I've been using the new iOS 26 Camera app — and it finally address by biggest annoyance
Apple's certainly putting a lot of effort into overhauling the iPhone's look in its upcoming iOS 26 release, which should officially arrive this fall alongside its iPhone 17 announcement. In the interim, though, I've been using the iOS 26 developer beta to get a sneak peek into what Apple's packing into its iPhone software update.
I will say that I'm particularly happy that the iPhone Camera app is getting a big makeover, but I'm even more excited about one particular change that makes it much more conducive to my workflow when shooting photos and videos. In addition to adopting all the visual elements of Apple's new Liquid Glass interface, the iOS 26 camera app is filled with new features that finally elevates it to nearly the same usability I get in some of the best Android phones and their camera apps.
After trying out the Camera app on iPhone for the past week, here's everything new and different about it in iOS 26. And I know you'll be excited for these changes as well.
The biggest complaint I've had with the iPhone Camera app is how some of the camera's settings are buried in the general Settings menu. With iOS 26, however, Apple is making those controls accessible from the app itself — rather than going into the Settings app and then to the camera settings from there.
To put it another way, I'm now able to quickly (and conveniently) switch the video recording resolution from within the Camera app. This one simple change makes a huge difference in how I use the iPhone Camera app going forward because I don't have to exit out of the app to change them. With photos, I can switch between JPEG and RAW formats — in addition to choosing 24MP or 48MP.
It gets better in my opinion with video recording — now I can switch the format, resolution, and frame rate. When you shoot as much video professionally as I do, having access to these controls from within the app iteself is much more intuitive and saves me time.
The only options that still require me to go to the general settings menu to activate are the grid and level guides. I can live with this because generally speaking, I don't ever disable them.
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With its Liquid Glass material design, the iOS 26 Camera app looks cleaner than before, as the only options that show up after launching the app are Photo and Video. By scrolling to the left and right of this, I can still switch between all the other modes — like portrait, panoramic, slo-mo, and more.
In order to access some of the other settings within each respective mode, you have to perform a swipe up gesture from the bottom. When I do this in Photo mode, I can access settings for the flash, live photos, timer, exposure, styles, filter, and aspect ratio. I can also access these tools as well by tapping on the icon with six dots in the upper right corner.
If you happen to own an iPhone 16 model offering the Camera Control, you'll want to adjust this one setting. That's because by default, Apple has disabled many of the Camera Control options.
Obviously, pressing down on the Camera Control instantly launches the Camera app, but swipe gestures only allow me to switch between its four different cameras. Although it might seem like a zoom control, it really isn't because it's only switching between the different cameras — so I can't get to something like 3.5x zoom using it.
In order to access Camera Control's full potential, I had to go into the Camera Control settings in the general settings menu and enable "camera adjustments" for exposure, depth, zoom, styles, and tone control.
I honestly don't mind this setting being disabled by default because in my experience, it actually slows down my workflow rather than helping it.
I'm really happy that Apple has finally listened and fixed my biggest gripe about the iPhone Camera app. Now I'm no longer annoyed about exiting the app just to adjust some of the camera settings.
However, I still crave even more functionality out of the app. In particular, I would like Apple to open up manual controls to let me adjust the ISO, shutter speed, and focus with the camera — much like how some Android phones let me change those settings in their Pro or manual modes. iPhone users, still need to use a third party camera app to get these controls, even with iOS 26.
Apart from that, though, the iOS 26 Camera app is much more functional and cleaner looking than ever before. I'm looking forward to using it with the iOS 26 beta and beyond.
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