Camera Control is the best evidence that Apple has finally lost its way

[Allen_Wentz]

Also don't forget:

The original iPhone was small enough to be usable and pocketable, which is now gone
The original iPhone had a 3,5 mm headphone jack, which is now gone
The original iPhone had a Home button, which is now gone
The original iPhone had a good operating system which was fun and practical, which is now gone
The original iPhone had a message to the market, a new great design, which is now gone
etc.

Everything that made the iPhone great is now gone.

Apple is now an abandoned ship, trying to prove that they have a crew and a captain, but they are clueless.

Apple has consistently led the flagship end of the smartphone world since redefining what a smartphone is, in a very very competitive market space. Anyone who thinks that "Apple is now an abandoned ship, trying to prove that they have a crew and a captain, but they are clueless" is clueless.

 

[monstermash]

I think Apple's next leadership move is to stop calling the device a phone. It's so much more than that and the ability to make phone calls isn't even it's best function.

What to call it? Needs to be something catchy.

PICE
Personal Interactive Communication Equipment

PDIO
Personal Device for Interacting with Others

PIG
Personal Information Gateway

I dunno...I'm not in marketing. But they need to stop calling it a phone.

 

[heretiq]

How many Apple events does Austin get invited too? How many early product releases does he get? How bad does he want to stay in Apples good graces?

Most unbiased reviewers without an agenda seem to think the camera control is pretty useless.

Take reviewers with a huge grain of salt.

So, Halide, maker of competing Halide and Lux pro camera apps, thinks the camera button is a good thing — should they also be dismissed as biased?

 

[monstermash]

So, Halide, maker of competing Halide and Lux pro camera apps, thinks the camera button is a good thing — should they also be dismissed as biased?

Probably because they think that they can make money from it.

Hardly means it is a good thing for people.

 

[heretiq]

Probably because they think that they can make money from it.

Hardly means it is a good thing for people.

That statement is a head scratcher. Why would anyone endorse something that would degrade the experience of users of an app they’ve invested priceless life energy and millions of dollars to create?

 

[monstermash]

That statement is a head scratcher. Why would anyone endorse something that would degrade the experience of users of an app they’ve invested priceless life energy and millions of dollars to create?

Because they think they can make money from it.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

I think Apple's next leadership move is to stop calling the device a phone. It's so much more than that and the ability to make phone calls isn't even it's best function.

What to call it? Needs to be something catchy.

PICE
Personal Interactive Communication Equipment

PDIO
Personal Device for Interacting with Others

PIG
Personal Information Gateway

I dunno...I'm not in marketing. But they need to stop calling it a phone.

PIG works!

 

[Allen_Wentz]

Probably because they think that they can make money from it.

Hardly means it is a good thing for people.

Some people (me) think the new camera button adds utility. Which "means it is a good thing for people." Those folks who derive no value can simply ignore it instead of dissing something that they fail to grasp. [pun intended]

I capture thousands of work-related pix, and after just a few days of ownership of the 16PM I unequivocally opine that the new camera button adds utility.

 

[Parowdy]

I don't even know what to make of this.

If you mean by losing their way that they are moving more and more in the direction of having a camera with a phone instead of a phone with a camera, then yes. Otherwise, no.

I don't understand how the biggest fan boys seem to lose their ***** whenever Apple does something radical to one of their products.
How did Apple lose its way with the iPhone 5s and 5c? And the 6?
How did Apple lose its way with iOS 7? Or 8, or 10?
How did Apple not lose its way with the one-port MacBook?
How did Apple lose its way with the Touch Bar, or the 2016-2019 MacBook Pro's?
How did Apple lose its way with adding a button for camera control (and upcoming AI features)?
They didn't. They innovated, made mistakes and improved.

