results in less TikTok is a good thing!!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      They will fix it with software, the issue is people whose phones have already been damaged. Might not even have failed yet, just reduced the lifetime of the motor significantly.

    • Before we get to that, we're going to need at least one majorly tone deaf asinine quip from an executive at Apple about how it's your fault (holding it wrong, etc.). Then a whole lot of hand-wringing and hyperbolic language about how this software defect is a complete injustice perpetrated upon the Instagram influencer community, and how spoiled youths can't use their $1400 phone to post their Tiktok videos of them doing the exact same dance to the exact same shitty song as several hundred other people, an

      • No one at apple ever said you are holding it wrong about the iphone 4 issue. Someone posted a obviously fake screen shot of outlook with a fake email from steve jobs (implying windows users couldnâ(TM)t figure out joe to use the iphone). For some reason reality and meme has crossed over, and oriole think today Steve Jobs actually told people they were holding the phone wrong.
        • The email you mention has little to do with the meme - it just put what people were already thinking. Just look what they did: * They claimed there's no problems with it in a controlled environment (the issue is when signal gets spotty) * they offered a bumper TEMPORARILY (i.e. a month later, you're on your own). So how else would you interpret this? A temporary fix for something there isn't a problem with (from their perspective)... certainly sounds like we're holding it wrong
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Tim Cook's Apple, ladies and gentlemen... (Score:4, Funny)

    by haunebu ( 16326 ) on Monday September 19, 2022 @11:18AM (#62894961) Homepage

    When the CEO was the head of supply chain, his job for decades was squeezing every bit of value possible from suppliers to reduce costs and enhance profitability. That sums up Tim Cook's tenure as Apple CEO perfectly. No major innovation, just a ton of iteration, refinement, and cost savings... occasionally he squeezes a little too hard and build quality suffers.

    Times were very different under Steve. Exciting, even! I miss the old Apple.

  • Motorcycle warning (Score:3)

    by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Monday September 19, 2022 @11:30AM (#62895011)

    So I looked it up. "Don't shake the everloving shit out of it by strapping it to a noisy vibration inducing machine." Okay, this isn't exactly the CEO saying, "Well, don't hold it that way!"

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by lsllll ( 830002 )
      That's bullshit. Riders or bicycles, motorcycles, cars, trucks all use phone holders. Other phones don't have an issue with vibrations of that kind. Sounds like they pushed a half-baked product out the door.

      • The warning was for "high powered motorcycle engines". Not bicycles, cars, trucks or even regular motorcycles. I don't know if you know you're straw manning it or not.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      Yeah, you "looked it up". Funny how easy it was to actually look it up.

      https://www.engadget.com/2010-... [engadget.com]

      Official Apple comment:

      "Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, o

      • I explicitly brought that up to point out that this example - vibrating on motorcycles - isn't that example, being "don't hold it that way". The former is reasonable. The latter wasn't. I think you missed my point, and I don't think it was poorly stated.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dfghjk ( 711126 )

          Yes, you are right, but your original post appeared to be refuting a claim that the CEO said "don't hold it that way". I misunderstood what you said you "looked up". My mistake.

          Separately, I think "don't mount it to a motorcycle" is a lot like "don't hold it that way". OTOH, I never found "don't hold it that way" all that unreasonable.

          • Hah - we're in mild disagreement. Well, I can accept that. :) I'll phrase my responses better.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by King_TJ ( 85913 )

      What I never understood was why the stabilization motor would even be engaged at all, except for when you're actively trying to use the camera?

      Seems like the phone being strapped to a motorcycle wouldn't hurt a thing unless Apple is saying the image stabilization is constantly active, vs when it's actually needed? That's a waste of battery life and excessive/needless wear and tear on the stabilizer system.

    • Name any modern street motorcycle with a severe vibration problem or which is noisy with a stock exhaust.

      Their hardware sucks.

  • You're opening the app wrong. Q.E.D.

  • "You're shaking it wrong!" (Score:4, Funny)

    by Fuzi719 ( 1107665 ) on Monday September 19, 2022 @11:37AM (#62895037)
    It's the user's fault, of course. ;)

  • Won't someone think of the children? Imagine all the spare time they'll have on their hands because new videos won't be uploaded. The horror!

  • Do iPhone pictures still come out with a blue tint?

  • when using apps such as TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram

    Sounds like an awesome feature not a bug.

  • Feature? (Score:3)

    by douglasfir77 ( 6439950 ) on Monday September 19, 2022 @11:48AM (#62895081)
    Pretty sure this is a feature not a bug! /s

  • Simple solution: don't use those apps! Thank Apple for helping you to reacquaint yourself with the public internet. The proprietary part is for those who -- let's just say they lack awareness of the hidden cost.

