iPhone 16 Pro users are reporting glitches with the touch screen – here's the problem

Since officially launching on Friday, the iPhone 16 is now in the hands of tens of millions of people. This means that any bugs in the new lineup are going to start popping up. One such glitch currently being reported centers on the touch screen.

In a Reddit thread kicked off on Sunday and spotted by 9to5Mac, a host of iPhone 16 Pro buyers say that the touch screen becomes unresponsive if you press the area next to the camera button. New to the iPhone 16 lineup, the camera button lets you take and control photos without having to manually open the Camera app.

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“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,” said the person who started the Reddit thread. “This is the only area that causes the issue.”

Pressing the area near the camera button causes all taps, swipes, and other gestures on the screen to be briefly ignored, according to 9to5Mac, which linked to a post and video on Mastodon demonstrating the behavior.

The cause? 9to5Mac conjectured that the accidental touch rejection algorithm built into iOS seems to be overly sensitive, thereby disregarding any intended touches.

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As a new iPhone 16 Pro owner, I was able to reproduce the glitch as well, though not consistently.

In my testing, just resting the tip of my finger on the area near the Camera button won’t trigger the bug. But resting most of my thumb on that area will sometimes cause the touch screen to become unresponsive. The behavior doesn’t occur if I rest my finger on other areas of the display. The glitch also seems more likely to occur if I take the case off my phone.

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As with any new device, even one that undergoes intensive internal testing, bugs are bound to appear when millions of new owners start using it. We’ve seen this many times with iPhones. Sometimes the problem is easy enough to fix; other times the process is more challenging.

The good news here is that this glitch seems to be software-based, at least according to feedback from 9to5Mac and some of the affected users. If so, Apple should be able to fix it through an iOS update. And that’s par for the course. A new device or version of iOS comes out. People start complaining of bugs. Apple investigates and eventually resolves the bugs via an update.