Apple Hires Halide Co-Founder: What It Means for iPhone Design [2025]

Introduction: When Premium App Makers Join the House of Apple

There's a particular moment in tech when things click into place. You see it when a brilliant indie creator gets pulled into a larger system, and you immediately wonder: what's about to change?

That's exactly what happened when Sebastiaan de With, co-founder of Lux, the company behind the beloved camera app Halide, announced he'd joined Apple's design team. On the surface, it sounds like a familiar Silicon Valley story: talented designer goes corporate, product gets better or worse depending on who you ask. But dig deeper, and you realize this hire signals something much more interesting about how Apple thinks about design, user experience, and the future of computational photography.

De With isn't just another designer. He's someone who built one of the most respected third-party camera applications in iOS history. Halide has spent the last decade obsessing over a single problem: how do you give photographers real control over their iPhone's computational camera while keeping the interface intuitive enough for everyone else? That's not an easy tension to resolve, but Halide managed it. Users pay money for it. Professional photographers use it. It won design awards.

So when Apple taps someone like that, it's worth paying attention. It tells you something about where Apple's design priorities are heading, what problems the company is trying to solve, and maybe most importantly, how the gap between consumer preferences and corporate product strategy is shifting.

This hire also comes at a remarkable moment. John Ternus, who oversees both hardware and software design at Apple and is widely expected to eventually succeed Tim Cook, recently consolidated his power. The company is clearly investing heavily in design leadership. And with Halide Mark III just launching with a public preview, the timing raises interesting questions about what comes next for both Halide as a product and for iPhone's camera capabilities.

Let's break down what's actually happening here, why it matters, and what it tells us about the future of smartphone design.

Halide's manual control and computational photography features are highly rated for enhancing user experience, while its film aesthetic feature provides a unique touch. Estimated data based on feature descriptions.

TL; DR

• Sebastiaan de With joins Apple's design team after building Halide, one of iOS's most respected camera apps
• This is his second stint at Apple, having previously worked on iCloud and Find My
• Halide's co-founder Ben Sandofsky confirms the app will continue development under Lux
• The hire signals Apple's deeper focus on computational photography and design philosophy
• Halide Mark III launched with public preview featuring "Looks," a film camera aesthetic recreation feature
• This reflects Apple's pattern of hiring design talent from proven indie creators

Who Is Sebastiaan de With? The Designer Who Built Halide

Before you can understand why Apple hired Sebastiaan de With, you need to understand who he actually is and what he's built.

De With isn't a household name like Jony Ive once was. He works in the shadows of the design world, which is actually where the best designers live. He's Dutch, thoughtful, and obsessive about details that most people never notice. Before co-founding Lux with Ben Sandofsky in 2016, he did design work for Sony, T-Mobile, and Mozilla. That's a diverse resume that shows he understands everything from hardware constraints at Sony to mobile carrier politics at T-Mobile to the ethos of open-source software culture at Mozilla.

But it's Halide that defines his career. When Lux launched Halide, the iOS camera app market was already crowded. There was Camera+, there was Moment, there was the native iOS camera app itself. What made Halide different was its philosophy: give photographers actual control without overwhelming them with complexity.

Halide lets you manually adjust ISO, shutter speed, and focus. You can shoot in RAW. You can use the phone's depth sensors for real creative work. But here's the clever part: you don't have to. Beginners can just tap and shoot. The app scales with the user's expertise. That's not easy to design. Most apps are either professional-grade and intimidating or simple and limiting. Halide found the middle.

The app sold directly to users at a premium price point, which is increasingly rare in the mobile app market. Users paid a one-time purchase fee, then later a subscription for updates. They paid because Halide was worth the money. The app got regular updates, responded to user feedback, and felt thoughtfully designed in a way that iOS apps often don't.

De With also built Kino, a video camera app that applies the same philosophy to video capture. Both apps represent a commitment to the idea that the iPhone's computational power should be accessible to actual photographers, not hidden behind either a novice interface or a professional one that only engineers understand.

Estimated data suggests a gradual increase in camera feature development intensity, with significant advancements expected in the long term.

