iOS 18 will bring many changes, but the biggest change will be the new look of "Photos" in iOS 18 Apple is calling this the biggest redesign in Photos app history, and now executives are revealing details about the reasons for some of the changes The National spoke with three Apple executives to delve into what the "Photos" redesign entails

After all, the app likely needed a redesign after being out in the world for nearly a decade The focus seemed to be on improving security and creating a "frictionless" design

"As our features, users, and libraries have grown, so has the density of the [photo] app," says Billy Sorrentino, senior director of human interface design at Apple" So instead of searching and poking around throughout, we created a simple, streamlined, single-view photo experience based on deep intelligence"

According to Apple, Photos is the third most popular app, behind Mail and Safari According to Apple data, the app manages more than 3 trillion images and videos annually

Combined with Apple Intelligence, Apple's foray into artificial intelligence, the redesigned Photos is intended to be more streamlined The design appears to focus on customization, giving users more control over the layout of the interface

Photos in iOS 18 will allow users to create albums by entering a description A related new feature will be the ability to use conversational text in searches to find more specific images

The streamlined app will change to a simplified single-view grid with the month and year listed to help you find files faster Apple has also introduced a collections feature that automatically creates image and video themes based on topics or common themes like pets or children

"A lot of deep intelligence combined with customization makes photography more personal," said Della Huff, manager of the camera and photo product marketing team

On the security side, new safeguards have been created to prevent exploits that extend to third-party apps that can access photos One of the new features is the ability to limit third-party app access to a subcatalog of photos, rather than the entire library 17]

Jon McCormack, vice president of cameras and photos on the software engineering team, said, "For the first time, an application API (Application Programming Interface), we make it very clear to the user exactly what the application is looking for"

The application is not limited to the full version

The full version of iOS 18 should arrive in the fall, probably with the launch of the iPhone 16 Until then, the operating system update will be available as a developer beta, and the rest of the population will have access to the public beta of iOS 18 later this month