Apple quietly removed its low-light Night mode from the Camera app's Portrait feature on the iPhone 17 Pro, and the company's silence around the change has become almost as puzzling as the decision itself.
On previous models, Night mode allowed users to combine long-exposure shots in low light conditions with Portrait Mode's depth effects, and it has been available on every Pro model since the iPhone 12 Pro launched in 2020. It still works on the last-generation iPhone 16 Pro, but owners of Apple's latest iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max models won't find the option when using Portrait mode in the Camera app.
What makes this particularly strange is that Apple hasn't provided an explanation for the feature's removal. The company's own support documentation confirms the omission in its list of models that can use Night mode when shooting portraits with the signature "bokeh" effect, but the iPhone 17 Pro models are conspicuous in their absence, with no explanation given.
In fact, iPhone 17 Pro owners only discovered the limitation through their own usage, culminating in scatteredonline discussions over the past three months. Some have speculated that it could be related to the 24-megapixels that Portraits are taken in on the latest models, suggesting it conflicts with Night mode's 12-megapixel limitation. Others have suggested Apple may have wanted to avoid the over-long exposure time needed to combine the two modes, which could have ended up frustrating users.
Missing Night Mode option in Camera app's Portrait mode (left) vs. Photo mode
The truth is we don't know. Apple hasn't commented on the removal or whether it plans to restore the feature in future updates, but hopefully we'll hear from the company soon now that the omission has received media attention.
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