Today, September 19, the first pre-orders of the new iPhones arrive in customers’ hands, just ten days after Apple officially unveiled the iPhone 17 series. The timing looks perfect – new phones, excited fans, and the smell of fresh packaging. But yesterday, Henry T. Casey from CNN Underscored decided to spoil the party a little.
In his review of the iPhone Air, he showed that the camera does not always handle concerts gracefully. During a TV on the Radio show, with a bright LED stage backdrop, he discovered that about one out of every ten photos taken on the iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro Max included mysterious blacked-out patches. Some looked like boxes, others cut into the white squiggles of the LED board. Let’s be honest, this is not the kind of creative filter anyone asked for. So we will take a closer look at the issue, explain Apple’s official reaction, and see whether earlier iPhones had the same bug.
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How This Camera Bug Shows Itself in Real Photos
Henry T. Casey did not set out to roast Apple. His review of the iPhone Air painted a strong picture of the device’s strengths, and he placed the camera glitch in the very last paragraph almost as a side note. Still, one odd line about black boxes in concert photos was enough to set off discussions among fans.
The glitch itself showed up only under brutal lighting conditions. When Casey pointed the phone at a massive LED stage backdrop, about one in ten photos came back with strange artifacts: solid black boxes cutting through the image, or warped white squiggles where light should have been. Think of it as your photo quietly volunteering to censor itself, whether you asked for it or not.
What makes the bug so unusual is its precision. It does not ruin the whole image, only parts of it. In one shot, a black rectangle even blocked a performer’s face, while the rest of the frame stayed crisp. That points to a software hiccup in the image processing pipeline rather than a camera hardware fault. Outside of that extreme LED scenario, the phones produced normal, high-quality shots, which makes the bug more of a rare nuisance than a daily issue.
Fast Apple’s Reaction. Maybe Too Fast?
Apple did not wait long to respond. Barely a day after Casey’s review appeared, the company already confirmed the problem, explained its cause, and promised a fix. According to Apple, the glitch happens in rare cases when an extremely bright LED display shines directly into the camera. A patch will arrive in an upcoming iOS update.
And here is where the thought creeps in: did Apple really discover the root cause in a single night, or has this bug been haunting iOS for years while engineers quietly chipped away at it? After all, iPhone 16, iPhone 15, and even iPhone 12 owners reported black boxes in their photos long before the iPhone 17 existed. Suddenly Apple moves at lightning speed when the new flagship is on the line. Coincidence, or just Apple finally deciding to tidy up the code?
As fans, we can’t complain too loudly. Apple admitted the issue, labeled it software-only, and promised a solution without delay. No one wants a recall, no one wants to swap their shiny new iPhone after two days, and Apple knows it. Still, the whole situation feels a bit like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat (impressive, but you suspect the rabbit has been hiding there for quite a while).
Earlier iPhones Faced the Same Camera Bug
This is not the first time iPhone owners have run into strange black boxes in their photos. After the release of iOS 18, iPhone users started threads on Apple Support Communities and posted on Reddit, sharing screenshots. They described random black rectangles or strips across images – sometimes covering a face, sometimes cutting into objects. Unlike Henry T. Casey’s concert test with a giant LED wall, these photos came from ordinary settings, which made the problem harder to predict.
The community tried everything. People rebooted devices, reset them to factory state, and even went through Apple service centers. In many cases Apple swapped devices, but the bug returned, which ruled out hardware failure. Some users found a loophole in Live Photos, they could select another frame as the key image, which removed the black box. The drawback was lower image quality, which made the solution less than ideal.
Apple’s official channels stayed silent. Support agents sometimes hinted that the issue was “more likely a software bug than hardware,” but no public statement ever appeared. Patch notes for iOS 18 updates did not mention the glitch, and Apple never confirmed a fix. Over time the complaints slowed down, though it remains unclear whether later iOS builds actually solved the problem or people simply gave up.
Final Thoughts
Let’s sum it up. We now have two clear points of view about the iPhone 17 Pro Max and Air camera bug. On one hand, the flaw feels unpleasant because Apple gave so much attention to the cameras during the September 9 event. The presentation looked stunning, and no one expected to hear about black boxes in photos right after. On the other hand, the glitch shows up in only about ten percent of shots against a massive LED wall, not in everyday pictures. No flood of user reports followed, which tells us the issue is limited rather than widespread.
Apple admitted the problem, explained the cause, and promised a fix. That quick reaction deserves respect. Some users already rushed to cancel their preorders, which feels a bit too dramatic. If you cancel an iPhone over a rare concert-light glitch, maybe you never really wanted the phone in the first place.
For the rest of us, the plan is simple – wait for the iOS update. Apple will push a patch soon, and it will likely remove the bug. Until then, you can still enjoy your new iPhone, just avoid stress tests in front of blinding LED walls. Concert photos may not look perfect for a while, but everyday shots will. And if Apple delivers the promised fix, the only boxes you will see in your gallery will be the ones from your iPhone packaging.
