iPhone 4 Camera Issues
Users are having more issues with the iPhone 4 than just yellow discoloration and signal instability. Now added to the list is a problem with the iPhone 4′s rear-facing camera.
Apple introduced the iPhone 4 at WWDC, with one of the highlighted features being the improved 5-megapixel rear-facing camera with HD 720P video capture. Reports are now coming in from multiple iPhone 4 users, on Apple’s Discussion Forum, that the rear-facing camera has completely ceased to function. When the camera app, or any other app that utilizes the rear-facing camera, is opened, the shutter graphic remains closed.
Early attempts to remedy the problem have failed. One iPhone 4 user on the Apple Discussion forum, who has experienced this issue, stated:
“Erased/Restored the phone. Didn’t fix it. I even restored it to blank, and didn’t use a backup. That didn’t work either.”
Calling Apple tech support doesn’t seem to help much either, as another user discovered:
“I just got off the phone with Apple… they have no idea what is up with it. I restored my phone without the back up and that did not do anything. They said that they were going to look into the problem and call me back tomorrow”
Apple is no stranger to hardware issues following a product release; case in point, the iMac 27-inch models. However, with the iPhone 4 has seen quite a few issues already. From trivial issues that will fix themselves, to signal issues based on how you hold the iPhone, it seems as though Apple should have taken the new iPhone to a few more pubs for testing before officially releasing it.
Had similar issues with your new iPhone 4′s camera? Post a response below, detailing the problem and a solution if you found one.
Via MobileCrunch
Category: News
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
Comments (52)
Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed
Sites That Link to this Post
- iPhone 4 Glass a Little Delicate and How To Replace a Broken iPhone Screen | Notebooks.com | June 25, 2010
- Problemas varios con iPhone 4 | June 14, 2011
A friend of mind had his iPhone the day it was released and he had trouble with the volume. When making or receiving a call he could not hear the party on the other end.
My iPhone 4 camera is having this problem…. Googling brought me here.
camera issues also. going to get repaired tomorrow.
My iPhone 4 is having the same problem. Sometimes the camera does open, but it will immediately freeze and restart when it tries to focus on something. This just started happening tonight and I got my iPhone 4 the 24th.
My problem is similar. The shutter opens when using the rear camera. However, the exposure is extremely dark when compared to the camera located on the front.
I recieved my phone yesterday and it has not had a working camera since I pulled it out of the box. The fact that the crash happens after the camera attempts to focus seems to suggest a hardware issue. AT&T said they would replace my phone at the location of purchase this afternoon if they get a shipment.
Camera on Iphone 4 shutter stays closed. And when its open the camera freezes up and and seems to be really glitchy. I've had it split screen and freeze in video mode. Very frustrating.
Same problem with the camera. Shutter never opens.. What's worse is that I may not have a phone if there is not a replacement..so that sucks…FIX IT APPLE!! and appease the customers that have already gotten the phone and are malfunctioning!
I have the same problem so I restored my iphone. It worked before I put my backup on but once it had my info nothing. Seems weird….gonna try and restore again
just restored and it worked randomly
and now this morning it stopped working
I'm in the process of restoring – my phone worked a couple times, but I had to reset it every time. Now, resetting both hard and soft only open the back camera; when i swtich to front, it freezes. It's also preventing me from using facetime correctly.
I love apple products, and am well aware of the issues that come with first adopters, but this is ridiculous. First apple says there is no reception issue, then they say that the signal was wrong the whole four years and they are going to recalibrate the signal strength to show it more accurate – I hate being a puppet on a string. Just fix the damn phone.
my front camera works as long as i dont use the rear camera dont know why? if i use the rear camera it will freeze n restart the iphone this really sucks.
I've got the problem, too – and I've managed to “fix” it by hitting the side of my iPhone 4 (more or less) hard against my finger (2-3 times). Voilà , camera works again.
I think it's an issue with the camera's connector.
My front view camera is very choppy. It's even worse at night.
I've tried many different methods found at various sites and put together a walkthrough to diagnose your problem. Sadly, for me it was a hardware problem (I had to get a new phone).
http://www.brandonmartinez.com/2010/07/16/iphon…
Had my iPhone since the 24th and a few days ago the camera stopped opening immediately. I would see the shutter and it would sit for 30-45sec and then open up and work fine. At first I thought it was waiting to load my photo library but then finding this forum it seems to be a hardware issue. MY FIX – Once I finally got the camera to work and I always put it into front facing position before closing the camera down. For the last 2 days when I open the camera it takes about 2 sec to open up and works fine. Can someone else confirm that this works for them?
