Sebastiaan de With — the designer behind Halide, Kino and other Lux apps — announced he’s joining Apple’s Human Interface design team. "So excited to work with the very best team in the world on my favorite products," he wrote on Threads, confirming a move that feels less like a surprise hire and more like a quiet homecoming.
Apple is getting a designer with a sharp, camera-first point of view. de With co-founded Halide more than a decade ago and has spent years dissecting iPhone camera hardware and software in public. That pedigree matters: Halide’s UI choices and pro features have influenced how many people think about on-device photography, and Lux — Halide’s parent company — just opened the public preview of Halide Mark III the same day his departure was announced. His partner Ben Sandofsky reassured users that Halide will continue, calling the Mark III reception “more positive than we possibly could have hoped.”
Why this matters inside Apple
This isn’t just another hire. Apple’s Human Interface team has been reshuffling: Alan Dye left late last year, Stephen Lemay stepped in, and reports suggest SVP John Ternus is quietly coordinating hardware and software design across teams. Bringing de With aboard signals Apple wants design expertise rooted in real-world product experience — not just theory.
Designers who obsess over pixels and camera ergonomics bring a different kind of muscle than generalist UI leads. de With’s past freelance work for Apple (MobileMe, iCloud, Find My) and for other tech companies means he understands Apple’s constraints and ideals — and how to bend them. That could influence camera UX and tooling across iOS and perhaps macOS, where many pro workflows still start on a MacBook like the ones designers rely on daily (many creatives still use a MacBook as their primary machine).
Apple’s design decisions don’t exist in a vacuum. As the company leans into generative AI and system-level intelligence, design choices will need to bridge new capabilities and user trust — a challenge Apple is already tackling with moves such as its plans to integrate Google’s Gemini tech into Siri's next generation Apple to Use a Custom Google Gemini Model to Power Next‑Gen Siri. Meanwhile, policy-driven changes to features across regions underscore that engineering, product and design must coordinate more tightly than ever Apple to Disable iPhone–Apple Watch Wi‑Fi Sync in EU as DMA Deadline Looms.
What de With brings — and what we might see
Expect two immediate areas of influence. First: the camera UI. Halide is known for balancing approachability with pro controls; Apple’s stock Camera and related apps could benefit from that sensibility. Second: visual polish and intent. de With’s work often reads like a designer who wants systems that feel inevitable — interfaces that stop getting in the way.
That doesn’t mean overnight change. Apple’s product cycles are long and guarded. Design shifts roll out slowly, layered across software and hardware updates. But hires like this are how cultures recalibrate: a few people inside can nudge priorities, refine interactions, and quietly rewrite what ‘good design’ looks like at scale.
Ben Sandofsky’s public comment — that he’s “never been more optimistic about the future of Lux and Halide” — suggests the company planned for continuity. Halide Mark III’s public preview and collaborations with outside partners like The Iconfactory and colorist Cullen Kelly show Lux is positioned to move forward even as one co-founder moves on.
There’s a human note here, too. de With has been an outspoken, thoughtful voice in the Apple and photography communities; bringing that voice into the room where Apple’s interfaces are shaped could mean more transparent, opinionated design choices rather than incremental, safe refinements. For users, that might translate to subtler but more coherent camera experiences, and for designers, it’s a reminder that product work still rewards obsessive craft.
Apple didn’t comment beyond de With’s announcement, but the hire maps cleanly onto the company’s recent organizational changes and the broader pressures on platform design — from AI features to regulatory shifts — to produce interfaces that feel both capable and human. The story is still unfolding, and the most interesting part may be watching how one designer’s perspective ripples through a massive ecosystem rather than what a single update reveals.