My first attempt at designing a camera app was back in high school, before I had any training in design processes or software. At the time, Apple’s camera app lumped the HDR toggle, grid overlay toggle, and Panorama mode into a vague “Options” menu at the top. Annoyed by this, I created a crude mockup with controls I felt were better organized.
2013
2014
To accommodate the growing number of shooting modes, Apple introduced a swipe-based “wheel” UI that mimics the physical wheel on traditional cameras. It worked well enough at the time, but I wondered if an iconographic drop-down menu might be simpler – so I mocked up what that might look like.
2016
For this next version, I had acquired more knowledge of general design principles, and used that to inform refinements to iconography and contrast. I also experimented with a customizable toolbar. (And now a decade later, so has Apple!)
2019
As iPhone displays continued to become larger, placing important controls at the top made less sense, as they can be difficult to reach when holding the phone one-handed. I thus tried redesigning with all controls placed at the bottom.