You could make a better case saying Apple lost its way with the Action Button last year, because it appears people seldomly use it differently than the ring switch. Why would you engineer something that replaces and adds no functionality for many users and call it a "Pro" feature? Since when is Apple adding things to their products, user programmable hardware of all things? And since
IMO, the Action button is a direct consequence of a mindset shift within Apple that started with Workflow. No, not workflow, Workflow, the predecessor of the Shortcuts App. And with the OS level integration that Shortcuts brought along, Apple invited every user to try and "program" their own features. Which seems like the biggest thing ever for Apple software and users in the 2010's and a ginormous mindset shift.
Shortcuts, as far as I see, doesn't and didn't get the recognition it deserves and it stands as the biggest testimony to a new direction Apple is going in, giving customers control of their own.
This year, that culminated in iOS 18, the first version that actually makes the iPhone feel mature thanks to its customisation efforts and a new hardware addition the the iPhone, adding a new button to for the camera. They added the same button AND last years Pro Action Button to the basic iPhone. If that's losing their way im in to come with them.
Now, I don't know about the quality of the experience, but ain't the new thing always not as good as it will be with the first generation? I understand it's frustrating as an user and I don't intend to downplay your experience.
I just think you're wrong about Apple heading down the wrong path.

Behind every single 1000 no, there is an engineer at Apple that probably loves this company and its products more than you do and is working to keep it and its DNA alive.

Concerning AI functionality, we've grown accustomed to Apple announcing features and shipping them later, they have a track record for this that reaches at least as far back as iOS 9.3, when they introduced Night Shift. I don't know why they did it, I'll just mention f.lux. Since then, Apple started having trouble with their hardware and software releases not lining up, different teams need different amounts of, especially if the software needs specialised hardware and optimisation, like it was the case with Deep Fusion and some others I can't even name right now but yeah, AI seems to be right in line where the teams need different amounts of time.

 

[I7guy]

I don't even know what to make of this.

If you mean by losing their way that they are moving more and more in the direction of having a camera with a phone instead of a phone with a camera, then yes. Otherwise, no.

I don't understand how the biggest fan boys seem to lose their ***** whenever Apple does something radical to one of their products.
How did Apple lose its way with the iPhone 5s and 5c? And the 6?
How did Apple lose its way with iOS 7? Or 8, or 10?
How did Apple not lose its way with the one-port MacBook?
How did Apple lose its way with the Touch Bar, or the 2016-2019 MacBook Pro's?
How did Apple lose its way with adding a button for camera control (and upcoming AI features)?
They didn't. They innovated, made mistakes and improved.

You could make a better case saying Apple lost its way with the Action Button last year, because it appears people seldomly use it differently than the ring switch. Why would you engineer something that replaces and adds no functionality for many users and call it a "Pro" feature? Since when is Apple adding things to their products, user programmable hardware of all things? And since
IMO, the Action button is a direct consequence of a mindset shift within Apple that started with Workflow. No, not workflow, Workflow, the predecessor of the Shortcuts App. And with the OS level integration that Shortcuts brought along, Apple invited every user to try and "program" their own features. Which seems like the biggest thing ever for Apple software and users in the 2010's and a ginormous mindset shift.
Shortcuts, as far as I see, doesn't and didn't get the recognition it deserves and it stands as the biggest testimony to a new direction Apple is going in, giving customers control of their own.
This year, that culminated in iOS 18, the first version that actually makes the iPhone feel mature thanks to its customisation efforts and a new hardware addition the the iPhone, adding a new button to for the camera. They added the same button AND last years Pro Action Button to the basic iPhone. If that's losing their way im in to come with them.
Now, I don't know about the quality of the experience, but ain't the new thing always not as good as it will be with the first generation? I understand it's frustrating as an user and I don't intend to downplay your experience.
I just think you're wrong about Apple heading down the wrong path.

Behind every single 1000 no, there is an engineer at Apple that probably loves this company and its products more than you do and is working to keep it and its DNA alive.

Concerning AI functionality, we've grown accustomed to Apple announcing features and shipping them later, they have a track record for this that reaches at least as far back as iOS 9.3, when they introduced Night Shift. I don't know why they did it, I'll just mention f.lux. Since then, Apple started having trouble with their hardware and software releases not lining up, different teams need different amounts of, especially if the software needs specialised hardware and optimisation, like it was the case with Deep Fusion and some others I can't even name right now but yeah, AI seems to be right in line where the teams need different amounts of time.

