New products tend to add features, not take them away. That isn’t always the case with Apple, however. The company has a long history of removing functions from one generation of devices to the next, whether that’s removing the disc drive from its MacBooks back in 2012, or taking away the iPhone’s Home button in 2017. Some of these changes are good, some are controversial, while others are undone altogether: MagSafe and HDMI both found their way back to MacBooks after all.
It’s not often I hear about Apple removing software features from one generation of product to the next, however. So, imagine my surprise when I saw a number of headlines this morning asserting that the iPhone 17 Pro, Apple’s latest and greatest flagship, is missing a feature found in the last five generations of Pro iPhones—and nobody noticed for nearly three months. Night mode is missing from Portrait mode on the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max.
What happened to Night mode in Portrait?
The short answer? We have no idea. This was not something Apple announced publicly, of course. In fact, Macworld spotted the change in an Apple support doc: If you scroll down to the section where it says “On supported models, you can take Night mode photos with Portrait mode,” and click the hyperlink on “On supported models,” you’ll pull up a list of iPhones that, mysteriously, doesn’t include the 17 Pro or 17 Pro Max. The list includes:
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iPhone 12 Pro
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iPhone 12 Pro Max
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iPhone 13 Pro
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iPhone 13 Pro Max
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iPhone 14 Pro
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iPhone 14 Pro Max
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iPhone 15 Pro
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iPhone 15 Pro Max
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iPhone 16 Pro
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iPhone 16 Pro Max
For the uninitiated, Night mode and Portrait mode are technically two distinct features. Portrait mode was released first, all the way back on the iPhone 7 Plus, which utilized the dual-camera system to add a bokeh effect to shots of people. Those early shots were hit or miss, and were often no replacement for a true DSLR, but as Apple’s tech and cameras have improved, so has Portrait mode. Part of the improvement was the introduction of Night mode. This feature, which Apple was a bit late to the game on, allowed you to take brighter images in low-light environments by lengthening the time the shutter stays engaged. Older iPhones without the feature would take images that were hard to see without the flash engaged, but Night mode could pull in details as long as there was just enough light present in the scene.
Since the iPhone 12 Pro, Portrait mode came with the option of Night mode, as well. If you’re trying to take a portrait shot in a dark environment, Night mode kicks in and gives the image a chance to turn out brighter and more detailed. But now, it seems, the 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max do not have this option.
What do you think so far?
To be clear, these new iPhones still have Night mode: Per that previously mentioned support page, you can take brighter shots at night when taking standard photos, selfies, and time-lapse videos. It just seems Apple decided to remove the feature for Portrait mode shots on its latest Pros.
Of course, this news started breaking on Dec. 3, nearly three months after the 17 Pros launched. If it took this long for someone to notice a missing feature, was it really all that important to begin with? I don’t have a 17 Pro, so I really can’t say, but I also can’t say I take many Portrait mode shots in dark environments. I’ve reached out to Apple for comment, and will update this story if I hear back.
