Constantine, James, does it work any better in the latest version of Illustrator on Macs? Please review it.

Still no fix :( 2022..

PLEASE FIX THIS!! HOW HAS IT BEEN 4 YEARS AND STILL NO UPDATE?

Please fix this, it is really annoying.

I have been able to find a solution though the comments on this, but would still like Adobe to find a solution. It is very frustrating having to deal with this.

Solutions from Catharine Macintosh:
1) Open in preview
2) File - Export
3) Save channel to 8 bit from 16 and save
4) Good to go. Just time drain:(

This is not fixed yet! Really unacceptable. Wasting people's time. Illustrator users have been asking for it for over 3 years.

Please fix it, keep having the same request! Adobe products usually save you time, in this case not supporting 16-bit png is the opposite...i need to use the screenshots for quick sketches and references to clients dragging them to Illustrator artboards....but instead have to open in other programs and screenshot them or save them differently.

When I take a screenshot from my iphone and try to open it in illustrator the colors are extremely distorted. My work around is to open the file in photoshop and save it as 8 bit. This is an extremely tedious process.

Try this: Open Iphone11 screen shot, file-export, switch 16 bit to 8 bit. It works on my Mac, hope this would be helpful!

@Wolfgang Harland, I asked about the issue on Adobe Support--you can find a workaround there: https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator/illustrator-2020-imported-pngs-look-weird/td-p/10861933?page=1

Having this issue as well. Does anyone have a work around, or is there a plugin? I regularly import screenshots from my iPhone to use in Illustrator. InDesign and XD seem to be handling the images just fine. What's up with this?

I found a work around, but only for screen shots.
As soon as you take the screen shot send it from the screen shot viewer rather than from the photos app. Its lower resolution though.

Why isn't this fixed yet??? It has been over 2 years.

Pretty ridiculous that an iPhone screenshot can't be uploaded to Illustrator.

I was having the same problem when importing PNG's into illustrator. Instead of a .png i saved my file as a .tiff and that seemed to import fine.

Hi -- this problem wastes considerable time for me each day. Can you please fix?

Any update on this? It's been two years...

This is a giant issue that should not exist in 2020!!!

omg SO frustrating. Yes Pls fix!!!! Thank you to other commenters for suggesting workarounds
1) Open in preview
2) export
3) save as - change channel to 8 bit from 16 and save
4) Good to go. (Just time drain:(

I also find this highly annoying. I'm often taking screenshots of things and need to pull those into my adobe files as references and have to go through and convert them all. Please fix this!