Just bought mine last night. The camera freezes. The shutter won't open and when it does, you can't take a picture, cuz the freeze is back. Have made an appointment at the apple store. Believe it's a hardware problem and they should replace it with a new one. Frustrating.
i bought mine online and recieved it a week later really havent had any problems with it so i dont know and i dropped it as well
im having the same issue..
Same problem here, shutter kept taking longer to open, now it just doesn't open. Notice that all of my programs that use the camera have the same problem. Try'd all the workarounds suggested online: removing/closing all background apps, restoring settings, shutdown & leaving the phone off for a couple of hours and finally restoring the entire phone.
Facetime chat should fix it!
I got my phone yestreday (09/06/2010) and i have the same issue. Shutter doesn't open at all.
First time iPhone user; I thought it was just me doing wrong, but I could get the front camera to work.
The best/only success I have had with the back camera is when it is plugged in and charging. Some of the situations I've hit:
- Picture mode: can take a single picture. Shutter then stays closed. Only exit is to hit the home (?) button on the bottom of the Iphone4. Picture is not stored.
- Picture mode: takes a very very dark picture. Only a few pixels where a glare or light is will show up. 99% of the time the shutter stays closed.
- Picture mode: camera is grayed out. Sometimes after ~2+ minutes, it activates and I can take a picture… sometimes. Often the shutter stays closed and the only escape is the “home key”
- Movie mode: red record dot is greyed out. When it finally activates after 2+ minutes, I can't really take a picture.
- If I want to move it into movie mode, I often have to wait 2+ minutes for the camera mode to become active (can't do anything while it is lost…)
This is a brand new phone. Only thing that I have activated on it is my company VPN and my email. No apps running. No music or anything loaded on it.
S/w version: 4.0.1
Serial Number: 81030JMNA4S
Brand new iPhone here in Ireland, camera not working at all, never did (some users reported it stopped working, it never did for me). Sent right back to Apple (no Genius bars here), hopefully I'll get it back early next week. I suspect I'll be getting a whole new phone.
I got my Iphone4 three days ago and my camera has not worked since I received it… Mine has similar issues, I hit the camera app and I can see where it is focusing on but then the Location box pops up and wants me to hit “ok” or “don't allow” and as soon as I choose one it shuts down and restarts the phone. I have now restored my phone twice and the issue remains.
Any other suggestions?
I guess I may have to take it to the store in the morning…. freaking sucks!
The problem I had with the camera is that when I would text or e-mail the pictures or videos to anyone that didn't have an i-phone or was running MAC instead of Windows, the pictures would be delivered sidways or upside down. They would be the same when I downloaded them to my hard drive. I spent three days on the phone with Apple tech support and they offered no fix to the problem and refused to replace the phone. I returned the phone and bought a Droid that works great.
the new phone camera worked for about a week… then shutter stopped opening. tried everything i could online, nothing helped. unfortunately received phone one week before leaving on international trip… won't be home for another 4 weeks… not exactly convenient to return to store right now… this sucks.
The issue I have is that the camera started to take quite a while to initialize. Plus on video mode, I started getting odd pinkish color interference in the video with lag. Then after a couple days of this, the camera froze all together. The shutter wouldn't open. When it froze, it wouldn't open after numerous restarts, hours later when I connected it to my PC and opened I tunes, checked for updates, (there were none) suddenly the camera started working again but it is still showing the pinkish interference lines at times. I've only had this new camera a few days.
Got my phone almost 30 days ago. Bluetooth issues – Signal breaks up when I use one. Screen starts flashing on and off, and I can’t do anything. Have had to turn it off and back on several times. Pink pictures sometimes
Stupid camera.
Im having a worse issue. My pictures wont save from text messages anymore and when I take a picture with the camera and try to send it or delete it, it says “Saving Photo” and will do that endlessly until I reboot the phone where the picture ends up deleting itsself. My camera and pics are nonfunctional at this point. Brought the phone into the Apple store where they restored it to factory setting on one of their computers. Problems were fixed but slowly started recurring again while I was still there. They replaced the phone, I went home, problems started AGAIN. ON THE NEW PHONE! I called Apple and the one of the engineers Im working with is completely stumped. Ive had this phone since July and the last month has has been hell. before that, it was working perfectly. I dont understand how this can happen on TWO phones. It has to be a software issue but Im also confused as to why this isnt happening with anyone else…
Just got my iPhone 4 yesterday. worked fine then, but this morning my phone started crashing(restarting by itself) the moment i open the camera app. the screen darkens from top to bottom and then blacks out, and the apple logo appears. tried resetting all settings, restoring from backup, restoring withuout backup… and it still crashes..
