According to Engadget, Sebastiaan de With, the co-founder of the popular iPhone camera app Halide and its parent company Lux, announced today that he is joining Apple’s design team. He revealed the move on Threads, stating he was excited to work with the best team on his favorite products. de With has a history with Apple, having previously collaborated on projects including iCloud, MobileMe, and the Find My apps. His departure from Lux, which also develops the photography apps Kino, Spectre, and Orion, leaves the future of those products unclear. The announcement comes nearly two years after the departure of iconic design chief Jony Ive in 2022.
What This Means for Apple
This is a fascinating hire. de With isn’t just some random designer; he’s spent years building tools that push the iPhone’s camera system to its absolute limits, often revealing capabilities Apple’s own software doesn’t highlight. So, he’s joining the company with a deep, critical, and user-focused understanding of one of the iPhone’s most important features. That’s huge. It signals Apple is serious about injecting fresh, expert perspective into its camera software and possibly hardware design. After the Jony Ive era, Apple’s design philosophy has felt a bit… adrift. Bringing in someone from the outside, yet who is deeply ingrained in the Apple ecosystem, could be a brilliant move to recapture that magic.
The Big Question for Halide
But here’s the thing: what happens to Halide now? It’s the premier third-party camera app for pros and enthusiasts. Does it get mothballed? Does his co-founder keep it running? It’s hard to imagine Apple being thrilled about one of its key designers also being associated with a competing camera app, even if it’s for their own platform. The same goes for Lux’s other apps like Kino for video. This feels like an acquisition of talent, not the product. So, the immediate impact might just be a slow fade for Halide. A real shame for users who rely on its granular control, but that’s often the price of this kind of talent grab.
A Shift in Design Philosophy?
Look, Ive’s legacy was about holistic, sometimes minimalist, hardware design. de With’s expertise is intensely software-focused, centered on user interface and computational photography. This hire might be a quiet signal that Apple’s design priorities are shifting. The battle isn’t just about making a beautiful slab anymore; it’s about the intelligence and capability inside that slab. The software is the experience. Hiring a guy who literally wrote the book on advanced iPhone photography suggests Apple is doubling down on that front. They’re not just designing objects; they’re designing the computational layers that make those objects indispensable. And frankly, that’s where the real innovation has been for years.