The action button is perhaps a bad example. Because it’s an example of a feature that performs the same as the feature it replaced and adds an infinite amount of features, albeit one need to choose. So backward compatibility, check. New features, check. It’s a win/win.

For a while I had it set to open the trunk of my car, but I found I used the mute / unmute functionality much much more.

What apple should have done is retained the old switch and added the action button. Or double press the action button to mute/unmute.

 

[Parowdy]

I don't know, Apple made the iPhone 15 Pro AI ready, I don't see how the AI visual look up thing was an afterthought for so long that they had to scrap their original plans. They obviously knew what was coming, otherwise they wouldn't have designed the A17 Pro the way they did I believe.

 

[Parowdy]

To say there was a simple philosophy, that there was one thing to focus on and that's it is ridiculous.
The iPhone 4 for example was the culmination of many many things, first Apple designed *chipset, a complete redesign with a new and revolutionary (yet flawed) antenna layout, the first Retina display; a better, actually useful photo and video camera on the back; the first front facing camera along with a new, free service called FaceTime, and colour science to produce (and ship way later) a white iPhone with a white front and back. That's a lot for "one thing to focus on". Let alone the iPod touch and the iPad around that time. And the year after we got Siri. Just like this year.
Going back further, I still remember the keynotes where Jobs explained their thinking behind their Mac lineup and what new classes to introduce, that was far more than just one thing to focus on as well.
Apple may have shipped more technology in less line up, but to say they focused on one thing is not correct. Even if they themselves say differently, the track record shows.

 

[heretiq]

Because they think they can make money from it.

I don’t believe a team that is smart enough to create an app like Halide would pursue such an uninformed and self-defeating tactic.

 

[neuropsychguy]

Probably because they think that they can make money from it.

Hardly means it is a good thing for people.

I don’t make money from my phone. I don’t make money from photos. I think the camera control button is excellent. It’s a major reason I upgraded from a 13 Pro.

I’m taking more photos and videos (my children and cats mostly) now because it makes it easier to quickly take them.

 

[Parowdy]

The action button is perhaps a bad example. Because it’s an example of a feature that performs the same as the feature it replaced and adds an infinite amount of features, albeit one need to choose. So backward compatibility, check. New features, check. It’s a win/win.

For a while I had it set to open the trunk of my car, but I found I used the mute / unmute functionality much much more.

What apple should have done is retained the old switch and added the action button. Or double press the action button to mute/unmute.

I originally wrote something else but scrapped and forgot it, but, you could say the Action Button is a perfect example of how Apple still holds on strong to their inner stubbornness, because they simply refuse to give us the options technically available, but only the hand picked ones they seem fit. Nothing out of line here

 

[boss.king]

I think Apple's next leadership move is to stop calling the device a phone. It's so much more than that and the ability to make phone calls isn't even it's best function.

What to call it? Needs to be something catchy.

PICE
Personal Interactive Communication Equipment

PDIO
Personal Device for Interacting with Others

PIG
Personal Information Gateway

I dunno...I'm not in marketing. But they need to stop calling it a phone.

If I was to make a list of things that would and should never happen, this would be #1.

 

[robfoll]

Whine, whine, whine, is that really the purpose of these forums? Nothing useful here!

 

[stocklen]

The action button is perhaps a bad example. Because it’s an example of a feature that performs the same as the feature it replaced and adds an infinite amount of features, albeit one need to choose. So backward compatibility, check. New features, check. It’s a win/win.

For a while I had it set to open the trunk of my car, but I found I used the mute / unmute functionality much much more.

What apple should have done is retained the old switch and added the action button. Or double press the action button to mute/unmute.

I agree with all of this until the last part.
No more buttons... please.

To me, Jony and Steve's ultimate expression of the phone design was to distill it down to a single rectangle of glass.

You could see the design slowly heading that way....

You can see how, in the future, the front facing camera could disappear under the display and the display will be an uninterrupted screen. You can even see potentially the phone losing the USB port but I can see that being controversial for peripheral fans...

