Hands on: Everything new with Photos in iOS 18

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in iOS

Photos is getting some giant improvements in iOS 18. These are all of the changes and new features from a whole-app redesign to new curated memories.

The new Photos app showing a featured photo in the center of a dock going into water
The new Photos app is a big overhaul



Photos in iOS 18 represents a massive overhaul that touches nearly every corner of the app. There's a lot to love, but it has also stirred up its fair share of controversy.

Photos in iOS 18: New design



The headline here is this redesigned app. Gone are the Library, For You, Albums, and Search tabs that have persisted for so long, and in there stead is a new unified app experience.

Holding up the library view on iOS 17 compared to a second iPhone running iOS 18 and the new Photos app side by side
The new design is a single-page layout versus tabs



You're dropped into a middle ground with your library above and your other groupings below. There used to be a carousel of featured sections, but Apple removed this during the beta process as part of listening to customer feedback.

A wallpaper photo of a blue and green wave on two iPhones, one with the new inset interface versus the old interface with bars on the opt and bottom
The new design looks better when editing photos



When you pull down to move into the library view, there's a lovely animation as sort, timeline, and exit buttons slide into view.

One currently-missing feature is the camera roll. This specific view shows your recently taken photo, differing from imports, screenshots, and any other media.

Otherwise, your library can still change the grouping by all, months, or years. To go back to the main part of the app you can pull back down or tap the X in the lower-right corner.

The body of the app is then broken down into various collections of photos. Some are new groupings while others replace the preexisting tabs.

The new profile view of the Photos app, showing a profile photo above library information and a series of toggles
Keep an eye on your syncing media and toggle some settings



Finally, the redesign has a new profile-like view. It shows your sync progress and allows you to toggle certain settings on or off from within the app.

Photos in iOS 18: Customization options



Apple is pitching the reinvented app as not only improved, but more customizable than before. You can adjust all the sections below and the order they're in.

All of the collections can be toggled on and off individually, or you can drag them to rearrange them to the order that best suits you.

A list of collections in the Photos app that can be rearranged by small slider icons on the right
Rearrange the new Photos app to your needs



We turn to the screenshots a lot as we create content, so we moved the media types with screenshots towards the top for quicker access.

Photos in iOS 18: New collections for your media



Many of the collections, whether new or old, are very granular in their breakouts. Even more so than before.

People, for example, can now include groups. You can create your own by choosing the people but the album will also start presenting them.

Trips are super cool. It replaced the "places" from the old people, pets, and places album.

The newly redesigned Photos app collections for people and pets and pinned collections
So many more options to organize your media



These are added based on your location and broken down by year. We can see all the places we went back in 2021 like New York, Boston, Portland, Michigan, Iceland, and Nashville.

Utilities is much more robust this time. You still have duplicates, hidden, and recently deleted but they're joined by receipts, handwriting, illustrations, QR codes, recently viewed, recently edited, recently shared, and documents.

Photos in iOS 18: Apple Intelligence



Aside from all of these features, there's a subset of incredibly cool features under the umbrella of Apple Intelligence.

That does mean that these won't be coming to every iPhone, and instead will be limited, for the time being, to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

The biggest addition is the Clean Up tool. It does essentially what the name implies and "cleans up" your photos by removing unnecessary distractions.

Unlike other phone makers, the goal with the Clean Up tool and Apple Intelligence is to retain the original intent of the photo. Not to alter it.

The clean up tool will remove extra people in the background, maybe a car in the way, or some extra clouds if you wanted that clear sky.

Screenshots of the Clean Up tool in action removing toys off of the beach
Use the Clean Up tool to remove people, objects, and more



Depending on the situation, it should also be able to theoretically remove blemishes too. You aren't going to swap someone's head, open their eyes, or add a random animal to someone's lap.

It won't rain purple drops, give someone a third arm, or change the color of your car. It just makes your photos better, without going too far.

There are third party apps for all of that.

A collection of photos sliding into view as a memory video is generated
Create photo memories with natural language



Apple Intelligence also ties into memories. You can create a memory video just by describing what you want.

Ask it to make a memory of you and your partner on trips and end it with a big group shot of friends. It's even able to put these memories together narratively.

The example Apple gave was a young boy learning to fish. It assembles shots of him getting there, tossing the line, before finally catching a big fish.

Lastly, Apple Intelligence helps you find photos you're looking for.

"Show me photos of Harrison in New York eating some food," or "show me photos of Faith looking cozy in a gray sweatshirt on a rainy day."

All of these new features will be arriving as part of iOS 18 which is expected to start rolling out this fall, with Apple's other platform updates.



Read on AppleInsider

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    I see Andrew has x photos y videos and 2 items. I have had 1 item for ages but never known what it is. Any ideas what items are?
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 5
    Have to say the new photos app is pretty bad. 
    Bring back camera roll and let the screen shots be included in camera roll also. 
    If it ain’t broke…..

    ralphiejovike
  • Reply 3 of 5
    Eireplane said:
    Have to say the new photos app is pretty bad. 
    Bring back camera roll and let the screen shots be included in camera roll also. 
    If it ain’t broke…..

    Agreed. It’s a mess. In a typical Apple fashion, majority of the changes are made just for the sake of changing things. Not for the better. Things that used to take one tap now take two. It takes more scrolling to get to what used to be “right there”. But that’s nothing new, it has been happening in mac OS for years as well. 

    What remains broken, however, are Shared Albums. Apple decided years ago that we can’t be trusted with our own metadata and strips them from photos we put in Shared Albums. For Apple products that “just work”, this is a horrible part of Photos. I hoped it would be fixed this year, since people have been complaining about this on Apple forums for years, but nooooooo. 

    Why can’t we get an option to strip metadata from photos, but let us share them if we want to? We are adults and are capable of making those decisions. I am so tired of not being able to share captions of photos with friends and family. I routinely share the same photos in different shared albums, for different sets of people. It would be great if I could write a descriptions of the photos in their captions, grab all of them and drag into shared albums. But no! This only works when doing it one by one, and only through the Share menu. So if I have 100 photos and 3 albums, what could be 3 simple tasks are now 300 individual photo share tasks, just so I don’t lose the captions,  the other option being writing Comments for 300 photos, one by one, which would be even more time consuming.

    And don’t get me started on downsizing photos in Shared albums. Why don’t we have an option to share full size pics and videos? Even if it counts against iCloud space? Arbitrary decisions like this can just drive one up the wall. 

    We’re in 2024. We don’t have  a basic feature like this, but we have a feature where AI will generate a slideshow for us. Great. What is that good for? Nothing. 
    edited August 31 gatorguyAlex1Njovike
  • Reply 4 of 5
    ralphieralphie Posts: 129member
    New Camera app could be the sole reason I do not get a new phone this year, not update to iOS 18.  What a mess, change for the sake of change as other have said.
    jovike
  • Reply 5 of 5
    This looks awful. It reminds me of when Apple took away most of the functionality of iPhoto and gave us Photos on the Mac. How does this new version handle titles, captions and keywords?
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