iPhone 17 Selfie Camera Delays Project Indigo Support
▼ Summary
– Adobe’s Project Indigo camera app does not yet support the iPhone 17 series, including the iPhone 17 Pro, due to issues with the new selfie camera.
– Adobe product manager Boris Ajdin stated the team is working on an update but may disable the front camera in Indigo until iOS 26.1 is released with a fix from Apple.
– The iPhone 17 features a major selfie camera upgrade to an 18-megapixel square sensor that captures portrait and landscape images without rotating the phone and uses Center Stage controls.
– Project Indigo is an experimental iOS app known for natural image processing, developed by a team led by Marc Levoy, who previously worked on the Google Pixel camera.
– Android support for Project Indigo is planned but challenging, and iPhone 17 owners are expected to receive app support before Android users.
The recently launched iPhone 17 series is facing a notable compatibility delay with Adobe’s experimental camera app, Project Indigo. Despite the phones being available for over a month, users cannot yet access the app’s features, while older models like the iPhone 12 Pro remain fully supported. The primary obstacle appears to be technical issues related to the new front-facing camera system on the iPhone 17.
On Adobe’s community forums, product manager Boris Ajdin has been providing regular updates about the situation. In a post from October 16th, he explained that the development team is actively working on a solution but has encountered specific problems, particularly with the selfie camera. Ajdin noted that some of these issues were flagged to Apple, which has developed a fix scheduled for release with the iOS 26.1 update. As a result, Adobe is considering temporarily disabling the front camera in Project Indigo until that iOS version becomes available.
Initially, the team anticipated releasing an update within a few days, but the timeline has since been extended. In a more recent forum comment, Ajdin expressed hope that an update could be rolled out within the current week. When asked for additional details about the technical challenges, Adobe spokesperson Erin Di Leva directed inquiries back to the official forum posts.
The iPhone 17 introduces the first significant upgrade to the front camera since the iPhone 11 moved to a 12-megapixel sensor. This new generation features an 18-megapixel square sensor, enabling the capture of both portrait and landscape orientation photos without requiring the user to physically rotate the device or sacrifice resolution through cropping. It also incorporates Center Stage technology, which automatically tracks subjects within the frame and adjusts the orientation when additional people enter the shot. While this represents a useful improvement for a frequently used camera, some users have expressed mixed opinions regarding the final image quality.
Project Indigo quickly built a dedicated user base following its debut this summer, praised for delivering more natural-looking image processing compared to the often over-processed results from standard smartphone camera apps. The app is the creation of a team led by Marc Levoy, renowned for his influential work on the Google Pixel camera and his advancements in computational photography. Currently labeled as an “experimental” application, Project Indigo is only available on iOS. Support for Android devices is still in development, Levoy has previously confirmed it is on the team’s “want” list, though he acknowledged it presents significant technical challenges. Given the current circumstances, it seems likely that iPhone 17 owners will gain access to Project Indigo well before Android users do.
(Source: The Verge)
