Apple hires iPhone camera app Halide’s co-founder for its design team

Sebastiaan de With, co-founder of Lux, the company behind popular iPhone photography apps like Halide and Kino, announced on Wednesday that he has joined Apple's design team. This marks de With's return to Apple, where he previously contributed to projects such as iCloud and Find My. Before establishing Lux with Ben Sandofsky in 2016, de With had an impressive track record, having worked in design for notable companies including Sony, T-Mobile, and Mozilla. In a post on X, he expressed his enthusiasm: "So excited to work with the very best team in the world on my favorite products." Meanwhile, Sandofsky reassured fans in a Reddit post that Lux will continue developing Halide. The company has just unveiled a public preview of Halide Mark III, which introduces a new feature called "Looks" that aims to emulate the aesthetics of classic film cameras. De With's arrival at Apple comes during a period of notable transitions within the design division. Following the mixed reviews of the Liquid Glass design introduced with iOS 16, the team has seen significant changes, including the departure of chief user interface designer Alan Dye to Meta in December. Recent reports from Bloomberg also indicated that John Ternus, who is being considered as a potential successor to Tim Cook, has taken charge of hardware and software design since late last year.