The "Everybody hates the Photos app on the iPhone" saga continues

Three out of five (or a 6/10, if you prefer it that way): that's a score I personally count as low. This is the Photos app's score rating at the App Store at the moment.

Do you agree? Is it fair?

The Photos app is present on the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro devices: and with the iOS 18 update, it was… let's say, redesigned. Or bloated. Regardless of which word you choose to go with, you can't go wrong.

As my colleague Rado observed back when iOS 18 was released, Apple made changes to the Photos app that could easily frustrate longtime users. Instead of immediately scrolling through their photos, iOS 18 users are met with extra features like "Recent days", "Memories", "Trips", and "Wallpaper suggestions", which clutter the main view by default.

While these options might be useful to some, many will likely find them unnecessary and intrusive.

Although Apple allows users to remove these extras through a "Customize & Reorder" button, even after disabling them, there's still an extra swipe required before accessing the photo library. This adds an unnecessary step to what was once a simple and intuitive experience.

Naturally, people didn't keep quiet about it and complained in the dedicated section at the App Store:



Things haven't gotten any better, as it seems. There are ten visible reviews, all of them with a negative rating. While the majority of user reviews are from 2024 and mention iOS 18 in the title, there's another review from 2025.

A-a-and… it's a negative one

Well, the saga continues; the Photos app still gets criticized. Here's a screenshot of the newest review:



This (apparently) longtime Apple user expresses frustration with the Photos app, saying it has become increasingly buggy with recent updates, especially when editing photos and videos. Issues like glitches when adding text or editing videos have forced them to rely on third-party apps instead.

Despite troubleshooting on their end, the bugs persist for months without fixes from Apple, making the app more of a hassle to use. They feel let down by Apple's declining software quality and customer service, especially given the high cost of Apple devices, and hope the company will address these ongoing issues.

Yeah, buddy, I hope too. We all do.



This quote suddenly popped into my head…