A UX improvement case for iOS Photos
Apple brought the tabs back,
then hid them again.
After the iOS 18 backlash, Apple brought the tabs back to Photos, and the bar minimises as you scroll. I find it disruptive that the Library switch disappears with no added benefit. An API added in iOS 27 could keep it on screen.
Apple removed the tab bar from Photos in iOS 18, and users pushed back. Apple brought tabs back in iOS 26, Library and Collections. The bar minimises as soon as you scroll.
I find it disruptive that the switch disappears while scrolling, with no added benefit. This is what happens in that slot, and how an API added in iOS 27 could keep the switch on screen.
The switch goes as soon as you scroll
Photos gives you two places to be, Library and Collections. The control that moves between them collapses as soon as you scroll down through the grid, which is most of what I open Photos to do.
What matters is the space it leaves. It does not leave one. A different control moves into the same position, the Years, Months and All timeline picker. The pixel that said Collections now says Months.
The screen keeps a control in that spot, with the same shape and the same glass, doing something else. My thumb has somewhere to land, and for me it lands wrong.From daily use
One slot, two controls, never both
Tapping the collapsed icon does bring the switch back. It also takes the timeline picker away. The two are mutually exclusive, and the slot gives you no way to tell which one you are about to get.
There is no state in which both are available. Choosing where you are in the library, and choosing how the library is zoomed, are an either or at every scroll position past the top.
I use this app every day, and I was three days into building this before I learned that tapping the collapsed icon brings the switch back.Discoverability, measured on the only user I can vouch for
The record
- iOS 17
- Persistent tab bar
- iOS 18
- Tab bar removed, replaced by one scrolling surface
- iOS 26
- Tab bar restored with Library and Collections, minimised on scroll
- iOS 27
- prominentTabIdentifier is introduced, and keeps a prominent tab visible when the bar collapses on scroll
UITabBarController.prominentTabIdentifier was announced at WWDC26 and arrived with iOS 27. It is aimed at action tabs such as search or compose. In Photos on iOS 26, the switch still goes.
My case is to apply the same mechanism to the Library switch. Not a redesign. An adoption.
What that looks like
Nothing about the resting view changes. On scroll, the collapse becomes a compression rather than an erasure. The active side keeps its label, the inactive side shrinks to its icon, and the control stays where your thumb left it. The timeline picker moves into the filter menu at the top right, which already exists and already holds view options.
A third direction used a swipe gesture in the resting view, and in the resting view nothing tells you the gesture exists. It stays on the board as explored and set aside, because showing only the ideas that worked would make this a sales document.
What this does not claim
No usability test was run. The tap counts are structural, counted from the interface rather than measured with participants. If anyone wants evidence of user harm rather than evidence of added steps, that test is the honest next thing to do.
Not affiliated with Apple.
The whole file is open.
The status quo teardown, the three directions, the one that was set aside, and the component library the screens are built from.