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

[smoker68x]

I don’t have an issue with the iOS app anymore. It was a huge “shock to the system,” but after a while, I got used to it and customized it. It’s back almost like it was (not that I can remember it now), and works very well. You just need patience and time. What’s really funny is the people “refusing” to upgrade will eventually get a new phone that has it, and forced to learn it, or will switch to Android and be in for a LOT of changes.


What I really don’t like is the changes to the Mac app. When I select photos and hit “start slideshow”, I’m no longer greeted with options of music or anything, it immediately jumps into what looks more like a memory than a slideshow, and I can find where to change it.

 

[FoxyKaye]

I hate it

Every. Single. Bullet Point. Critique. Listed.

I might as well print all my photos and keep them in a pile in the corner on the floor.

 

[kirky29]

 

[nathansz]

The people who mainly use the camera would argue that they could do without the phone part

which begs the question, why are they the same device?

a basic camera is handy, but being a high end camera seems to have become the entire reason d'être of iPhone, which makes it much bigger and much more expensive than it needs to be to do everything else it does

 

[elrojo69]

There's too much going on in the newest version.

 

[mrgrdn]

I have countless pictures on my iPhone, especially since having two kids, yet I can find everything effortlessly. Faces are recognized, my folders are well-organized and easy to access, and I’ve never had any trouble navigating through them. Additionally, you can adjust the order or hide content. I often notice that many people never really explore what their phone is capable of. So, I’m not sure how seriously one should take such statements ... like criticism. It might not be to everyone’s taste, but I doubt that the majority considers it bad.

 

[citysnaps]

which begs the question, why are they the same device?

a basic camera is handy, but being a high end camera seems to have become the entire reason d'être of iPhone, which makes it much bigger and much more expensive than it needs to be to do everything else it does

As someone who makes a lot of photos every year, I wouldn't purchase a phone that didn't have a decent camera.

 

[Ta_whirimatea]

I have set it up with:
utilities
Media type
Albums

I still hate the new layout and as a result I barely use it now. I take pictures less with my iPhone & I certainly can’t be bothered editing them via ‘new & improved’ photos.
There’s just too many annoyances, more clicks to make, pics zooming in/out when going into edit mode etc. just daft.

They have made an absolute mess of it but so many apps have ‘so called design folk’ making ‘improvements’ nowadays, do they employ them straight from kindergarten?

On a good point, as it’s making me now use my phone less for photography when I come to upgrade from my 13PM it’l be an SE / base model in a few years or a competitor / or no phone at all. Just fed up with it all now

 

[klasma]

I'm feeling that too. I was planning on having an iPhone and Apple Watch when I'm even older, but am concerned that I will not be willing or able to do the homework to keep up.

Even when you can, the constant churn is just too much of a time sink.

What are our older relatives who don't read tech sites doing?

They seek support from their younger relatives, or anyone they can get hold of. Or they just resolve to thinking they are too stupid for the tech (or, less frequently, vice versa).

 

[klasma]

Apple should re-sign iOS 17.7 or release iOS 17.7.2 IPSW for those that have iPhone 15 series or older...

Or just decouple their app updates from the OS updates.

 

[klasma]

an iPhone without a camera would be great

Not completely without camera, but with just a basic flush camera, to take the occasional snapshot of something, scan QR codes, and so on. The SE1 camera took pretty great pictures, despite being flush and being the lightest iPhone to date.

 

[ProbablyDylan]

I hate this thing. Change for Change's sake. Tolerable before, maybe even fine, but now it's borderline unusable for me. It's like they looked at Google Photos (which also has a horrible UI) and said "hey, let's do that!"

 

[CharlesShaw]

They seek support from their younger relatives, or anyone they can get hold of.

Remember the days when we could give iPhone support to our friends and family without having to consider a myriad of variables? Everyone thought I was a genius for instantly knowing how to help, but those days are gone.

 

[davidh2k]

Yeah I'm on older software on all devices too, this article is the first time I'm seeing the new interface actually. Yikes!

