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爱范儿（ID：ifanr），作者：苏伟鸿，题图生成：midjourney
If there is one part of iOS 18 that has undergone the most thorough changes, it is probably the &#34;Photos&#34; app.
However, the user satisfaction with this major update may not have met Apple's expectations.
Typing keywords like &#34;iOS 18 album&#34; on social media, the top two suggestions are &#34;how to revert to the previous layout&#34; and &#34;difficult to use&#34;, followed by inquiries about certain functions and albums.
It seems that the new photo app, originally intended to present users with more beautiful memories, is actually creating more frustrating experiences.
Not just a simple new design
<blockquote>
As the functions of the Photos app continue to increase, the size of the app is also growing. So we created a simple, streamlined single-view photo experience based on deep intelligence, aiming to remove the sense of blockage during use.
</blockquote>
This is how Billy Sorrentino, the director of Apple's Human Interface Design team, explained the starting point of the new photo app design.
Specifically, Apple merged the 4 different pages of the old version together, cramming all the content that used to belong to the &#34;For You&#34; and &#34;Albums&#34; tabs under the library, forcing users to continuously scroll down to find what themes and types of albums they are looking for.
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The following changes and features may be what Apple considers as &#34;simple and streamlined&#34;.
Firstly, in the library, the new filtering function can directly display specific media types, such as screenshots, videos, selfies, etc., without the need to click on the album page to search for media types, and can also filter out screenshots from the library.
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Then there is the &#34;carousel&#34; feature for left and right scrolling in the library, where users can pin their favorite albums, such as favorites and travel, so they don't have to scroll down to find them.
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Under the various albums and themes below the gallery, customization is supported, allowing users to choose which sections to display and also to sort these sections.
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It sounds very customizable and user-friendly, but the fact that it has been criticized across the internet indicates everything.
First of all, all sections are stacked below the gallery, resulting in overly cluttered content on a single page. The new UI requires users to continuously scroll down, and the entire process is almost unknown to users. Users do not know how long they need to scroll to reach the section they want.
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Customizing the order of sections may solve some problems, but users may not remember the order they set. Many infrequently used sections make searching for them full of unknowns when needed.
The carousel function that appears when horizontally scrolling in the gallery not only overlaps a bit with the &#34;Fixed Albums&#34; function below, but the interaction of horizontal scrolling in the gallery area is not very intuitive, sometimes users accidentally swipe into other sections in the carousel and may not know how to return to the main gallery.
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&#34;Looks good,&#34; but difficult to use
In 2002, at the MacWorld event, Steve Jobs officially released the photo management program &#34;iPhoto,&#34; which allowed users to easily export photos from their cameras, creating a well-organized image library.
Even more dreamy, with a simple click of the mouse, users could create photo slideshows with background music, and Apple could even print out a physical album if the layout was done well.
Times have changed, and iPhotos and Apple's photo printing services have become &#34;tears of the times,&#34; but Apple has never given up on the concept of using &#34;photos&#34; to tell stories.
It's just that the &#34;publisher&#34; has changed from the user to the device itself. Nowadays, iCloud Photo Library not only automatically categorizes photos based on basic temporal and spatial information but also intelligently generates &#34;memories&#34; based on themes, selecting beautiful images for you, telling stories on your behalf, and even providing background music. The photo application is becoming more like a personalized &#34;magazine&#34;.
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Image Source: Apple Insider
These features had a rudimentary form in iOS 10, but with the support for desktop widgets in iOS 14, their value has been further highlighted.
The photo widget that can rotate between &#34;Memories&#34; and &#34;Featured Photos&#34; is like having a magical photo frame in the real world that displays various photos. When you occasionally see those selected beautiful moments, you can't help but click to savor them carefully.
Many iPhone users around me choose to place the photo widget on their desktop, some even purchase cloud storage space for this widget and the featured photos feature, even if they never use iCloud Photo Library.
The new Photos app in iOS 18 gives me the feeling that it's like squeezing widgets into the gallery, where everything is in slideshow format.
For example, the &#34;hard classification&#34; of media types, if not customized, are all located below sections like &#34;Memories,&#34; &#34;People,&#34; and &#34;Featured Photos.&#34;
This means that the functions and sections belonging to &#34;Creation Tools&#34; in the new Photos app have been streamlined and marginalized, while the functions belonging to &#34;Content Viewing&#34; have become the focus.
To put it more concretely, let's take an example: TikTok.
When you open TikTok, 90% of the interface is video content. Even if you go to the account page, the video preview at the bottom takes up a large portion, while the entrance to creation tools is minimized to a &#34;+&#34; sign hidden in a secondary page. This aligns with TikTok's positioning as a platform for content consumption rather than a creator tool.
