iOS 18 Photos App Redesign: Two Months Later, Users Still Divided

[WarmWinterHat]

1. Open the Photos app.

2. Scroll to the bottom and select Customize & Reorder.

3. Deselect the options you don't want to see.


Optional:

4. *If* you want to see some of them, simply drag them in the order you'd like them to appear on your screen.

Just tried it, it's not the same. There are still menus at the bottom.

As I said, I would would prefer there be absolutely nothing, whatsoever, except my photos and videos..with the newest being at the top if possible. No menus, no "media types" menu, no "utilities" menu, no "customize and reorder" button.

Like this:

 

[Kissmo1980]

Right-click and choose Add to...

If you wish, select multiple images and add them all at once. E.g. a range or a load of individually selected images.

I don’t want to add.
I want to Move them.
Like wallpapers - I don’t want to see them in my timeline

 

[citysnaps]

Just tried it, it's not the same. There are still menus at the bottom.

As I said, I would would prefer there be absolutely nothing, whatsoever, except my photos and videos..with the newest being at the top if possible. No menus, no "media types" menu, no "utilities" menu, no "customize and reorder" button.

Like this:

View attachment 2454193

THat's not what I see on my iPhone 16PM with iOS 18.1.1.

I just see a grid of photos, like before.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

THat's not what I see on my iPhone 16PM with iOS 18.1.1.

I just see a grid of photos, like before.

Well I be damn. You're right!

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

More like wishful thinking. I tried the reorganizing tricks. It is totally not the same. It feels like some illegal TikTok copy, and I really hate TikTok. Who thought endless scroll would be such a wonderful idea? And this new 5 tile grid is sooo un-Apple, I am used to 3 tile grid ever since my first iPhone.

Also fonts, elements design. It feels like app was made by someone who doesn’t even understand UI design and how much UX matters in such design. Maybe from a “fashion” standpoint it looks classy, no objections. But it is totally unusable mess

They brought Doom Scrolling to Photos!

You should be able to pinch zoom to get back to the 3 wide thumbnail gallery, if that’s what you mean.

 

[ttaylor2258]

Go to the bottom

Click customise

Remove the panels you don’t want.

It’s ace.

Thank you for that! I just removed all except for albums and utilities and it's almost the same. I still don't like that you have to scroll down on the library to be able to bring up the years tab, but I suppose I'll get used to it at some point.

 

[thegambit]

It’s so unintuitive. Even just searching for photos, I'm constantly staring at it, wondering what I did wrong, after I hit the "Select" button rather than the tiny magnifying glass. Its like they wanted to put EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE, all at once, to the point that I can't find anything anymore

 

[ghostface147]

I got used to it after removing unnecessary items like memories. That doesn’t mean I like it. I wish we had no photo grid and a separate section for pics taken exclusively on my phone, like what the camera roll was. Video scrubbing is bad.

I did email Craig Federighi about the lack of camera roll and he said that’s what recent days can be used for, but for me it’s still not great. I’m not switching platforms because of the photos app.

 

[somantyx]

It's just plain awful and I hate using it now. Apple keeps screwing up what's already working and making things more complicated than they need to be. Hate the fact that the Bluetooth icon is now super tiny. Drives me nuts.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

I hate it

Me too. It was much faster to move around the app before, going from Photos to Albums, etc.
Now it takes a lot of scrolling to get around the different sections.
I hope there are some tricks and shortcuts we haven't discovered yet, that would make the app easier to use.
Or we could adapt to it.

 

[JustSomebody12]

Can't wait for the Photo app to be replaceable

 

[scorpio vega]

It's stockholm syndrome.

I hated the new IOS app since I installed the beta way back in June and we are now almost in 2025 and I have more or less just accepted it as it is lmaooo. Idk when i did but i went from b**ching about it daily to i just accept it lol.

It's still terrible.

 

[scorpio vega]

What the IOS 18 photo app reminds me of is Windows 10 mobile's terrible photo library.

 

[citysnaps]

The Photos app is perfect for me.

Just a grid of my roughly 27,000 iPhone photos, that I can easily find by year/month, selected, and then immediately AirDrop'd to my Mac for post-processing in Lightroom.

Smooth as silk.

 

[cmWright]

not a fan but I'm in a minority in that I don't use my phone for camera work (I have a camera for that) - I've had an iPhone for over 10 years now and move what photos I have from phone to phone, and now I have 65 photos, and I'll probably be moving some of those off in the next few days - my biggest complaint isn't specific to the photos app but about Apple resetting my customizations when upgrades occur and this idea of 'let's change this because we can' attitude of their developers

 

[GtrDude]

I'm in the group of people who much prefer the new design.
Especially the fact that you can move things around and disable them entirely.

The ONLY thing missing is to be able to put the Albums in any order you want to.
They say the new design makes it "fully customizable" but it's not unless you can put the Albums in any order you want.

 

[The_Martini_Cat]

I’ll add mine. The search button is tiny and plays straight next to “select “, which I hit by accident all the time. If search is so much better, then why is it worse?🍸😿

 

[citysnaps]

I'm in the group of people who much prefer the new design.
Especially the fact that you can move things around and disable them entirely.

The ONLY thing missing is to be able to put the Albums in any order you want to.
They say the new design makes it "fully customizable" but it's not unless you can put the Albums in any order you want.

Write a thoughtful letter/email to Craig Federighi with your suggestion. You'll get a response and may find your suggestion implemented in a future Photos app update.

 

[markgpearse]

I would like the option of a simple version... photos, albums, shared albums, smart folders. That's it. No "this is what you did 5 years ago," etc.

 

[jonnyb098]

The app design isn’t what bothers me. There’s some nice additions. It’s the functionality. Swipes register as taps if you swipe too fast. The zooming in and out of stuff.

Also this whole iPad tab bar thing is confusing when the side bar still exists.

I feel like Apple is changing certain things just because. And that’s not a good thing.

 

[maxfromdenmark]

The new photo app is just stupid and confusing. I cannot search for photos like before.

 

[ab2c4]

I think its a big downgrade over what we had previously. I mean how can Apple screw up something this bad when it worked perfectly fine in the first place. Who in their right mind at Apple thought this was a good decision? LOL

And don't get me started with Safari which is another frustration. It keeps closing off tabs even though I'm just scrolling through them (it must think I am swiping them off and I'm not). Again, it worked fine before so why change it and break it. Its infuriating at times.

 

[GermanSuplex]

It’s kind of strange to open the photos app, scroll down, and then waiting a second or two for certain albums, like the Hidden Photos section, to pop up. My iCloud Photo Library is not that large. It’s not a huge deal by any stretch, but it seems 2010-ish.

I’m sure Apple Intelligence will grow in due time, but I really haven’t used it much yet. Searching for photos based on keywords and items works better than before, but not by much.

 

[ab2c4]

It is too cluttered and overwhelming for some folks. Not the best decision Apple made but a classic example of if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Photos > go to the very bottom > Customise > turn all the junk off apart from utilities.

Problem somewhat solved.

Wow that definitely improved things, thank you for the information.

 

[alexandr]

Funny, I love the new photos app. While not perfect, it's a huge improvement. But everyone feels how they feel. I see some commenters here missing the old video scrubber, which imho was atrocious.