The iPhone 17 Professional misplaced a key function within the Digital camera app, and customers are upset

If you happen to’ve tried to take a portrait shot along with your new iPhone 17 Professional, you may need seen {that a} function is lacking.

Portrait Mode was first launched with the iPhone 7 Plus, and it makes use of depth knowledge to create a man-made bokeh impact within the background of a photograph. Because the iPhone 12 Professional, due to the LiDAR scanner, Portrait Mode additionally works together with Evening Mode – however that appears to have modified with the iPhone 17 Professional.

As famous by many customers on Reddit and Apple’s personal dialogue boards and confirmed on this assist doc, the function has quietly disappeared from the most recent iPhone fashions.

How Evening Mode on iPhone works

For these unfamiliar with it, Evening Mode basically allows an extended publicity on the digicam, which might vary from 1 second to 30 seconds, relying on the lighting circumstances within the atmosphere. With an extended publicity, the sensor captures extra mild, leading to higher pictures at midnight.

Beginning with the iPhone 15 Professional, most common pictures could be transformed to Portrait mode – that’s as a result of the Digital camera app routinely shops depth knowledge within the background. Nevertheless, on the iPhone 17 Professional, pictures taken at night time with Evening Mode turned on don’t have the depth knowledge wanted to be transformed to Portrait mode.

Apple

When customers attempt to manually take a photograph at night time with Portrait Mode turned on, the choice to make use of Evening Mode disappears. Macworld confirmed this habits by evaluating the iPhone 17 Professional Max to earlier iPhone fashions. In older fashions, combining Evening Mode and Portrait Mode is completely doable, even on iOS 26.

Though some customers thought this could be attributable to a bug, Apple’s web site confirms that Evening Mode assist when taking Portrait pictures isn’t out there for iPhone 17 Professional fashions.

Why Apple may need made this alteration

There’s no phrase from Apple on why they made this choice, however we’ve a couple of theories.

As a result of Evening Mode takes longer to take pictures, some customers who don’t totally perceive how the function works find yourself getting aggravated once they have to attend a couple of seconds for the iPhone to take the photograph. In some circumstances, Evening Mode is triggered routinely, however the longer publicity may cause customers to overlook an essential second by transferring their telephone too shortly.

Mix Evening Mode with Portrait Mode, and the delay for taking a photograph turns into even longer. And that delay could be the distinction between shortly capturing a second and lacking the shot.

However did Evening Mode actually make a distinction for Portrait pictures? Are the pictures higher with out it? Right here’s what I discovered.

Foundry

Whereas a Portrait photograph taken with Evening Mode on does certainly look brighter, it additionally has extra noise and extra artifacts attributable to post-processing. The photograph taken with the iPhone 17 Professional Max, however, appears to be like darker, but additionally has much less noise and extra element.

One other factor to bear in mind is that pictures taken with Evening Mode are at all times restricted to 12 megapixels, whereas Portrait pictures with out it may be captured at 24 megapixels.

Is Apple quietly killing Evening Mode?

For now, I don’t suppose Apple is killing Evening Mode. The function remains to be out there for many who wish to use it in common digicam mode. Nonetheless, it’s intriguing when a function that has been out there for years merely disappears with out clarification.

You probably have an iPhone 17 Professional or 17 Professional Max, you’ll must determine between taking brighter pictures at night time or utilizing the flamboyant Portrait impact. No less than till Apple decides to convey the function again, if that ever occurs.