The same trouble with front camera
Same problem with my iPhone 4. Sometimes the shutter opens, but freezes after 1-2 seconds. But most of the time the shutter does not open. I tried all the tricks reported here and there, nothing worked. The front camera worked fine and no problem having a FaceTime call if I did not switch to the rear camera. I finally contacted Apple and they said it sounded like a hardware issue. I sent my iPhone 4 in for repair and now I’m just waiting for getting it back.
I’m having camera issues, though it doesn’t seem to be the camera on the back. I initially had no problem with the camera app the phone comes with, but when I tried to switch it to the camera on the front it froze on the image it was capturing from the back camera. I tried restoring but now that app doesn’t work at all and is frozen on the shutter screen. I downloaded a free camera app (Camera Plus) that works fine for the back camera, but it wont switch to the front camera. The people at the Genius bar have ordered a new camera to replace it, but I’m thinking I should just return the Iphone 4 and go with the 3GS…
I have had an iphone 4 contract for 2 months and am about to go onto my second phone. the first time the whole thing just stopped working completely. This time the rear facing camera refuses to auto-focus. Tried a Re-boot, Restore, everything. I was on the phone to O2 for an hour and eventually they just said “take it back to apple”.
Iphone 4, its a great piece of kit… when its working.
Having iPhone camera issues also. The shutter opens and the the video display works fine but none of the on screen buttons work. I can’t take a pic, flip it to video, change to front facing camera, etc… It’s a work phone so luckily I can just hand it over to IT support and let them figure it out.
Ditto
Rear camera dark, focus not right. Sending iPhone back in hopes to be replaced with a new one. Apple is good that way with their warranty. Fix it or send new device, awesome
My problem is similiar, but different. when I open the camera, it shows the image right side up, but the camera icon both on upper right & lower middle of screen is upside down. When I take pics and view them they are upside down. I have reset settings and turned off & on twice..not resolving. I can’t find any answers to this problem online either. Discouraging
My new iPod rear camera freezes both shutters, including front and rear until I restore it, unfortunatey it continues so what’s the deal. 3$pecially when ya receipt is history
After 3 month and no issue, my front camera won’t come up! My rear one still works!
Yes, I am facing the same issue. When I opened my camera, by default its going to Video shoot mode and working fine. But when I changed the mode to photo, its just turning off and going to home screen.
When I contacted Apple Support, they coolly said to take AppleCare protection plan..
Shutter staying closed on my (new for Christmas) iPhone 4, won’t open no matter what I do. The problem started this morning when I tried to use the rear-facing camera. Fortunately, Hipstamatic and 100Cameras-in-one apps still work….but just in case, I won’t be using the rear facing camera feature on the 100cameras. Love the phone otherwise, but this is kind of a drag.
Is Apple listening to anyone of us here? Or THEY NO LONGER CARE BECAUSE THEY ALREADY GOT OUR HARD-EARNED MONEY?! Whatever Steve Jobs says… the signal issue is true, the camera does not work properly, in short the product is not what it purports to be! It is defective. What would you do now Apple? Where is the reputation and stuff like that?
Is Apple listening to anyone of us here? Or THEY NO LONGER CARE BECAUSE THEY ALREADY GOT OUR HARD-EARNED MONEY?! Whatever Steve Jobs says… the signal issue is true, the camera does not work properly, in short THE PRODUCT IS NOT WHAT IT PURPORTS TO BE! It is defective.
What would you do now Apple? Would you release the iPhone 5 already leaving problems of the iPhone 4 unresolved and make iPhone 4 users feel pathetic at that? Where is the reputation and stuff like that?
i bought it new few days back, whenever i open camer somtimes its shutter wont work and it will restart or it would crash and restart
it randomnly restarts sometime without any apparent reason
sometimes it reboots even if i open any thing
updated to 4.2
restored it, resetted it, restored to point blank, updated software from 4.1 to 4.2
nothing worked at all…really pissed right now
bought desire now and more than happy with it at least it you can use it unlike iphone 4
Apple should have the courtesy to at least give solutions to its consumers but they just wouldnt
Have an iPhone 4. Camera issues with shutter not opening. Tried multiple restarts, added latest update today hoping for the best, but no dice. Seemed to start after the 4.3 update about a week ago. Applied the 4.31 update today, no help. The iPhone has too many “quirks”, and there’s nothing you can do to reset or fix it. Wishing I had my old Blackberry back…
I hwas having the same problem. Go to your App Store and download “Camera Zoom” (it’s FREE). That fixed my Iphone 4.
I was having the same problem with my Iphone 4. I went to my App Store and downloaded “Camera Zoom” (it’s Free). That fixed the problem immediately.