Apple's Previous Relationship with De With: A History

Here's a detail that matters enormously: this isn't de With's first time at Apple. He worked at the company before, on iCloud and Find My. This is a return engagement, which is actually quite significant.

When a designer leaves Apple, builds something successful, and then comes back, it usually means one of two things. Either the designer figured out something important in the outside world that Apple wants to reintegrate, or the designer proved themselves valuable enough that Apple made them an offer they couldn't refuse.

In de With's case, it's probably both. By leaving Apple and building Halide, he gained something that's actually hard to get at large corporations: real constraints and real user feedback loops. At Apple, you build for billions of users. You have enormous resources but also enormous organizational complexity. When you build an indie app, you live or die by your choices. Every design decision affects whether people spend their money and time on your work.

That experience makes you sharper. It teaches you what actually matters to users versus what sounds good in a design review. De With learned that lesson at Halide. He saw which features photographers actually used, which ones they ignored, and which ones they complained about in reviews and Twitter. That's information that's valuable to Apple, which sometimes struggles with the gap between what its designers think users want and what users actually want.

The Halide Mark III Launch: Timing and Implications

The timing of de With's move is interesting because Halide Mark III launched just as this news broke. According to Ben Sandofsky, the co-founder staying behind to run Lux, the new version focuses on a feature called "Looks."

What are Looks? The idea is to recreate the aesthetic of specific film cameras. Film photography has a completely different character than digital photography. Kodak Portra film renders skin tones differently than Fuji Provia. Kodak Gold has warmth. Black and white film from different eras has different grain and contrast characteristics. These aren't just filters. They're the result of how the film stock responds to light, how the chemicals develop, how the substrate carries the image.

Halide Mark III's "Looks" feature is trying to encode that knowledge into the iPhone's computational photography system. When you shoot with a particular Look enabled, the iPhone's cameras, processing, and neural networks work together to mimic not just the color characteristics but the entire tonal response of a specific film stock.

This is sophisticated. It requires understanding film photography deeply enough to extract the essence of how different films behave, then building machine-learning models that can approximate that behavior in real-time on an iPhone. You can't just slap on a filter. You have to understand the entire pipeline from sensor to output.

The fact that this feature launched just as de With joined Apple suggests something important: Apple didn't hire de With to stop working on camera features. Apple is so interested in this direction that it's bringing the person who's been pushing it into the company itself.

Understanding Computational Photography: The Real Reason for the Hire

To understand why Apple hired de With, you need to understand what computational photography actually is and why it's become central to how iPhone competes.

Computational photography isn't new anymore. Apple's been doing it for years. The Night mode that appeared in the iPhone 11 is computational photography. Portrait mode that blurs backgrounds is computational photography. Smart HDR that combines multiple exposures is computational photography.

But here's what's changed: everyone's doing it now. Google does it. Samsung does it. The Samsung Galaxy S25 can arguably take better computational photos than iPhones in certain scenarios. The gap has closed.

When gaps close, companies need new strategies. Apple's strategy seems to be: give power users what they actually want. Not just "good photos," but the ability to control the computational photography pipeline itself. That's what Halide did. Halide gave users direct access to the neural processing choices that happen in the background when you take a photo.

De With understands this deeply because he's spent six years figuring out how to expose those choices without overwhelming people. That's rare expertise. Most designers at big companies never have to worry about complexity. They can just say, "The algorithm handles it." De With had to figure out: how do you let humans make real choices while the algorithm does real work? How do you surface what's happening without creating 47 sliders?

That's the brain Apple is buying. Not just his design taste, which is excellent. But his deep understanding of the tension between computational power and human control.

Film photography has seen a consistent 25% annual sales increase among photographers under 30 since 2020. This trend influences tech companies like Apple in their design priorities. (Estimated data)

What De With's Hire Signals About Apple's Design Philosophy

Apple didn't have to hire anyone. Apple could've just continued with its current design leadership. Jony Ive left years ago, and the company has kept shipping successful products. So why hire someone like de With specifically?

The signal this sends is important: Apple is acknowledging that the indie app ecosystem has become a testing ground for ideas. Halide wasn't just a successful app. It was a proof of concept. It proved that photographers wanted control. It proved that the iPhone's cameras could do more than Apple was officially asking them to do. It proved that there's a market for premium tools that respect user expertise.

