Apple/Screenshot by Joe Maldonado/CNET
The Camera app in iOS 26 is nearly bare, populated primarily with a shutter button and a switch to toggle between Photo and Video modes. It's the one app so far where I imagine Apple's designers said, "Let's do Liquid Glass, but even less." And from a visual standpoint, I get the appeal: You want to be absorbed by the photo you're about to take, not distracted by the controls around the periphery.
But I'm admittedly wary of the fact that, without any cues about how to access features such as switching modes, changing cameras or enabling other capture features, we're left with gestures that must be memorized just to see what happens. Sure, I'll develop muscle memory as I test it out, but what about relatives who only take occasional pictures? They're going to be left swiping in all directions, hoping to get to the features they want.
How many people will swipe up to access settings like the timer or Photographic Styles and inadvertently close the app because they've swiped from the bottom of the phone, not the bottom of the app? A single tap brings up settings like video resolution and frame rate, but a single tap has also been the way to set an autofocus and exposure point.
The current Camera app suffers from this type of obfuscation, too: You need to tap an unmarked carat button (^) at the top to reveal options that appear near the shutter button at the bottom, or you have to know that a single short swipe up within the preview area will make them appear.
I'm not claiming this is an interface failure yet -- it's the first developer beta, after all, and a lot can change between now and iOS 26's release in the fall -- but it's going to be one of the first things I try out when I get my hands on the software.