Apple’s Camera styles in the Photos app still need contextual help
Apple introduced tonal maps for the iPhone Camera and Photos app last year, along with other more complex options for the iPhone 16 Pro’s dedicated Camera button last year. Based on the iOS 26 Developer Beta, taking photos and video has been simplified, while the style labels used to describe them are still a usability issue.
I decided to test the iOS 26 dev beta while bouncing around California on a family vacation. I went knowingly forgiving of what’s clearly defined as a beta for Apple developers, and not to nitpick and expect perfection like it’s ready for public consumption.
I am still surprised to find Apple is using three generic-sounding labels for a few of the preselected tones in the Camera and Photos apps that users can choose from to help “enhance” the look of their photos, like pre-defined Instagram filters, but with a user interface design that allows for more advanced, refined control of the default tones, even after the photos are taken.
Apple has options labeled NATURAL, STANDARD, and NEUTRAL, which all sound very similar and describe different tones, which I find hard to discern the differences.
Even showing a UI that displays the tonal maps Apple is using for these options, it’s not very clear how these tones are distinct from each other. As a casual user, or even one that’s somewhat adept at photography, the UI shows some warmer tones, but without context of why I’d want to use one over another, these options sound too similar.
I’m glad to see the refinements that Apple made to the Camera feature, given the importance of quickly capturing a moment the way the user wants more quickly.
The Camera is likely to be one of the most frequently used software features on any Apple product ever made, other than the Lock Screen and Messages app. It’s important to the Apple user experience to capture the moment without all the decision complexity they introduced last year that slows down the user right after opening the Camera app with the Camera button.
Maybe there are plans to add contextual help to teach users what each filter does to enhance the photo and help users make good decisions with photo styles.
While the user can change these after taking the photo, avoiding the risk of ruining a photo forever, refining these options down to the most useful ones would probably benefit most users.
It would also help to set expectations and deal with how truly terrible the Auto button can be for photo enhancement.
The Auto button often results in far worse enhancements than someone learning and experimenting with fine tuning a photo’s features separately. Teaching the user how to manually adjust a photo’s shadows, contrast, highlights, etc. can help people who choose to want to learn.
After just a few manual tweaks (that probably need further refinement) this photo with its high contrast and dark shadows looks better and allows me to see my son’s face as we about to fight Bowser in Super Nintendo World.
Hopefully, we’ll see more contextual help features in the public beta and in the fall release for iPhone users.