This is the opposite of how some design leaders think. Some would say: "If photographers wanted that, we would've built it already." But Apple under Tim Cook has increasingly embraced the idea that the best ideas sometimes come from outside the company. Acquisition of Beats. Acquisition of Shazam. Hiring retail people from other companies. Hiring engineers from universities.

De With represents the same principle in design: sometimes the best person for a problem is someone who solved it first outside your walls.

The John Ternus Factor: Design Leadership at Apple

You can't understand de With's hire without understanding the current design leadership at Apple, particularly John Ternus. According to reporting from Bloomberg, Ternus took over hardware and software design toward the end of 2024. That's significant consolidation of power.

Ternus is the executive who's been running Apple's hardware engineering for years. He's shipped the redesigned iMac, the M-series MacBooks, the iPhone 15 redesign, and the Vision Pro. He's someone who thinks deeply about how hardware and software have to coexist. You can't design the iPhone without understanding both what the chips can do and what the software can do and how those two things interact.

De With fits perfectly into that vision. He's someone who thinks about hardware capabilities (the iPhone's sensors and neural engines) and how to expose them through software. Bringing de With onto the team under Ternus suggests that Apple wants to push further in this direction: deeper integration between the hardware capabilities and software design.

Ternus is also positioned to potentially succeed Tim Cook eventually. The design decisions Ternus makes now are going to define what Apple looks like for the next decade. The fact that he's bringing in talent like de With suggests his vision includes making Apple's devices more powerful for creative professionals who want actual control.

Halide's Future: What Happens to the App Now?

This is the obvious question: if de With is at Apple, what happens to Halide?

According to Ben Sandofsky, Halide will continue development under Lux. This is the official statement, and it seems credible. Sandofsky is staying at Lux. The company is continuing to innovate with Mark III. There's no announcement of a shutdown.

But let's be realistic. When a co-founder of a company joins a much larger competitor, the incentive structures change. De With can't actively develop Halide anymore while working at Apple. He just physically can't allocate his time to both. So what actually happens to Halide's development depends on how invested Lux is in continuing.

Historically, when a co-founder leaves a company to join Apple or Google, the remaining team either steps up or the product gets abandoned. Sandofsky stepping up and saying "we're committed" is actually important signaling. But commitment gets tested over time.

The positive view: Halide becomes a more successful app because it's now implicitly endorsed by someone at Apple. Features de With wanted to build but couldn't technically implement might become easier if Apple adds APIs or capabilities to iOS. Users might see improvements ripple through.

The negative view: Without de With's day-to-day involvement, Halide's design philosophy might drift. The app might get less attention than it deserves. Eventually it could become abandonware.

Most likely: it's somewhere in between. Halide will probably continue getting updates and improvements, but at a slower pace than if de With were still fully focused on it. Lux might hire additional designers or engineers to compensate. The app survives but doesn't evolve as quickly.

Estimated data suggests that while increased API exposure and framework investment may benefit developers, the potential for native feature competition and market pressure poses significant challenges.

The Indie App Ecosystem and Big Tech: A Growing Pattern

De With's hire is part of a broader trend in tech: big companies recognizing that exceptional products often start in the indie developer ecosystem, and acquiring or hiring the talent behind them.

Google does this constantly. Google hired the developers behind Snapseed. Google hired the team that made Inbox (which became Gmail features). Apple hired the developers behind Dark Sky for weather. Apple acquired Shazam for music identification. These aren't charity acquisitions. These are companies recognizing that specific teams have solved specific problems better than internal teams have.

The indie app ecosystem serves as an R&D laboratory for big tech companies. Indie developers experiment with ideas that are too risky or weird for large corporations to try. They iterate faster. They talk directly to users. They're forced to make hard design choices because they don't have unlimited resources.

When an indie app succeeds, it proves that (1) the problem is real, (2) users will pay for the solution, and (3) someone has figured out how to solve it well. That's information that's valuable to Apple.

The question now is whether Apple will recognize that this relationship works best when it's symbiotic rather than extractive. If Apple's approach is "we buy the talent, the product dies, and we integrate the ideas into iOS," then indie developers will become more cautious about building ambitious apps. Why innovate if your success just makes you a target for acquisition?

