Let's Put a Pin In That

HOW TO CREATE AN AWESOME IPHONE PHOTOS EXPERIENCE USING PINNED COLLECTIONS

Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash

Predictably, some Apple users have complained about the redesign of Apple Photos that comes with the new iOS 18.1. For a company that made “Think Different” a brand trademark you’d expect that fans would be a bit more forgiving. But as with floppy disks, Lightning ports, and buttonless home screens before it, this redesign will evidently have to earn its respect over time.

The thing is that after 17 years of following Apple’s layout for photo organizing, we finally get to design an experience of our own.

How cool is that?

Let’s see what it’s all about.

Even with an iPhone Pro Max the screen real estate doesn’t come close to the user space on an iPad or Mac. So creating a navigation layout that finds a home for almost 40 collections plus user created Albums in Apple Photos is no small feat. The last few rounds of Apple Photos on the iPhone have jammed most of that access into a sort of dock at the bottom of the screen. It worked, much like a multilayered website, by tapping on categories and subcategories to get to the desired image collection. Kudos for that, but after 17 years, the basic concept was due for a refresh.

To improve it, Apple rethought the whole navigation puzzle and created a layout that put everything on one Apple Photos Home Screen, like a modern website where a short scroll puts you one step away from anything. What used to be tabs or groups have been relabeled as “Collections” and are displayed under the All photos view when you launch Apple Photos. Scrolling down exposes all the Collections like People & Pets, Featured Photos, Utilities, Memories, and Albums. Instead of linked labels, most of these now have a widget-like button with a thumbnail, that makes it super easy to see what’s inside and access it.

photo by Paul Einarsen

The new layout is intuitive and easy to use. With 3 or 4 swipes you can scroll down the entire layout and be 1 or 2 taps away from your photo.

Now that would be pretty cool by itself, but it gets better.

If you scroll to the bottom of the Apple Photos Home Page you will see the option to Customize and Reorder. This means you can shuffle the Collections around to suit your style. If you often look for certain family or friends, you can move the People & Pets Collection right up to the top, underneath your photo library. Maybe you revisit your Trips all the time. Then move that Collection right up there too so you can quickly get at it.

On the other hand, you might not ever want to change your Wallpaper and can declutter that Collection from your Home Screen altogether.

Fortunately, tapping the “reset” on the Customization page will put everything back and in the default order.

But here’s the thing.

Not only do you get to rearrange and hide Collections as you choose, but you can even create a custom Collection of your own.

Introducing Pinned Collections

photo by Paul Einarsen

Pinned Collections is actually a container of collections that you can make up from the other collections. It is highly flexible and lets you create a personalized set of the Collections and Albums you use all the time.