  • Bug . . . physically fail (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Crowded ( 6202674 ) on Monday September 19, 2022 @11:51AM (#62895097)

    Back in my day, we'd say "hardware defect found in newly released phone" --- then note that it sometimes works before failing . . .

    But, let's re-use words for other meaning . . . and stuff.

    • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by cayenne8 ( 626475 )

      Back in my day, we'd say "hardware defect found in newly released phone" --- then note that it sometimes works before failing . . .

      But, let's re-use words for other meaning . . . and stuff.

      Yep.

      Remember back about a year ago when if you used the word "woman" you and everyone else knew exactly what you were talking about?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

        emember back about a year ago when if you used the word "woman" you and everyone else knew exactly what you were talking about?

        While you apparently reveled in your ignorance, and are extremely upset to discover that the world isn't as neat as you thought, some of us learned about heard about things like Sweyer syndrome [medlineplus.gov] decades ago.

        Now y'all cannot figure whether being a women means genetics, anatomy, or engaging in any behavior that's insufficiently manly [youtube.com] for y'all. Grow a pair.

        • remember back about a year ago when if you used the word "woman" you and everyone else knew exactly what you were talking about?

          While you apparently reveled in your ignorance, and are extremely upset to discover that the world isn't as neat as you thought, some of us learned about heard about things like Sweyer syndrome decades ago.

          Of course there have always been edge cases....that are barely a blip on the statistically significance scale.

          But when you speak of men or women, it is the overwhelming ma

      • Remember back about 6 years ago when we didn't try to correlate completely unrelated things to the political grievance of the month?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's not a hardware defect.

      Apple uses a motor to provide optical image stabilization. The motor moves the lens to counteract any movement the phone experiences. It's usually a passive mechanism but for whatever reason Apple went active.

      Due to a software bug the motor goes nuts when not using the Apple camera app. Try to take a photo in another app and it can happen.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        Sounds like a hardware bug. It should either have no issues resulting from going nuts or the hardware should refuse to go nuts.

        It must be a special kind of nuts if it doesn't destroy the picture quality, something along the lines of activating motors in opposition resulting in the lens position being frozen. The hardware shouldn't allow that condition at all if damage is the result.

        It may be possible to paper over it in software using the Groucho Marx principle ("So don't do that!").

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          It does destroy the picture quality. And having software limit things to prevent damage is common, e.g. your car almost certainly does it that way.

        • This! If software is allowed to mess up the hardware beyond being fixed on reboot, then the hardware is at the very least badly designed.

          • Hardware is hardware and typically has no idea what it is doing. If it does know what it is doing, that is due to some controller firmware (as in software). Sometimes there are mechanical protections preventing damage but for stuff that moves, the motors involved are more than willing to destroy themselves when asked.

            I can force the motors on my 3D printer to try to move along one axis, stalling against the endstop indefinitely to the point that they overheat and fail. It's not the hardware's fault that it

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by sjames ( 1099 )

              OTOH, it's damned hard to overheat the steppers on a 3D printer. More likely, the drivers will get too warm and shut down (the hardware protecting itself).

              • Iâ(TM)ve managed it once in a non-contrived situation. Heated build chamber, well cooled control board, high driver voltage, and crappy motor. Since then Iâ(TM)ve gotten the X and Y motors out of the build chamber at the cost of slightly worse chamber heating efficiency.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by sjames ( 1099 )
                  I could see a heated chamber doing that. Fortunately I haven't needed that yet for what I print. It's do-able but it would be a real pain to move the controller and display. If I even need that, I'll just get a core XY machine if at all possible, preferably with the steppers on the bottom with metal shafts to the pulleys.

      • Not to mock (I gotta ask) . . . but what unit of measurement is “goes nuts” classify under? Are we talking like on a Mel Brooks / Hitchhiker’s guide SAE/Metric setup? Does it scale to account for lovecraftian anomalies as well?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mspohr ( 589790 )

      It seems this is a software bug which causes the camera hardware to go crazy and "vibrate and grind". So, the hardware "fail" is caused by software. This seems to be a temporary failure but Apple warns that doing this repeatedly (such as on vibrating machinery) could cause permanent damage to the camera hardware even without this software bug.

  • They must be holding the phone wrong.. ;)

  • It's not a flaw (Score:3)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Monday September 19, 2022 @12:24PM (#62895211)

    It happens with TikTok because of Apple's new auto-Twerk AI.

  • This sort of driver bugs is what makes difference between real $300 branded phone and cheap $100 no-name phone.

  • So I guess it's back to the old "you're using it wrong" excuse?

  • So the anti-vibration system can become damaged if subjected to vibrations. Got it!!!

  • Apple probably has too many wocoders working there by now.

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