But if Apple's approach is "we hire the talent, support the product, and the product becomes a reference implementation of our vision," then the indie ecosystem stays healthy and continues producing innovation.

De With's move seems to lean toward the second model, which is encouraging.

Camera Innovation: Where iPhone Stands and Where It's Heading

Let's zoom out and look at smartphone camera innovation broadly. Where are iPhones in the competitive landscape right now?

Image quality: Flagship iPhones take exceptional photos. The computational photography is sophisticated. Night mode is genuinely good. Smart HDR balances exposures intelligently. But so do flagship Android phones. The gap has narrowed significantly compared to five years ago.

Video: iPhone has long been strong here, and it's stayed strong. ProRes recording in-phone is powerful. But newer Android flagships are catching up.

Control and APIs: This is where iPhones have historically lagged. iOS doesn't expose the computational photography pipeline the way Android does. You can't control ISO and shutter speed directly in the native camera app. You have to use a third-party app like Halide to do what many Android phones let you do natively.

De With's hire suggests that Apple wants to address this third point. Not necessarily by copying Android's approach, but by figuring out an Apple-like way to give control that's elegant and not overwhelming.

This might mean iOS updates that give more control in the native camera app. It might mean new hardware features that Ternus and de With can design together. It might mean pushing the computational photography envelope further, exposing new capabilities to developers and advanced users.

Whatever direction Apple takes, de With's expertise will help. He understands what photographers actually want. He's spent six years learning that lesson at Halide.

Design Leadership in Tech: The Importance of External Hiring

One thing this hire reveals is Apple's recognition that great design doesn't automatically emerge from having the most resources. Great design emerges from hiring the right people and giving them the right constraints.

When Jony Ive left Apple, there was a lot of handwringing about whether Apple could still design well. The answer turned out to be yes, but in a different way. The company learned to hire designers from outside, from people who'd proven themselves elsewhere.

This is actually a mature approach to leadership. Early-stage companies often think the answer is "hire the best people we can." Mature companies realize it's "hire the people who've already solved the specific problem we're trying to solve."

De With has solved the problem of how to give computational camera control to users without overwhelming them. Apple doesn't need to spend years figuring that out internally. It can hire de With.

This pattern has ripple effects through the design industry. It means that ambitious designers should build ambitious things outside big companies. Prove you can solve the problem. Then big companies will come to you with resources.

Estimated data shows Google and Apple as leading acquirers of indie apps, highlighting their strategy to integrate innovative solutions. Estimated data.

Implications for the iPhone's Future

What does this hire mean for where the iPhone goes next?

Short term (next 1-2 years), probably not much visible change. De With is joining a large organization. He'll need time to understand existing projects, build relationships, and influence decisions. Design changes to iOS and iPhone hardware require long lead times.

Medium term (2-3 years), you might see:

• More granular controls in the native camera app
• New APIs for third-party camera apps to access computational photography pipeline
• Hardware improvements designed specifically to unlock new computational photography possibilities
• Camera features marketed toward serious photographers and creators

Long term, this hire suggests Apple is doubling down on the camera as a creative tool, not just a commodity feature. In the future, iPhones might be positioned not as "better at taking photos" but as "the phone that gives you the most control over your photography."

That's a different market positioning. It opens the door to premium pricing for photography-focused devices. It positions the iPhone against actual cameras, not just other phones.

The Broader Context: Creative Professionals and Consumer Tech

There's a broader trend here worth understanding. Consumer tech companies are increasingly targeting creative professionals specifically. Adobe built an entire suite targeting iPad users. Da Vinci Resolve brought professional color grading to iPad. Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro became significantly more capable on iPad and Mac.

Apple is particularly focused on this trend. The iPad Pro with M-series chips. The Mac with M-series chips. These aren't incremental upgrades. They're investments in making Apple's consumer devices genuine professional tools.

Hiring de With fits this pattern. It signals that Apple views the iPhone not as a mass-market commodity phone but as a potential professional tool for photographers and videographers.

