One of the major changes coming to iOS 18 is a new "Control Center" customization feature that allows users to add third-party apps to the iPhone drop-down menu. This feature will allow users to add third-party apps to the iPhone drop-down menu. However, it may not be well known that third-party camera apps will be able to access both the action button and the iOS lock screen shortcut.

As MacRumors points out, Control Center is associated with both the lock screen shortcuts and the action buttons on the iPhone 15 Pro. This means that the lock screen shortcuts and action buttons can be replaced by other settings from Control Center, including third-party apps. This means that if you want to take a quick photo, you are not forced to use Apple's stock camera.

This feature is also thanks to the new LockedCameraCapture framework. Essentially, developers can mimic the functionality that Apple's camera apps have enjoyed for years.

This is actually a pretty important part of this whole thing. If you have to make the action of unlocking your phone first, you won't be able to quickly open certain apps, especially if you have Face ID enabled, but if you need to record a time-sensitive event, every second counts.

Interestingly, the framework also allows shortcuts to open the camera function in apps that are primarily used for other things. So, for example, if you set a shortcut to open TikTok or Instagram, those apps will open and go straight to the camera. However, for tasks not related to the camera, it appears that the phone must first be unlocked. This makes sense from a security standpoint.

Of course, this all depends on developers actually implementing these features. Without the new framework, these apps would be used as usual and not accessible when the phone is locked.

However, many of the large third-party camera apps will jump at the chance to make their software more accessible. Therefore, we expect this feature to start appearing after the stable launch of iOS 18 this fall.