Sebastiaan de With, the designer best known for co-founding Lux and helping create popular iPhone camera apps like Halide and Kino, has announced that he’s officially joined Apple’s design team.
De With shared the news in a post on X, saying he’s excited to work “with the very best team in the world” on his “favorite products.” The move marks a return to Apple for de With, who previously worked at the company on iCloud and Find My. Before launching Lux in 2016 with Ben Sandofsky, he also built a résumé spanning design work for Sony, T-Mobile, and Mozilla—experience that helped shape Lux’s reputation for polished, photographer-friendly software.
If you’re wondering what this means for Halide, Lux says the app isn’t going anywhere. Sandofsky wrote on Reddit that Halide will continue to be developed by Lux, even with de With taking on his new role at Apple. Alongside the announcement, the company released a public preview of Halide Mark III, positioning it as the next major evolution of the iPhone camera app. A key focus this time is “Looks,” a feature designed to recreate the aesthetics of film cameras—an approach that taps into the growing demand for film-inspired mobile photography and more intentional, stylized image-making.
De With’s arrival also comes at an especially busy and scrutinized moment for Apple’s design organization. The Liquid Glass design introduced with iOS 26 has sparked a more mixed reaction than Apple likely hoped for, suggesting the company may be entering a period of refinement and recalibration. Apple’s chief of user interface design, Alan Dye, also departed for Meta in December, signaling additional change at the leadership level.
On top of that, a recent report said that John Ternus—widely viewed as a leading candidate to eventually succeed Tim Cook—took over hardware and software design toward the end of last year. Taken together, these shifts hint at a new chapter in how Apple approaches product design, and de With’s return adds a notable name to the team as it navigates evolving expectations around iOS design, software aesthetics, and the future of Apple’s user experience.
For iPhone photography fans, the bigger takeaway is clear: while one of Lux’s key creative forces is heading back to Apple, Lux is continuing to push Halide forward, with Halide Mark III aiming to bring film-like character and curated camera “Looks” into the modern iPhone camera experience.