This is smart strategy. Professional users are willing to pay premium prices. They're willing to deal with complexity if it gives them power. They're vocal advocates who influence others. And they generate disproportionate revenue relative to their market share.

By positioning the iPhone as a serious photography platform, Apple can justify higher prices and differentiate from Android competitors who compete primarily on specs and price.

Halide's Mark III and the Vision for Computational Photography

Let's look more closely at what Halide Mark III represents, because it's a window into where de With's thinking has been heading.

The "Looks" feature isn't just nostalgia for film. It's a statement about how computational photography should work. Film stocks are abstractions. When you shoot Portra 400, you're not actually using 400 ISO film. You're using a sensor with a specific resolution and dynamic range. The "Portra look" emerges from how that particular film stock responds to light and how it develops.

Halide's Looks feature is saying: we can encode the essence of that response in the iPhone's computational pipeline. When you shoot Portra, the phone's neural networks adjust the color rendering, the tonal curve, the contrast response, and probably other things you can't see. The output doesn't look like you shot on Portra, because you didn't. But it looks like how Portra renders the world.

This requires deep knowledge of film photography, computational imaging, and iOS development. You can't build Looks without understanding all three areas deeply. De With understands all three.

The fact that Apple brought de With in right as Mark III launched suggests the company wants to accelerate this direction. Maybe Apple wants these features in iOS natively. Maybe Apple wants Looks to work with the native camera app. Maybe Apple wants to build on the concept with ideas de With will develop once he's inside Apple.

Halide stands out with high feature richness and user experience, offering manual controls and a user-friendly interface. Estimated data based on app features.

What This Means for Camera App Developers

If you're developing a camera app on iOS, de With's move has implications.

Positive implications:

• Apple might expose more camera APIs and capabilities to third-party developers
• The company might invest more in the camera framework
• Features that are technically possible but not exposed might become available

Negative implications:

• Apple might build features inspired by Halide directly into iOS
• If Apple builds better tools natively, pressure on indie camera apps increases
• Users who previously paid for Halide might feel less need to once iOS offers similar functionality

Historically, when Apple hires someone from the indie app ecosystem, the next step is often integrating their ideas into the platform. This is good for users (they get better features), neutral for Apple (the company gets ROI on its design investment), and potentially negative for indie developers (their market shrinks).

But again, it depends on execution. If Apple integrates camera control intelligently and still allows third-party apps access to the pipeline, the ecosystem stays healthy. If Apple locks down features and prevents third-party competition, developers suffer.

The Designer's Journey: From Indie to Corporate

It's worth stepping back and thinking about what this transition means for Sebastiaan de With personally.

Leaving Halide to join Apple is a significant change. At Halide, de With had autonomy. He made decisions about what to build and how to build it. He answered directly to users through reviews and social media. The feedback loop was tight and immediate.

At Apple, none of those things are true in the same way. Decisions take longer. Feedback loops are mediated through management structures. Your ideas compete with other ideas. You can't just ship something because you think it's right. You have to convince committees and executives.

For someone used to indie development, this can be jarring. Some designers thrive in corporate environments. Others feel creatively stifled.

But de With has a history that suggests he'll adapt. He worked at Apple before. He worked at Sony and Mozilla, both large organizations. He's not a first-time corporate employee. He's also not a young designer trying to prove himself. He's someone who's proven himself already and is joining because he wants to work on something bigger.

That might matter. De With isn't joining because he has no other options. He's joining because he's interested in what Apple's working on. That's a healthy dynamic for both sides.

Looking Ahead: Five Years of iPhone Camera Design

If we zoom out and think about where iPhone camera design might be in five years, de With's hire is one data point among many that suggests a direction.

Five years ago, iPhones competed primarily on photo quality and feature quantity. Which phone takes the sharpest photos? Which phone has the most megapixels? These are the competitions that drive mass-market phones.

Moving forward, flagship iPhones might compete on control and creative power. Which phone gives photographers the most intuitive access to computational photography? Which phone best mimics film stocks? Which phone lets you work with RAW images most effectively?

This positioning is more defensible long-term. Mass-market competition on specs is a race to the bottom. But competition on control and creative power can command premium pricing because it serves people who actually care about photography.

