There's a lot happening here — lawsuits, a startup acquisition that almost was, and iPhone 18 Pro hints
So this story dropped and I had to read it three times because it has so many layers. Apple tried to buy a company, the deal didn't happen, the company's two co-founders are now suing each other, and one of them is now working at Apple anyway. And somewhere in all of this chaos is an important signal about what the iPhone 18 Pro camera app is going to look like.
Let me untangle this properly.
What is Halide and why does Apple want it?
Halide is a third-party camera app for iPhone that photography enthusiasts absolutely love. If you're into serious iPhone photography — shooting RAW, manual ISO and shutter control, precise focus, proper histogram tools — Halide is the app you've been using instead of Apple's built-in Camera app. The studio behind it is called Lux Optics, and they also make Kino (video), Spectre (long exposure photography), and Orion (turning iPad into an HDMI monitor).
For years, the complaint about iPhone cameras has been that the hardware is incredible but the default Camera app is too automated, too AI-processed, too 'computational' for people who want real manual control. Halide solved that problem brilliantly.
The acquisition that almost happened
Here's where it gets interesting. According to a report from The Information, Apple held acquisition talks with Lux Optics last summer — specifically looking at buying their intellectual property. The reason is stated plainly in the report: the iPhone 18 Pro camera hardware is going to "begin to match professional-grade cameras in terms of certain advanced features" and Apple wants its built-in Camera app to keep up with that hardware.
In plain language: iPhone 18 Pro is going to have camera hardware so advanced that the current Camera app — which is mostly automated — won't be able to do it justice. Apple needs a pro camera experience built in. And they looked at just buying the team behind the best third-party pro camera app rather than building it from scratch.
The talks reportedly ended in September 2025 when the two Lux Optics co-founders — Sebastiaan de With and Ben Sandofsky — agreed that future updates to Halide could increase the company's value enough that selling now wasn't worth it. So they said no to Apple.
Then everything fell apart at Lux Optics
Here's where the drama escalates. Two months ago, de With announced he was joining Apple's design team — which seemed like a nice career move at the time. Turns out it's more complicated than that.
Sandofsky has now filed a lawsuit against his co-founder. The lawsuit claims that de With was caught misusing company funds, was placed on leave, and then fired from Lux Optics in December. The lawsuit also alleges de With took "confidential materials related to Lux's future product development" with him — and the Apple Design Award that Lux Optics won.
That's messy. Really messy. Halide is an app that people genuinely love, and watching it fall apart through a co-founder lawsuit is painful. The irony is that de With's design talent was arguably what made Halide special — and now he's at Apple, while the company he built continues without him.
What iPhone 18 Pro camera is actually going to be
Set aside the drama for a second. The signal from all of this is clear: Apple is treating the iPhone 18 Pro camera as a serious priority for this cycle. The report says they want the built-in camera app to become something meaningfully more powerful — closer to what Halide offers in terms of manual controls.
Think about what that means: proper RAW capture with manual ISO, shutter speed, white balance controls in the default Camera app. Better histogram tools. More access to what the sensor is actually capturing rather than the hyper-processed computational result Apple currently delivers by default. Professional photographers who've been carrying both an iPhone and a Halide subscription might be able to ditch the third-party app.
This is a significant evolution for iPhone camera software. Apple has been obsessively computational — using AI to enhance every photo behind the scenes — but professional photographers often want to control what the camera does rather than let the algorithm decide. If iPhone 18 Pro's Camera app moves in that direction, it's a genuine upgrade for serious photographers.
What this means for Indian iPhone users
India has a rapidly growing iPhone user base — Apple has been aggressively expanding in India, with iPhone assembly happening domestically and prices becoming more competitive. The iPhone 16 Pro is currently available in India starting at around ₹1,19,900, and the iPhone 17 Pro launched later in 2025.
For Indian photographers and content creators using iPhones — and there are more every year, especially in the wedding photography and social media creator space — a native pro camera app would be genuinely valuable. India's wedding photography market is enormous and increasingly shooting on phones. The ability to manually control ISO and shutter speed in bright Indian sunlight without a third-party app is actually a meaningful real-world upgrade.
Halide itself is available on the App Store in India for approximately ₹1,649/year for the subscription. If Apple's built-in Camera app gets close to Halide's capabilities, that subscription becomes unnecessary for many users — saving money and reducing complexity.
My honest take
Apple trying to acquire Halide makes complete sense strategically. Rather than rebuild a pro camera interface from scratch, buying the team that already built the best one is efficient. The fact that it didn't happen is mildly unfortunate — the integrated experience would have been seamless.
The co-founder lawsuit is genuinely sad. Halide is one of those rare apps that felt like it was made by people who truly cared about photography, not just software development. Watching that relationship break down publicly is disappointing.
But the bigger story — iPhone 18 Pro getting a substantially more capable camera app — is exciting. Apple's camera hardware has been the best in the smartphone market for several generations. The software gap between the hardware capability and what the default Camera app exposes to users has been the real limitation. If that gap closes with iPhone 18 Pro, it becomes an even more compelling camera for serious work.
iPhone 18 Pro India launch is expected in September 2026, likely starting around ₹1,24,900–₹1,29,900 for the base model based on historical pricing trends. If the camera software upgrade lands as described, that premium feels more justified than it has before.
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