Two months ago, Halide co-founder and designer Sebastiaan de With made a surprise proclamation that he was joining Apple’s design team. It turns out that the move came after Apple initially expressed interest in acquiring Lux Optics, the app development studio behind the pro camera app.
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Aaron Tilley reports for The Information that Apple held talks to buy Lux Optics last summer.
Lux Optics manufactures Halidepopular third-party photography app as well film for video shooting, The spectrum for long exposure shots, and Orion for turning an iPad into an external HDMI monitor.
Alas, public knowledge of Apple’s interest in buying Lux Optics surfaced in a lawsuit filed against de With by co-founder Ben Sandofsky.
As for Apple’s buying interests, however, the lawsuit alleges that the company was interested in Lux Optics’ intellectual property:
The acquisition of Lux, whose Halide app gives users more precise manual control over the iPhone’s camera hardware, could have helped Apple accelerate its efforts to improve its built-in camera app, a top priority for the company right now.
The camera on Apple’s upcoming iPhone 18 Pro models will begin to match
professional grade camera in terms of some advanced features. As a result, the company is looking to give its smartphone’s built-in camera app an upgrade, people familiar with the effort said. The iPhone’s existing camera app contains mostly basic controls.
The information says that talks between Apple and Lux Optics ended in September when the two co-founders agreed that future Halide updates could increase the company’s value.
Apple considered buying Halide, the lawsuit alleges
A month later, Sandofsky began investigating his co-founder over alleged misuse of company funds before putting him on leave. The lawsuit says de With was fired from Lux in December.
It also claims de With has “confidential material related to Lux’s future product development” and the Apple Design Award won by Lux Optics.
Frankly, the Lux Optics situation sounds unfortunate with clear mistrust issues. It’s a sad state of affairs for such a beloved app.
There is no doubt that there is no Halide without de With’s design and marketing experience. It’s also interesting to learn that even before he was hired to design for Apple (for the second time), Lux Optics was moving forward without de With.
But messy lawsuit aside, it makes sense that Apple is interested in improving its first-party photography tools. There wouldn’t really be Lux Optics without the iPhone camera rig.
As Apple continues to squeeze more pro features into its cameras, it only makes sense for the software to follow.
Meanwhile, de With has models that touch every aspect of the user interface beyond the camera software. Perhaps we will see the first signs of its impact on WWDC 2026 with iOS 27.
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