De With's hire is a bet on this future. It's Apple saying: we're serious about being a camera company for photographers, not just a phone company that happens to have cameras.

That's interesting. That's a direction worth paying attention to.

Design Philosophy: What Indie Developers Teach Big Companies

There's a broader lesson here about design philosophy and how indie developers influence large companies.

When you build an indie app, you can't hide behind corporate excuses. You can't say "the market wanted this," or "our research showed this," or "the committee approved it." You either figured it out or you didn't. Users either value what you built or they don't.

This creates a different design process. Indie developers tend to obsess over details because details are all they have. They can't compete with Apple or Google on marketing budget. They can't compete on distribution. They can only compete on making something so thoughtfully designed that users choose it despite inferior discovery.

De With learned this lesson at Halide. The app succeeded not because Lux had better marketing than Apple, but because the design was better. The choices made about what to expose and what to hide were more intelligent than what Apple offered.

When Apple brings de With into the company, it's not just hiring his talents. It's importing his design philosophy. His belief that control without complexity is possible. His belief that photographers deserve better tools. His belief that thoughtful design can solve problems that brute force can't.

Large companies need this. They need people who've solved problems outside corporate structures and can bring that mindset back inside.

The Economics of Premium Camera Apps

One thing that makes de With's background unique is that he built a premium app in a market that's increasingly hostile to premium apps.

Most iOS apps are free or cheap. Users expect free. If you charge for an app, you're fighting against decades of App Store pricing psychology. Halide charged money. Users paid. The app was successful. That's rare.

How did Halide succeed where other premium apps fail?

First, it solved a real problem that users actually cared about. People wanted camera control. Not theoretical camera control. Actual, practical control they could use.

Second, it was designed well enough that the value was obvious. You opened the app and immediately understood what it did and why you might want it.

Third, it targeted the right market. Professional and serious photographers. Not mass-market users. Not people who take photos of their lunch. People who actually care about photography.

Fourth, it competed in a space where Apple wasn't dominant. The native camera app is excellent for point-and-shoot. But for control, it's limited. Halide owned the "photography enthusiast" niche.

These lessons are probably relevant to whatever de With works on at Apple. Apple can't make everything for everyone. But it can make excellent things for people who care deeply about specific problems.

Predicting Apple's Next Camera Moves

Based on de With's hire and the direction Apple has been moving, what camera features might come to iPhones next?

More granular control in the native camera app: Apple could add manual ISO and shutter speed controls to the standard camera app, bringing functionality that's currently only in third-party apps like Halide.

Film stock-inspired processing: Following the Looks concept, Apple could add built-in presets based on film photography, helping users capture specific aesthetics.

RAW improvements: Deeper RAW support in native camera app and Photos app. Better tools for RAW editing on-device.

Depth integration: Better ways to work with depth information captured by the LiDAR and dual cameras.

Neural processing transparency: Maybe showing users what the computational photography pipeline is doing, similar to how Halide exposes these processes.

Hardware advances: When the chip and sensor technology allows new capabilities, de With's expertise will inform how those capabilities are exposed to users.

None of these are guaranteed. But they're the logical extensions of the direction Apple seems to be heading, combined with what de With has proven he cares about.

Conclusion: The Significance of Thoughtful Design Hires

Sebastian de With's move to Apple might seem like a minor corporate news item. Another designer hired. Big company acquires talent. Happens all the time.

But if you look closely, it tells you something important about how technology design is evolving. It tells you that big companies are increasingly recognizing that exceptional design doesn't necessarily emerge from having the most money or the largest teams. It emerges from hiring people who've already solved the problem.

De With spent six years solving a specific problem: how to make computational camera control accessible without overwhelming users. He solved it well enough that thousands of photographers pay money for his solution. He solved it well enough that it influenced how people think about camera apps.

Apple recognized that expertise and brought him in. That's a smart move. It signals that Apple cares about the camera as a creative tool, not just a feature. It signals that the company is willing to learn from the indie app ecosystem. It signals that design philosophy matters more than organizational hierarchy.

For the industry, this matters too. If big tech companies consistently recognize and reward exceptional independent designers and developers, then the indie ecosystem stays vibrant. Talented people keep building ambitious things. Users keep getting access to innovation that comes from outside corporate structures.

