What Happened to Night Mode for Portrait Mode on the IPhone 17 Pro?

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New products typically add features rather than remove them. However, this isn’t always the case at Apple. The company has a long history of removing features from one generation of devices to the next, whether it was removing the optical drive from the MacBook in 2012 or the Home button from the iPhone in 2017. Some of these changes were good, some were controversial, and others were completely reversed: MagSafe and HDMI finally returned to the MacBook.

However, I don’t often hear about Apple removing software features from generation to generation. So imagine my surprise this morning when I saw several headlines claiming that the iPhone 17 Pro, Apple’s latest and greatest flagship, is missing a feature that has been present in the last five generations of Pro iPhones—and no one noticed for almost 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 photography?

The short answer? We have no idea. Apple certainly hasn’t announced this publicly. Furthermore, Macworld spotted this change in an Apple support document : if you scroll down to the section “On supported models, you can take photos in Night mode with Portrait mode” and click the “On supported models” link, you’ll see a list of iPhones that, for some reason, doesn’t include the 17 Pro or 17 Pro Max. The list includes:

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  • iPhone 12 Pro

  • iPhone 12 Pro Max

  • iPhone 13 Pro

  • iPhone 13 Pro Max

  • iPhone 14 Pro

  • iPhone 14 Pro Max

  • iPhone 15 Pro

  • iPhone 15 Pro Max

  • iPhone 16 Pro

  • iPhone 16 Pro Max

For the uninitiated, Night mode and Portrait mode are technically two different features. Portrait mode was introduced first, back on the iPhone 7 Plus, which used the dual-camera system to add a bokeh effect to photos of people. Those early shots were hit or miss, and often couldn’t replace a proper DSLR, but as Apple’s technology and cameras improved, so did Portrait mode. Part of this improvement was the introduction of Night mode. This feature, which Apple was a bit late to implement, allowed for brighter photos in low-light conditions by increasing the shutter speed. Older iPhones without this feature produced images that would be difficult to see without the flash, but Night mode could capture detail if there was enough light in the scene.

Starting with the iPhone 12 Pro, Portrait mode also received a Night mode option. If you try to take a Portrait photo in the dark, Night mode activates, making the image brighter and more detailed. But it now appears this option is missing from the 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max.

What do you think at the moment?

To be more precise, these new iPhones still have Night Mode: according to the aforementioned support page, it allows you to take brighter photos, selfies, and time-lapse videos at night. It appears Apple has simply decided to remove this feature from Portrait Mode on its latest Pro models.

Of course, this news started spreading on December 3rd, almost three months after the 17 Pro’s release. If it took so long for someone to notice the missing feature, was it really that important to begin with? I don’t have a 17 Pro, so I can’t say for sure, but I also can’t say I often shoot in Portrait mode in low light. I’ve reached out to Apple for comment and will update this article if I hear back.

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