Other XS MAX: All Photos Are Blurry!

[theinstructor]

Wife and I went out for our big anniversary with the new Max and EVERY photo we took came out like ****. Blurry. We gave up taking pics and switched back to our old 8+ phones. Later, I troubleshot it and rebooted as well and suddenly the pictures we took were all clear! WTF WTF APPLE?!? We actually gave up on our anniversary taking pictures because of your quality control. Now, what caused this...iOS or hardware? Hi Pixel XL. Are we going to become friends? #SAD

 

[balaplus]

Photos look blurry if you enable 'optimise phone storage' to offload full size photos to the cloud
Any chance this is that issue?

 

[Illuminated]

Perhaps it's not the phone....

 

[Zune55]

Wife and I went out for our big anniversary with the new Max and EVERY photo we took came out like sh*t. Blurry. We gave up taking pics and switched back to our old 8+ phones. Later, I troubleshot it and rebooted as well and suddenly the pictures we took were all clear! WTF WTF APPLE?!? We actually gave up on our anniversary taking pictures because of your quality control. Now, what caused this...iOS or hardware? Hi Pixel XL. Are we going to become friends? #SAD

Calm down buddy there maybe some settings issue, could be there’s some cake on camera lens etc. Relax!

 

[Packers1958]

You did take the plastic film off the phone didn't you?

 

[DBZmusicboy01]

Wife and I went out for our big anniversary with the new Max and EVERY photo we took came out like sh*t. Blurry. We gave up taking pics and switched back to our old 8+ phones. Later, I troubleshot it and rebooted as well and suddenly the pictures we took were all clear! WTF WTF APPLE?!? We actually gave up on our anniversary taking pictures because of your quality control. Now, what caused this...iOS or hardware? Hi Pixel XL. Are we going to become friends? #SAD

You have to zoom into the picture and it will all clear up
It’s a iOS 12 kinda problem lately
Check if that was the cause
Sometimes you have to click and zoom in and out so the program can read the data
Some crazy thing but it happen to my other iPhone

 

[BugeyeSTI]

It’s called coincidence. Apple didn’t want to ruin your anniversary, same as if your waiter/waitress got your order for dinner wrong. Enjoy the evening and don’t let something out of your control ruin a special occasion..

 

[rmeadejr]

You did take the plastic film off the phone didn't you?

Someone called me this morning and I answered with my new iPhone and I couldn’t hear them....I forgot to take the film off the phone....LMAO

 

[cwilliams706]

Photos look blurry if you enable 'optimise phone storage' to offload full size photos to the cloud
Any chance this is that issue?

I didn’t know this, thank you for sharing!

To the original poster, I’m sorry to hear that you two experienced this during your anniversary outing. Apple is usually great at expressing empathy for situations like this, especially during product launches. I suggest reaching out to them and sharing what occurred, good luck my friend.

 

[Newtons Apple]

Wife and I went out for our big anniversary with the new Max and EVERY photo we took came out like sh*t. Blurry. We gave up taking pics and switched back to our old 8+ phones. Later, I troubleshot it and rebooted as well and suddenly the pictures we took were all clear! WTF WTF APPLE?!? We actually gave up on our anniversary taking pictures because of your quality control. Now, what caused this...iOS or hardware? Hi Pixel XL. Are we going to become friends? #SAD

Post some images so we can see!

 

[DDustiNN]

Photos look blurry if you enable 'optimise phone storage' to offload full size photos to the cloud
Any chance this is that issue?

This was my first thought as well. Photos are blurry because they’re low-res on your phone. Then your phone downloads the full version from iCloud for viewing, maybe if you open it or zoom in or something. I dunno but I didn’t like it, so I disabled it. I like having the full quality already on my phone.

 

[Chundles]

Someone called me this morning and I answered with my new iPhone and I couldn’t hear them....I forgot to take the film off the phone....LMAO

Remember when the iPod touch was fixed inside the box with a sticker over the screen that had a picture of the home screen on it?

I had a customer come in screaming to high heaven and ranting that her new iPod didn’t work. I asked what was wrong, she thrust it into my face and tapped at the pictures on the sticker with her finger saying IT DOESNT BLOODY WORK!!

Oh the look on her face when I peeled the sticker off and turned the thing on was priceless.

Anyway, yeah probably iCloud Photo Library.

 

[PBz]

Confirm Settings - Camera - Formats - Most Compatible

 

[mjjferreira]

Wife and I went out for our big anniversary with the new Max and EVERY photo we took came out like ****. Blurry. We gave up taking pics and switched back to our old 8+ phones. Later, I troubleshot it and rebooted as well and suddenly the pictures we took were all clear! WTF WTF APPLE?!? We actually gave up on our anniversary taking pictures because of your quality control. Now, what caused this...iOS or hardware? Hi Pixel XL. Are we going to become friends? #SAD

Goodbye then.

 

[theinstructor]

Very helpful. The plastic film yeah why didn’t I think of that...That must have been it, geniuses. Man, there’s a lot of trolling in here lately.

So the optimize iPhone storage option, when that is enabled and the phone is in a poor cell coverage area, it will still only show you a low-quality version of the photos you are taking? I’ve never seen that happen before. On my 8+ I was taking shots in a zero cell area near Zion NP and did not see this effect on my photos. Thank you to those who replied with helpful ideas. I’ll try to reproduce this today.