If big tech instead treats independent developers as just acquisition targets to be absorbed and disbanded, then the ecosystem suffers. Innovation becomes concentrated in corporate R&D departments, and the diversity of ideas decreases.

De With's move leans toward the first outcome. Lux is continuing Halide development. De With isn't disappearing. He's bringing his philosophy into Apple while his former company continues his work.

That's the kind of relationship that's healthy for tech broadly. It's a bet that great design comes from both inside and outside large organizations, and that the two sides can coexist and learn from each other.

For iPhone users, it means the camera is about to get a lot more interesting.

FAQ

Who is Sebastiaan de With and what did he create?

Sebastiaan de With is a Dutch designer who co-founded Lux in 2016 with Ben Sandofsky. Lux created Halide, one of the most respected camera apps on iOS, which allows photographers to manually control ISO, shutter speed, and focus while keeping the interface intuitive. Before founding Lux, de With did design work at Sony, T-Mobile, and Mozilla. His work on Halide demonstrated how to give users powerful creative control without overwhelming them with complexity, making it a reference point for thoughtful camera app design.

Why did Apple hire Sebastiaan de With?

Apple hired de With because he's proven expertise in computational photography and user interface design specifically for camera applications. After six years developing Halide, de With understands how to expose the iPhone's computational photography capabilities in ways that serve both casual users and professional photographers. His hiring signals Apple's commitment to deepening the iPhone's role as a creative tool for photographers and suggests the company wants to accelerate innovation in computational photography, particularly in areas like film-inspired processing and user control over computational pipelines.

What is Halide Mark III and what does "Looks" mean?

Halide Mark III is the latest version of the Halide camera app, which launched with a public preview around the time de With joined Apple. Looks is its flagship feature, designed to recreate the aesthetic characteristics of specific film stocks like Kodak Portra or Fuji Provia. Rather than simple filters, Looks uses machine learning to encode how different film types respond to light, processing color, tone, contrast, and other characteristics to mimic authentic film photography. This required deep knowledge of both film photography and computational imaging to implement effectively.

Is Halide still being developed now that de With joined Apple?

Yes. Ben Sandofsky, de With's co-founder at Lux, has confirmed that Halide will continue being developed under Lux. However, de With himself can no longer work directly on the app while employed at Apple. The long-term development trajectory may change, but the immediate plan is for Halide to continue receiving updates and improvements from the remaining team at Lux. Users of Halide should monitor Lux's official channels for any changes to development plans.

What does this hire tell us about Apple's design philosophy?

De With's hire reveals that Apple increasingly recognizes the value of hiring proven designers from outside the company, particularly from the indie developer ecosystem. Rather than believing all great design should emerge internally, Apple is acknowledging that exceptional designers often solve problems more elegantly outside large corporate structures. This represents a shift from earlier eras when Apple saw itself as the primary source of design innovation. The hire signals that Apple values real-world problem-solving experience and is willing to invest in bringing that expertise into the company.

How does this affect the camera app market for third-party developers?

The hiring creates both opportunities and risks for other camera app developers. On the positive side, Apple might expose more camera APIs and capabilities to third-party apps, expanding what's possible. On the negative side, Apple could integrate Halide-inspired features directly into iOS, potentially reducing demand for third-party camera apps. Historically, when Apple brings in external talent, the next step often involves integrating their best ideas into the platform. Indie camera app developers will need to monitor iOS updates and consider how to differentiate their products alongside native capabilities.

Is this de With's first time at Apple?

No. De With previously worked at Apple on iCloud and Find My before leaving to co-found Lux and create Halide. This is his second stint at the company, which is significant because it demonstrates Apple's confidence in his abilities and suggests he brings valuable knowledge from his time building an independent product. His experience building Halide outside Apple and proving its viability adds credibility to his design philosophy when bringing it back inside the company.

What does John Ternus have to do with this hire?

John Ternus oversees Apple's design efforts, having recently consolidated hardware and software design leadership. De With joining the design team falls under Ternus's purview. Ternus is also widely expected to eventually succeed Tim Cook, making his hiring decisions significant for Apple's long-term direction. That Ternus brought in de With suggests his vision for Apple includes making the company's devices more powerful and controllable for professional creators, which aligns with de With's design philosophy.

