Two months ago, Halide was surprised by co-founder and designer Sebastiaan de With announcement he joins Apple’s design team. It turns out that the move comes after Apple initially expressed interest in acquiring Lux Optics, the app development studio behind its pro camera software.
Apple plans to update the iPhone 18 Pro camera software
Apple is reportedly looking to bring more pro camera features to its software iPhone 18 Pro camera hardware this year is headed for higher.
Aaron Tilley This was reported by The Information publication Apple was in talks to buy Lux Optics last summer.
Lux Optics is Halidepopular third-party photography software as well It’s bad for video recording, Spectrum for long exposure shots and Orion To turn your iPad into an external HDMI monitor.
Unfortunately, public knowledge of Apple’s interest in acquiring Lux Optics was revealed in a lawsuit filed by co-founder Ben Sandofsky against de With.
As for Apple’s purchasing interests, the lawsuit alleges that the company has an interest in Lux Optics’ intellectual property:
The acquisition of Lux, whose Halide app gives users more precise manual control over the iPhone’s camera hardware, could help Apple accelerate efforts to improve its internal camera software, which is currently a top priority for the company.
The camera on Apple’s upcoming iPhone 18 Pro models will begin to adapt
professional grade cameras in terms of certain advanced features. As a result, the company is trying to improve the camera application built into its smartphone. The existing iPhone camera app has mostly basic controls.
Talks between Apple and Lux Optics ended in September when the two co-founders agreed that future updates to Halide could increase the company’s value, the report said.
Apple is considering buying Halide, it claims
A month later, Sandofsky began investigating his co-founder for alleged misuse of company funds before putting him on leave. The lawsuit says de With was fired by Lux in December.
It also claims de With has “confidential materials related to Lux’s future product development” and the Apple Design Award won by Lux Optics.
Frankly, the situation of Lux Optics is unfortunate with obvious mistrust issues. It’s a sad state of affairs for such a fan-favorite app.
Without De Within design chops and marketing experience, Halide does not. It is also interesting to learn that even before being hired to design for Apple (for the second time), Lux Optics was moving forward without de With.
But messy litigation aside, it makes sense that Apple would be interested in improving its first-party photography tools. There really would be no Lux Optics without iPhone camera equipment.
As Apple continues to squeeze more professional features into its cameras, it only makes sense for the software to follow.
Meanwhile, de With has design chops that touch every aspect of the user interface beyond the camera software. Perhaps we will see the first signs of its influence here WWDC 2026 with iOS 27.
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