At WWDC 2024, Apple proudly announced that iOS 18 would bring the “biggest overhaul” to the Photos app since its launch seventeen years ago. However, the icy reception from users surprised the engineers and managers of the American brand, to the point of backtracking!
A rollback for the Photos app
In his latest Sunday Letter, in addition to the iPhone 17 and the standard Vision, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reviewed the changes made to the Photos app. The journalist suggests that the redesign was “probably a bit too bold and potentially confusing.” As a result, the latest iOS 18 beta removed the new carousel feature.
But that’s not all, the company has also changed the photo grid to make it more user-friendly and moved albums higher in the app to reduce scrolling, making it more like the old interface. Gurman adds:
Most importantly, Apple has reintegrated saved content into the main Photos grid. These changes come at a crucial time, as Apple now considers iOS 18 complete and prepares to add the software to the upcoming iPhone 16 lineup.
Last month, we reported that Apple executives had been pushing the app’s more “personal” nature. However, it seems they were too hasty in making these changes to one of the iPhone’s most-used apps. Fortunately, they moved quickly and didn’t want to wait for the iPhone 16 to fix the issues.
How do you find the new Photos app in the beta version? At the editorial office, we were impressed by the technical side (animations, transitions), but disappointed by the ergonomics. Finding a photo was much more difficult, as was sharing one.
Join us on September 10 to discover the new iPhone 16 and the specific features of iOS 18 reserved for it.