What should photographers expect from iPhone cameras in the future based on this hire?

Based on de With's expertise and interests, iPhones will likely see improved controls for computational photography, possibly including manual ISO and shutter speed in the native camera app, film-inspired processing options similar to Halide's Looks feature, enhanced RAW support, and better integration of the depth information captured by multiple sensors. Medium-term, Apple may position iPhones as genuine creative tools for photographers rather than just phones with good cameras, which could justify premium pricing. The exact timeline for these changes depends on hardware and software development cycles, but de With's presence suggests computational photography will be a key focus area for the next several years.

Why is hiring from the indie app ecosystem important for Apple?

The indie app ecosystem serves as an R&D laboratory for big tech. Indie developers experiment with ideas that are too risky for large corporations, iterate faster, and talk directly to users. When an indie app succeeds like Halide did, it proves that a problem is real, users will pay for solutions, and someone has figured out how to solve it well. By hiring de With, Apple gains not just his talent but access to the lessons he learned by solving a real problem outside corporate constraints. This helps Apple stay connected to user needs and innovative thinking that might otherwise stay isolated in corporate R&D departments.

The Big Picture: Design, Innovation, and the Future

When you zoom all the way out, Sebastiaan de With's move to Apple is a data point in a much larger story about how technology design works and where innovation actually comes from.

For years, the tech industry told a story about innovation: big companies with big budgets hire the best people and build the best products. Apple built beautiful products because Jony Ive was a genius, and Apple had unlimited resources to support him.

But that story was always incomplete. The best ideas don't automatically emerge from the most resources. They emerge when smart people are forced to make hard choices. When feedback loops are tight and immediate. When your work is exposed to real users who can reject it if it's not good enough.

The indie app ecosystem creates these conditions naturally. An indie developer can't hide behind committees or corporate politics. Either they built something people want or they didn't. This forge creates designers and developers who are genuinely skilled.

When those people prove themselves in the indie ecosystem, they become valuable to large companies. Not because they're somehow "special," but because they've already solved a real problem. The hiring boom of indie developers by big tech companies is essentially big tech acknowledging that the forge works. Indie developers create better solutions to specific problems than corporate teams often do.

This dynamic could work in two ways. In the healthy version, big companies hire indie talent, learn from their philosophy, integrate their ideas while keeping the indie ecosystem alive. In the unhealthy version, big companies absorb indie talent, integrate their best ideas, and leave nothing for the indie ecosystem to do.

De With's move seems to be heading toward the healthy version. Lux is continuing. Halide is continuing. De With isn't disappearing into Apple to work on secret projects for three years. He's joining Apple while his former company continues.

That's good for everyone. Apple gets access to proven expertise. De With gets to work on products that reach billions of users. Lux continues to innovate. The indie ecosystem stays healthy.

It's a model that works. And if it continues to work this way, it means the future of design in tech will be increasingly influenced by people who proved themselves by building independent products.

That's actually encouraging. It means the best ideas will keep coming from unexpected places. Big companies will keep hiring people from those places. The cycle will continue.

And users like you will keep benefiting from designers and developers who've learned their craft the hard way: by building something, shipping it, and facing real users who'll tell them if they got it right.

Sebastian de With is one of those people. He got it right with Halide. Now Apple is betting that he'll get it right on an even bigger stage.

That's a bet worth watching.

Key Takeaways

• Sebastiaan de With, creator of the acclaimed Halide camera app, joined Apple's design team in a move signaling the company's strategic focus on computational photography and creative professional tools
• This is de With's second stint at Apple, having previously worked on iCloud and Find My, demonstrating the company's confidence in returning talent from successful indie ventures
• Halide Mark III's new "Looks" feature recreates film photography aesthetics through machine learning, showing the direction de With's design philosophy has been heading
• The hire reflects a broader tech industry trend of recognizing that exceptional design solutions often emerge from indie developers solving real problems outside corporate structures
• For iPhone users, this suggests future camera features may include more granular control over computational photography, film-inspired processing, and better RAW support

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