Hey, ever since I updated to iOS 18.1 my iPhone 16 Pro Max has been lagging a lot when I record 4K video, especially with cinema mode on. It used to work great before. Is anyone else having the same issue or is it just mine?
Try disabling optical stabilization and restart your phone - that often fixes recording lag after an update. If it keeps happening, go to Settings > iPhone Storage and delete some apps you're not using, because a full storage can affect video smoothness. It's also worth checking if you have a lot of background processes running: close your open apps and try recording again. Anyway, you're not alone on this one - several users have reported performance drops after iOS 18.1, so it could be a bug that Apple will fix in the next updates.
iOS 18.1 really did introduce some optimization issues on certain models, but before you do a reset or delete stuff, check if you've got motion smoothing enabled or other new graphics features in your camera settings - sometimes they take up resources they shouldn't during 4K recording. One thing nobody mentions: if you've got a lot of apps open in the background, the iPhone 16 Pro Max really struggles with cinema mode because it has to process multiple streams at the same time, so try closing everything before you record.
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