However, adding more buttons seems to be totally at odds with the original intent. Im sure Jony would disapprove of adding more new buttons.

When you think about it - with the current iteration of iOS the phone actually doesn't need any buttons at all. Arguably the sleep/wake button would remain as you have a hardware option to restart the phone etc but there really is no need for anything else including the volume buttons.

Sure, the action button replaced the mute toggle and in doing so gave you something superior and more versatile - but muting the phone could be done from control centre.

The more buttons you add the more points of potential mechanical failure and water ingress you introduce.

I was expecting, by now, the phone to be losing buttons not gaining them.

 

[stocklen]

I don’t make money from my phone. I don’t make money from photos. I think the camera control button is excellent. It’s a major reason I upgraded from a 13 Pro.

I’m taking more photos and videos (my children and cats mostly) now because it makes it easier to quickly take them.

Can I ask a genuine question?

So, your upgrade from a 13pro to a 16pro makes perfect sense and you were long due an upgrade....

But im just intrigued to the supposed 'making it quicker to take photos' thing.

You didn't have it before... but in the 15 pro we had the action button that could be mapped to open the camera and that's actually faster than the camera control button....
However you've also had the 'swipe left from the Lock Screen' to instantly open the camera... and also the Lock Screen camera shortcut too.

Not saying the camera control isn't great for you personally but im just wondering how its better than the things we've had for a while before?

 

[RSmith2023]

An advancement to the camera shutter would have been a light touch similar to other functions for taking photos. Who on earth wants to add shake to a camera when taking a photo! The hard press functionality is DOA. Reprogram the button.

You know you can adjust the sensitivity of the button….

 

[powerslave65]

You know you can adjust the sensitivity of the button….

That adjustment only works on the light press and does very little. No way around how the button takes a picture, except to not use it.

 

[Andy_2341]

I just got used to it, I just try not to look at upper corners of screen. At this moment I am not sure what is uglier: my notch on 11 Pro or the “pill” they have in all iPhones since 13. Same with home button, once I got a grip of “swipe” gestures I cannot move back. Although on Samsungs I use virtual buttons instead, swipe feels too slow there.

I had seen Galaxy S24 and honestly, this one looks better. I would be as radical as remove front facing camera altogether and end this selfie idiocracy. Anyway this camera is 3 times worse than the main one

I really only see one purpose for the front facing camera, which would be FaceTime and social media. Otherwise, it’s not really necessary. I don’t think social media is necessary either, so if you could jump the FaceTime hurdle then it would be possible to remove the front camera. Selfies can just be done with a stand and the better rear cameras. The removal of the front camera would make many, many customers mad though and just doesn’t make sense to remove a cutout. The pill isn’t that bad really. I came from an SE 3 to a 15 pro, and having seen the notch on my brother’s 13, I’d way rather have the semi-functional Dynamic Island. Somewhat thick borders, or at least a forehead that’s half the size of the 8’s design, would've been better than notch imo. The S24 and other android’s button hole for the camera is just weird and I think the animations with potential utility of Dynamic Island is way less of an annoying element.

 

[Championable]

Before you roll your eyes, know that this is coming from the biggest Apple fan boi. I own almost every single apple product line (except the mac pro) and yes that does include the ultra expensive Apple Vision Pro.

Apple (the Jobs era) used to have a very simple philosophy. They focus on one thing that's it. They build the best products. And part of that is saying 1000 no. They release a product only when it is ready. They add a feature only when a customer will be delighted. Their record is not always 100% perfect, sure there are misses. But you can exactly see how they miscalculated, and know that their original intention is to bring joy to customers.

Fast forward today, Camera Control is none of that. Camera Control does not bring anyone joy. It's marketing gimmick that one would expect from any other tech companies but not Apple. At best, users are different and at worst it's hair pulling level of frustration to use. Let me explain.

First, as gruber correctly pointed out. It's incredibly frustrating that pressing it does not always open the camera app. It depends on the state of the phone. If the phone is not 'activated' - i.e. on the AOD mode. Pressing it in fact does nothing. If you wake the phone - either by touching the screen, or by waiting for the accelerometer to pick up motion, then pressing it opens the camera.

