The application of the camera in iOS 26 is almost naked, populated mainly with a trigger and a switch to switch between photo and video modes. This is the only application so far where I imagine that Apple designers have said: “Let’s make liquid glass, but even less.” And from a visual point of view, I receive the attraction: you want to be absorbed by the photo that you are about to take, not distracted by the controls around the periphery.
But I am wary of the fact that, without any clue to how to access features such as switching methods, modification of cameras or activation of other capture features, we end up with gestures that must be memorized just to see what is going on. Of course, I will develop muscle memory while I test it, but what about relatives who only take occasional photos? They will remain to slip in all directions, in the hope of reaching the features they wish.
How many people will slide up to access parameters such as timer or photographic styles and inadvertently close the application because they slipped from the bottom of the phone, not the bottom of the application? A single TAP lifts parameters such as video resolution and image frequency, but only one TAP was also the means of defining an autofocus point and an exhibition point.
The current camera application also suffers from this type of obscure: you must press an unmarked carat button (^) at the top to reveal the options that appear near the shutter button at the bottom, or you should know that a single short sliding up in the preview area will appear.
I do not yet pretend that it is an interface failure – it is the first beta developer, after all, and many things can change here at the exit of iOS 26 in the fall – but it will be one of the first things that I try when I put my hand on the software.
