# iPhone camera

8 Hacker News commenters recommended iPhone camera and 25 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend it for image quality and getting a shot ready within seconds. Critics most often report it failing to start, crashing or showing a black screen.

## Why people recommend it

- Good image quality and colour (2 comments): "Orders of magnitude more people can now make an absolutely "Hollywood quality" movie, precisely due to their nice modern iPhone cameras." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48508338)) "Apple’s cameras and color science is fantastic." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46757457))

## What people warn about

- Fails to start or crashes (4 comments): "Camera starts up once per 20-30 runs for more than 10 seconds" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47204619)) "I've also run into iOS Camera app failing to open the camera." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49503683)) "the iPhone camera app crashes about half the time these days" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46457668))
- Accidental triggers from lock screen (2 comments): "trying to slide up to unlock but accidentally triggering the lock screen camera for a millisecond or two" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46415575)) "It also affects a partial left swipe gesture too which is very easy to do when the screen is touched" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46463875))
- Reported bugs left unfixed (2 comments): "I reported it repeatedly during the iOS 26 betas but they don’t give a damn." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46461856)) "I have this in iOS 16 so it’s not new (and not fixed it sounds like) sadly." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46481403))
- Camera indicator stays on (2 comments): "When I dismiss the camera app, I still see green dot for a bit, then it switches to orange" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46464116)) "in my case it was increasing "alert fatigue" (why is my camera on?)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46458518))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Pixel Camera](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pixel-camera.md): 12 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "iPhone camera", https://hackerapproved.com/p/iphone-camera-app/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).