Makes me want to resume my search for a better solution on a personal server. Main caveat being that 80-90% of my library is shared with my family so it requires some serious dedication to build similar reliability and ease-of-use.

I would love to update my iPad to a newer Version but not the latest avail, since Apps are starting to stop working… rarely use it though, but I refrain from making it a brick with installing the latest iPadOS…

Geninuely curious why you haven’t done the last couple of security updates for 17

Luckily it doesn‘t nag me with updates. Usually not updateting often, so it‘s not like that I‘m checking it daily…

 

[EBone12355]

The redesign of the Photos app is keeping my wife from upgrading to iOS 18 on her iPhone. She saw what mine looked like after the update, and she just doesn't want to deal with the confusing mess that is Photos now.

 

[MacMikePro]

The fact that you can completely customize it to your liking makes all of this complaining pointless. I think the new way is just fine. And after I set it up to be exactly how I want it, I think it’s now better.

 

[Vulkan]

No, this needs to go back to the drawing board stat.

 

[ProbablyDylan]

The fact that you can completely customize it to your liking makes all of this complaining pointless. I think the new way is just fine. And after I set it up to be exactly how I want it, I think it’s now better.

You say that, but there's no customization to restore the iOS 17 layout and functionality. Even then, every update since iOS 18 has been resetting my customizations to default anyways, making it pointless.

 

[klasma]

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.

I have the suspicion that they decided to reimplement the Photos app in SwiftUI — or worse, in some web framework — and this is the result.

 

[klasma]

I would like to see a "classic" option (grandpa mode?) for iOS and iPadOS with a predictable UI based on the stuff that everyone said was too boring for years. Hopefully they'll do something like that before it's regulated by the EU or others that everyone must use a standardized UI since our devices have become too essential for our daily lives.

This kind of exists, it’s called Assistive Access: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2023/07/06/how-to-use-assistive-access-iphone-ipad/
But it’s too limited. For example, it doesn’t allow you to zoom into a photo.

 

[ab2c4]

Does anyone from Apple come to this site to read what their customers are saying? I hope they do as this would be a good topic for them to read.

 

[nathansz]

Not completely without camera, but with just a basic flush camera, to take the occasional snapshot of something, scan QR codes, and so on. The SE1 camera took pretty great pictures, despite being flush and being the lightest iPhone to date.

Agreed.

 

[CharlesShaw]

This kind of exists, it’s called Assistive Access: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2023/07/06/how-to-use-assistive-access-iphone-ipad/
But it’s too limited. For example, it doesn’t allow you to zoom into a photo.

Oh well, I suppose I'll just treat keeping up with iOS like a puzzle or hobby to keep my brain sharp. For example, I could have sworn that I had things set so that the contact photos would not update to the sender's choice without my input but I was wrong. This research will interfere with my MR posting time, lol.

 

[jk48]

The new Photos app is absolute trash. I can’t find anything, photos appear all over the place. Once I’m inside an album I have no idea how to get out of it. Swiping right sometimes works, sometimes it goes to another album. Swiping down sometimes works, sometimes does nothing. When trying to scroll down an album it often closes the album. It’s a hot mess.
Nothing is consistent, it’s completely unusable. I’ve given up on using Photos for albums and am just using folders in iCloud for albums now. Everything is exactly where I want it.

 

[hoyhoy]

I have an old, old Apple Photos library migrated for over 20 years all the way up to iOS 18.1. None of my tags or descriptions are searchable on iOS, but they are on macOS. It's kind of a nightmare. Everything mostly worked on iOS Photos up until iPhoto was deprecated. I love that Apple is focusing on AI now when they can't even make tag searching work.

What's messing with me in iOS 18.1 is how the edit button moved down to the button. And some edits (like disabling Live Photos) don't seem to persist when I import to macOS, but that was happening in iOS 17 too.

A "feature" I've wanted forever is a global disable of Live Photos in settings. I'm forever accidentally turning that on.

Searching is even more terrible now than it ever was. iOS doesn't want to find photos in my macOS albums where everything is manually tagged and curated.