Photos app in iOS 18 beta needs these changes badly

With the major Photos app redesign coming in iOS 18, Apple aims for simplicity. However, the version  of the Photos app in iOS 18 developer beta 3 is a hodge-podge of design that will confuse users. I think that if Apple doesn’t revise its approach, the company will face significant backlash when it releases the updated app to the public this fall.

Yes, iOS 18 is still in beta. And Apple very well could change the Photos app before its anticipated release in September. I certainly hope Apple tweaks things — I’m writing this as more of a wish list than a design critique. In fact, I already filed my suggestions through the official channel of Apple’s Feedback system (submitted as FB14289280).

As of iOS 18 developer beta 3, Apple has already made a few little tweaks to the Photos app redesign. But unfortunately, there’s been no movement on any of my major criticisms from beta 1. For that reason, I feel obligated to outline the goals of the new Photos app, applaud what it gets right, point out where the design fails, and explain what aspects prove confusing.

I don’t think Photos needs to be reverted entirely to the way it worked before. But these key features need changing ASAP. Keep reading or watch my video.

What’s the new Photos app in iOS 18 beta like?

The general idea of the new Photos app in the iOS 18 beta is sound. In the current design, most people don’t know the difference between the Library tab and the Recents album. (The Library tab is sorted by the date of the image; the Recents album is sorted by date added.)

In what Apple calls the “biggest-ever redesign of Photos,” there’s no more tab bar. “A simplified, single view displays a familiar grid, and new collections help users browse by themes without having to organize content into albums.” When you open the app, you can scroll up to see the library or scroll down to see people and pets, the map, the memories. The “resting position” of the app is the spot where the two views meet.

It works pretty well. If you scroll really far up to the beginning of your library, you can jump back down by tapping a big × at the bottom. If you scroll all the way down to the bottom, just like every other app, you can tap the top toolbar to jump back up.

The biggest problems with the new Photos app stem from how Apple designed this lower section.

The Carousel that hides your library

Again, the broad idea of the Photos app redesign in iOS 18 is that your photo library is on top and your albums and categories are down below. But inexplicably, sometimes when you scroll down, your library also scrolls away to the left. So when you go back up, you’ll see something completely different. How do you get back? If you’re really eagle-eyed, you’ll see a row of pagination dots, just like on your iPhone’s Home Screen. You need to swipe left or right a random number of times to get back to the Library tab.

I find this absolutely perplexing. I’m deeply concerned people won’t be able to find their way back to their photo library if they inadvertently swipe it away. Because the other tabs in the Carousel have the exact same content as the collections below, it serves no purpose.

Sure, the Carousel is customizable, but the people who are going to be most confused about its design are also the least likely to be inclined to customize the layout.

It’s harder to find your recently saved images

Immediately below the most recent pictures in your library (and the carousel) is a section called Recent Days, where you see your recent pictures again, but separated by date. It filters out pictures like receipts, images saved from the web and stuff saved from Messages.

This seems to misunderstand what people liked about the old “Recents” album in the Photos app before. The Library was for the pictures you took; the Recents album had the images you saved. The Library was sorted by date taken; Recents was sorted by date added. So if you save a picture from Safari or download the video your brother sent you, you know you can find it in the Recents album. Recent Days doesn’t do that.

The new Photos app does have a spot that does what you expect, called “Recently Saved,” but it’s buried in the collections below, making it very easy to miss. While it’s also possible to sort the library above by date added instead of date captured, it actually took me a few days to discover that.

I think this Recent Days section should be swapped out for Recently Saved. That way, you’d have the best of both worlds. When you open the Photos app, no matter what, you would see your library in the top half of the screen and that image you just added right below.

Hidden search bar

The Photos app search feature consists of four tabs in iOS 17. In the new design in iOS 18, it’s a tiny button up in the top toolbar. In the most recent beta, Apple made it more prominent … by coloring it blue instead of gray. It’s still a big demotion from before, and it’s still hard to reach with one hand.

Considering how powerful the Photos app’s visual search feature is — and how much more powerful it will be with Apple Intelligence — Apple should make the search field way more obvious. It should be a full-size text box, right between the library and the collections, where you can reach it one-handed.

The many, many more collections of stuff below

The collections of images in the Photos app look less like an organized set of albums, memories and media types and more like a kitchen junk drawer. There’s just way too much there by default:

• People & Pets, one of my favorite features. This actually deserves to be this high up with no changes.
• Pinned Collections, a customizable section of different collections inside the already customizable list of collections.
• Memories, a list of intelligently chosen images of people and trips.
• Trips, which seems to be the same thing as Memories, but only for trips.
• Albums, a list of your manually created albums. For some reason, it only shows two on the screen at a time.
• Featured Photos, which is like Memories and Trips, except it only shows one picture at a time.
• Media Types, a quick way to find panoramas, slo-mo videos, screen recordings, GIFs, etc. This is an incredibly useful feature, but it only shows four at a time, and the most interesting categories are on the third or even fourth tab.
• Utilities, which offers categories like hidden, recently deleted and duplicate photos, along with smart categories like receipts, drawings, illustrations, recently viewed, documents, etc. Like Media Types, it’s not obvious this is a horizontally scrolling list, and all the useful categories are hidden behind a few swipes.
• Wallpaper Suggestions. Based on my photo library, the suggestions are entirely made up of pictures of my dog Indy and landscapes from Italy. Perfect, no notes.

Inconsistent use of modal sheets

Tapping on a collection like “Recent Days” or “People & Pets” brings up a modal slide-up sheet. I prefer the conventional navigation view that slides in from the right, because swipe-to-go-back from the left edge is a well-understood gesture. But at least this slide-up modal sheet is clearly shown with a big obvious × in the upper corner, and with a little bit of the background peeking through the top, you intuit you can swipe down to dismiss it.

Tapping on a specific item inside that collection, like “Griffin” or “Athens, October 2023” also brings up a modal slide-up sheet, but one that looks completely different. It fills the top half of the screen, so it’s not obvious that you can swipe down to dismiss it, and the close button is much smaller. Swiping left or right navigates through the collection, but there are no pagination dots on the bottom to indicate that.

These screens look cool, but there could be more visual affordances to show how it works.

Summary: Suggested changes for Photos app in iOS 18 beta

• Get rid of the Carousel. It’s redundant at best and confusing at worst.
• Swap Recent Days for Recently Saved. People want a way to quickly and reliably find the image they just added to their library.
• Simplify the Collections. Combine Memories, Trips and Featured Photos into one collection for simplicity. Make it more visually obvious that Albums, Media Types and Utilities are paginated lists, and make it easier to see more of the lists.
• Make album and media type lists look and behave more like lists; make modal sheets look and behave like sheets.
• Make the Search button a full-size text field right between the library and the collections.

Read more about iOS 18 in my overview of other changes.