Contrast this to the action button. It will always launch it no matter what.

Second, the position of the button is very compromised for landscape shooting. I have larger hands but even for my index finger, it's not longer enough to be bent all the way above the iPhone frame. What you end up doing is, having the finger lay over the top right portion of the screen. One, that obstructs the screen as a viewfinder of the camera, and two it accidentally touches the screen sometimes.

Third, for almost all the half-press functions, they are vastly inferior to the on screen controls. Take zoom for example, it's physically much slower to go from 1x to 5x. Whereas by using the expanded half circle dial, you can zoom to 25x with even less time. Not to mention that with Camera Control you cannot zoom to small increments, like 2.5x.

So to put things in summary, here's where we landed

	Camera Control	Action button
Launches app consistently	50/50	Always
Shutter control	Works but sometimes misread as half presses	Always
Video control	Hold to record	Hold to record
Zoom control	Works but slow, coarse control, bad index finger positioning	Fast with on screen, granular control, perfect thumb positioning
Additional camera controls (exposure, aperture etc)	Hard to access, not user friendly	on screen controls are equally hard, most users dont use it

There is in fact, no reason to use the camera control button over the action button. Other than the fact that, by degrading your camera launching experience you reclaim the action button for other uses. Which might be worth it for some users...

So this really begs the question, what is Apple doing? Well my theory is this.

I think camera control was suppose to be used with a hold action to launch. This makes it so that it launches 100% of the time, not 50. It's also suppose to be launched with a half press function that provides unique ability. Exactly what, I dont know. But it could've been, something related to cinematic mode or something. It's slated to launch later this year to control focus, but iPhone cameras have such small aperture that you have very deep depth of field all the time anyway which made no sense. They must have some other uses in mind to justify a whole hardware button built around it.

Likely what happened was, that they caved to the investor pressure of AI features. So (1) they repurposed the hold action to now be 'visual intelligence' and (2) they released this hardware/software early and dumbed down the half press feature.

So here we are, not only is Apple releasing a half complete feature (which I'm ok with) but they've butchered whatever original design concepts they had in the name of AI such that even WHEN those features are eventually complete, the end result will be crippled. In the end we will have an unnecessary hardware button to call upon AI (in additional to Siri - so now 2 AI buttons) coupled with a downgraded experience to launch camera or triggering the shutter (compared to any of the existing methods - action button, slide left on lock, press hold bottom right button)

This is where the shift in Apple’s philosophy since the Jobs era starts to show its cracks. It’s depressing, because the old Apple got right on things that no other companies were able to get right. I guess not even the Apple today.

I bought an iPhone 16 Pro Max to replace my 14 PM. Used the camera button, returned the phone. I'll play with Apple intelligence on my iPad Pro + Mini M2Pro. The camera button was insanely frustrating.

 

[LogicalApex]

Before you roll your eyes, know that this is coming from the biggest Apple fan boi. I own almost every single apple product line (except the mac pro) and yes that does include the ultra expensive Apple Vision Pro.

Apple (the Jobs era) used to have a very simple philosophy. They focus on one thing that's it. They build the best products. And part of that is saying 1000 no. They release a product only when it is ready. They add a feature only when a customer will be delighted. Their record is not always 100% perfect, sure there are misses. But you can exactly see how they miscalculated, and know that their original intention is to bring joy to customers.

Fast forward today, Camera Control is none of that. Camera Control does not bring anyone joy. It's marketing gimmick that one would expect from any other tech companies but not Apple. At best, users are different and at worst it's hair pulling level of frustration to use. Let me explain.

First, as gruber correctly pointed out. It's incredibly frustrating that pressing it does not always open the camera app. It depends on the state of the phone. If the phone is not 'activated' - i.e. on the AOD mode. Pressing it in fact does nothing. If you wake the phone - either by touching the screen, or by waiting for the accelerometer to pick up motion, then pressing it opens the camera.

Contrast this to the action button. It will always launch it no matter what.

