Inside the iOS 26 Camera Upgrade: Features, Changes, and First Impressions
Apple released iOS 26 this week and the internet has been buzzing about the changes! The camera app is one of the most used apps on the iphone and naturally many people will be excited to see what’s new there.
The major UI for the iOS26 design is Liquid Glass which is a new translucent material, it reflects and refracts its surroundings [like glass] while dynamically transforming to help bring greater focus to content. The Camera app icon has been redesigned following the update.
Simpler Interface: The app immediately opens to two main options ‘Photo’ and ‘Video’ at the bottom of the screen. Swiping left reveals the other camera modes like Panorama, Portrait etc.
Grouped settings: The flash icon, aspect ratio, live, timer, exposure, filter, styles have been moved into a single pop out menu on the top at the top right of the screen.
Remote AirPods Shutter: You can use certain AirPods (AirPods Pro 2, AirPods 4) as a shutter button: press/hold the stem to take photo or start video. It’s giving James Bond in Monaco. This enables you to take photos hands-free but then again the iphone volume button also does similar for photo-taking using the timer setting.
Lens Dirty Warning : iPhone can detect when your camera lens is dirty and alerts you immediately. Food creators, Moms and iphoneographers must be incredibly excited to see this update! Camera lens tends to get smudged during recipe creations, dust and curious toddler fingers.
I intentionally smudged the lens to see how quickly I’d get the smudge alert but nothing came. This is the smudged photo I took.
I was expecting the alert to come on the screen before I took it but nothing happened. I focus on an object and still nothing. Or do they mean the inner lens being dirty? Or does that alert only show on more recent iphone models? My question thus is, if you get the smudge alert can you still the photo or it will be a ‘by-force’ clean it or no photo alert? Perhaps a bug needs to be squashed in the next iOS26.1 update.
It’s definitely a smoother ‘liquid’ experience moving between the camera app functions and I only hope it stays that way when Apple starts glitching older iphone models when newer ones get released. Here we dey🥲😆.
What are your thoughts on the new update from Apple? Which feature excites you most? Let me know in the comments below.
