Two months ago, Halide cofounder and designer Sebastiaan de With made a surprise announcement that he was joining Apple’s design team. It turns out the move came after Apple initially expressed interest in buying Lux Optics, the app development studio behind the pro camera app.
Apple planning iPhone 18 Pro camera software upgrade
Apple reportedly wants to bring more pro camera features to its software as the iPhone 18 Pro camera hardware goes higher end this year.
Aaron Tilley reports for The Information that Apple held talks to acquire Lux Optics last summer.
Lux Optics makes Halide, the popular third-party photography app, as well as Kino for shooting video, Spectre for long exposure shots, and Orion for turning an iPad into an external HDMI monitor.
Sadly, public knowledge of Apple’s interest in acquiring Lux Optics surfaced in a lawsuit filed against de With by cofounder Ben Sandofsky.
As far as Apple’s acquisition interests go, however, the lawsuit claims that the company was interested in Lux Optics’ intellectual property:
The acquisition of Lux, whose Halide app gives users more precise manual control over the iPhone camera’s hardware, could have helped Apple accelerate its efforts to improve its built-in camera app, a top priority for the company right now.
The camera in Apple’s upcoming iPhone 18 Pro models will begin to match
professional-grade cameras in terms of certain advanced features. As a result, the company is looking to give the built-in camera app on its smartphone an upgrade, people familiar with the effort said. The existing iPhone camera app contains mostly basic controls.
The Information says that talks between Apple and Lux Optics ended in September when the two cofounders agreed that future updates to Halide could increase the company’s value.
Apple considered buying Halide, lawsuit claims
A month later, Sandofsky began investigating his cofounder over alleged misuse of company funds before placing him on leave. The lawsuit states that de With was fired by Lux in December.
It also alleges that de With has “confidential materials related to Lux’s future product development” and the Apple Design Award won by Lux Optics.
Frankly, the Lux Optics situation sounds unfortunate with clear issues of mistrust. It’s a sad state of affairs for such an adored app.
There’s arguably no Halide without de With’s design chops and marketing experience. It’s also interesting to learn that even before being hired to design for Apple (for a second time), Lux Optics was moving forward without de With.
But messy lawsuit aside, it makes sense that Apple is interested in improving its first-party photography tools. There would truly be no Lux Optics without the iPhone camera hardware.
As Apple continues to squeeze more pro features into its cameras, it only makes sense for the software to follow.
Meanwhile, de With has design chops that touch on every user interface aspect beyond camera software. Perhaps we’ll see the first signs of his influence at WWDC 2026 with iOS 27.
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