iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max owners are complaining about problems with the big, beautiful touchscreens on their new phones.
Users report their iPhone Pros don’t properly detect all their touches and swipes, leading to a frustrating experience.
iPhone 16 Pro users report touchscreen problem
The iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max, which arrived in stores Friday, feature the biggest displays yet — 0.2 inches larger than their predecessors. They also pack thinner bezels for a more futuristic look. While the peak brightness of the new panels remains unchanged, they can hit a lower minimum brightness of 1 nit. Given that the 120Hz ProMotion panels don’t pack significant upgrades, they should not bring new problems. But that’s not the case.
Many iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max owners on Reddit report that the phones fail to respond to touches consistently.
“I’m noticing it very sporadically. Will go to touch something and it won’t respond the first time,” says Redditor u/ErcoleFredo. Other users chimed in, saying they encountered the same problem. Applying a glass screen protector makes the situation even worse. It appears to reduce the touchscreen sensitivity, leading to more missed taps and swipes.
Camera Control button to blame?
Initially, some users blamed the slimmer bezels and an aggressive palm rejection algorithm on the new iPhones behind the touchscreen problems. In another Reddit thread, one iPhone 16 user theorizes that the touchscreen problems might be due to the new Camera Control and an underlying bug.
“If one’s skin accidentally touches the area next to the new camera control button first, the whole screen becomes unresponsive until released, except for the home bar. This is the only area that causes the issue,” says user u/Known_Tap_1462.
The Camera Control, a capacitive button that activates the Camera app and gives users a new interface for taking photos, comes on all models in the iPhone 16 lineup.
Some iPhone 15 Pro users also report touchscreen problems after installing iOS 18. This suggests software might cause the problem, not hardware. Apple has not yet acknowledged the iPhone 16 Pro touchscreen problems. It could include a fix for the glitch in iOS 18.0.1, which should roll out sooner rather than later.