When you open the new album section in iOS 18, you will find a preview window occupying more than half of the space, playing the content in the album in a loop, significantly reducing the density of photos when opening the album. Moreover, to quickly filter photos, you need to shift your focus from this large window back to the small preview images below.
Additionally, the default arrangement of small preview images in each album will display photos in different sizes, intended to highlight more exquisite photos. Leaving aside Apple's automatic selection criteria, this &#34;kindness&#34; actually becomes a distraction when you need to quickly filter through multiple photos.
Furthermore, the previous tab mode allowed users to quickly navigate between &#34;Library&#34; and &#34;Albums,&#34; but now both are within the same interface, making navigation back and forth very challenging
The album of iOS 17 allows for quick navigation within tags.
The merging of the &#34;Day&#34; view and &#34;Recently Added&#34; in the gallery into &#34;Recent Days&#34; is also a major area of criticism. This new section is not as convenient for managing photos in large quantities as &#34;Recently Added,&#34; and in the initial test versions, it does not display photos that users have edited and exported externally.
From iPhotos to the new Photos app in iOS 18, Apple's album application is still full of humanistic feelings, presenting beautiful memories and moments to users in various ways.
However, in the past twenty years, the relationship between users and cameras, as well as albums, has undergone earth-shaking changes. In today's era of social media, everyone is a creator, and everyone can create with their phones.
The iPhone, especially the Pro series, is also striving to become a professional creative tool. Even for non-professional photography enthusiasts and self-media creators, it is very common for ordinary users to shoot VLOGs and photos with an iPhone.
For many people, quickly managing and selecting usable materials, and then distributing them across multiple platforms, is more essential and important than having the photo app automatically generate slideshows.
Traditional albums are only for self-enjoyment, but now we are more willing to share beautiful things with others. This new Photos app in iOS 18 has not captured the pulse of this era.
The balance between tools and humanism
After the above criticism, some may feel that it is a bit too &#34;tool-oriented,&#34; lacking warmth, and seemingly contrary to the humanistic original intention of Apple's new Photos app.
In fact, I do not oppose these selected photos and memory functions. I even find them very interesting, and I believe that many users who find iOS 18 photos difficult to use also share this sentiment.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said that many consumers are often touched by the &#34;Spatial Photos&#34; feature when trying out the Vision Pro headset. When they see photos of loved ones who are no longer around vividly reproduced, tears often fill the eyes of the users.
While iOS 18's &#34;Photos&#34; app may not achieve the effects of Vision Pro's spatial computing, it can organize heartwarming group photos of you and your family and friends, waiting to be discovered and revisited one day.
A hiking trip full of memories
The intelligent photo selection itself is not a sin, the problem is that these functions occupy a large amount of space in the photo app interface, and change the original efficiency-oriented operational logic, causing a misalignment with the real needs of users.
Let's not forget, one of the original intentions of Apple's major overhaul of the photo app is also to allow users to better manage their increasingly large photo libraries.
Enhanced search functionality can be described as &#34;heading in the right direction&#34;, not only making image searches more accurate, but also starting to search for videos; similarly, the user-friendly filtering function can quickly filter screenshots directly from the gallery, making the gallery look more pleasing to the eye, and can also filter out &#34;edited&#34; materials separately, which is beneficial for creators.
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After several iterations of testing versions, Apple also began to &#34;turn back from the wrong path&#34;, removing one of the major drawbacks, the &#34;carousel&#34; feature; the new gallery can also display externally saved images, which is a bit of a return to the past, but it can also be considered a return to the expectations of the public.
Perhaps through continuous adjustments, Apple will eventually find the balance between &#34;tool&#34; and &#34;humanity&#34;, making the Photos app a &#34;transit station&#34; - where users can not only revisit past memories, but also better create new ones.
Love Faner (ID: ifanr), Author: Su Weihong

AAPL

Users have criticized the changes to the new album in iOS 18, pointing out that the design is difficult to use and the page scrolling is too cumbersome. Apple has merged different pages together, requiring users to constantly scroll down to find albums. Although it supports customization and filtering functions, the user experience is poor

- The iOS 18 update focuses extensively on revamping the "Photos" app, aiming to enhance user experience by presenting more memories but falls short of Apple's expectations, evident from social media feedback highlighting usability issues.
- Apple's new design merges multiple pages into a single view, introducing features like direct media type filtering and customizable album displays to streamline the photo browsing experience.
- Despite efforts to balance utility and nostalgia, criticisms arise over cluttered interfaces, distracting design choices, and a shift towards content consumption over creation, prompting Apple to make iterative adjustments for improved user interaction.

The new album with major changes in iOS 18, why is it being criticized?