Second, the position of the button is very compromised for landscape shooting. I have larger hands but even for my index finger, it's not longer enough to be bent all the way above the iPhone frame. What you end up doing is, having the finger lay over the top right portion of the screen. One, that obstructs the screen as a viewfinder of the camera, and two it accidentally touches the screen sometimes.

Third, for almost all the half-press functions, they are vastly inferior to the on screen controls. Take zoom for example, it's physically much slower to go from 1x to 5x. Whereas by using the expanded half circle dial, you can zoom to 25x with even less time. Not to mention that with Camera Control you cannot zoom to small increments, like 2.5x.

So to put things in summary, here's where we landed

	Camera Control	Action button
Launches app consistently	50/50	Always
Shutter control	Works but sometimes misread as half presses	Always
Video control	Hold to record	Hold to record
Zoom control	Works but slow, coarse control, bad index finger positioning	Fast with on screen, granular control, perfect thumb positioning
Additional camera controls (exposure, aperture etc)	Hard to access, not user friendly	on screen controls are equally hard, most users dont use it

There is in fact, no reason to use the camera control button over the action button. Other than the fact that, by degrading your camera launching experience you reclaim the action button for other uses. Which might be worth it for some users...

So this really begs the question, what is Apple doing? Well my theory is this.

I think camera control was suppose to be used with a hold action to launch. This makes it so that it launches 100% of the time, not 50. It's also suppose to be launched with a half press function that provides unique ability. Exactly what, I dont know. But it could've been, something related to cinematic mode or something. It's slated to launch later this year to control focus, but iPhone cameras have such small aperture that you have very deep depth of field all the time anyway which made no sense. They must have some other uses in mind to justify a whole hardware button built around it.

Likely what happened was, that they caved to the investor pressure of AI features. So (1) they repurposed the hold action to now be 'visual intelligence' and (2) they released this hardware/software early and dumbed down the half press feature.

So here we are, not only is Apple releasing a half complete feature (which I'm ok with) but they've butchered whatever original design concepts they had in the name of AI such that even WHEN those features are eventually complete, the end result will be crippled. In the end we will have an unnecessary hardware button to call upon AI (in additional to Siri - so now 2 AI buttons) coupled with a downgraded experience to launch camera or triggering the shutter (compared to any of the existing methods - action button, slide left on lock, press hold bottom right button)

This is where the shift in Apple’s philosophy since the Jobs era starts to show its cracks. It’s depressing, because the old Apple got right on things that no other companies were able to get right. I guess not even the Apple today.

I disagree with the vast majority of this.

The camera control isn’t design to replace the camera app in every possible way. Nor is it optimized around speed. You may prefer those things, but Apple is famously opinionated. We don’t always agree with their opinion (like iPads with weak software), but they will stick to it.

Camera control is all about giving you a much tighter control over your camera workflow. It is also going to open up a world of power for third party camera apps who will greatly expand the power of that workflow. This is for the professionals who are the main driver of camera innovation at the top end of the iPhone lineup. Where they are shooting movies and professional photography.

The iPhone is a very different device for so many. Everything added won’t resonate with everyone.

Apple hasn’t lost it’s way due to the camera control button.

A much better argument for that is just how much fragmentation they have across the lineup. Including almost endless artificial software segmentation to drive sales.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

Can I ask a genuine question?

So, your upgrade from a 13pro to a 16pro makes perfect sense and you were long due an upgrade....

But im just intrigued to the supposed 'making it quicker to take photos' thing.

You didn't have it before... but in the 15 pro we had the action button that could be mapped to open the camera and that's actually faster than the camera control button....
However you've also had the 'swipe left from the Lock Screen' to instantly open the camera... and also the Lock Screen camera shortcut too.

Not saying the camera control isn't great for you personally but im just wondering how its better than the things we've had for a while before?

The point is that already in week #1 it adds utility for some of us. Others can ignore it. That is all good, no real downside, so why complain?

This early in the long process of learning how to best utilize a new UI I feel no inclination to spend effort detailing how it adds utility for some of us. Ask again in 6 months maybe, or buy an iP16 Pro and do your own empirical research.