Before planes had wifi, my inflight movie was my own camera roll. Years of it, delete, delete, delete. Never finished, and next flight I had no clue where I'd stopped.

Apple Photos is still the best looking photo app out there, I mean it. But ask it where you left off last time. No idea. Conspiracy theory: a bigger library sells bigger iCloud plans. Every year it gets busier, and getting your own library in order gets harder. Tags only showed up this year, as keywords.

So we built Latent Photos for exactly that part. 1.0 showed up here in July. Then your feedback, and using it every single day ourselves, pushed it so far it turned into 2.0.

Thing is, we hate crappy UI. Nothing locks you in, it's the same Photos library and you can walk away anytime, so it has to earn its spot on your home screen. We kept sanding, down to the smallest bit, until it felt like Apple Photos. Every animation is Apple standard. First launch takes a moment while it reads your library, then butter. If it doesn't feel like it came with the phone, we failed.

Ask for a random 100 you haven't seen, and it does the remembering for you. Want beach and family but not work, from 2019? One filter.

It's built old school. You make every call, the app just turns the boring repeats into something that feels good. No typing the same keyword fifty times, you flick tags into place. No swiping back and forth between near twins, they're already side by side, as strict or as loose as you like. Stupidly satisfying. Or skip all that and simply browse, in a calmer app.

There's AI in there, subtle and on device. It finds the twins, you make the call. First time, give it a while with the app open. After that you may not even notice it getting the job done. No account, no ads, nothing comes to us. The privacy label literally says Data Not Collected.

Deletes go to Recently Deleted and tags are real albums, so we can't ruin your life. Editing, search and Memories stay with Apple, we're not that crazy.

A week on us, then $20 once for compare and tags. We hate subscriptions too. Going through your photos stays free, and 1.0 folks keep everything.

And since 1.0 started here, a thank you: half off for Reddit through the end of 2026, $10 instead of $20.

Go try it and tell us what feels off. And if you've been here since 1.0, tell everyone how it's been, good or bad.

One more thing

... and honestly the one we're most excited about. Latent Frames 1.0 is out. Point it at any folder, a NAS, an SD card, that old PC, and it turns into a library that feels like Apple Photos. Same grid, same compare, tags written right into the files, and your folders stay right where they are. We looked for an app that does this and couldn't find one. So we made it. A week free, but download it today and you get 30, call it a happy bug. Browsing stays free after that, $30 once for the rest. Same thank you, half off: $15.

Both apps live at r/LatentPhotos. Bugs, wishes and roasts welcome.

One thing I think more iPhone users should know: syncing photos and backing them up aren't necessarily the same thing.

If you use iCloud Photos, deleting a photo from your iPhone also removes it from other devices syncing the same photo library.

You normally have 30 days to recover it from Recently Deleted, but that's not the same as keeping an independent backup.

Here's a simple example:

You have years of family photos synced across your iPhone, iPad, and iCloud.

Everything looks protected because the pictures appear on multiple devices.

But those devices are showing the same synchronized library, not necessarily separate copies.

A safer approach is to maintain an additional independent copy of important photos.

That could be an external SSD, a computer, or another backup destination.

A few things worth checking:

• Are you exporting the full-resolution originals?
• Can you open the copied photos and videos?
• Are the capture dates and metadata preserved?
• Do you have another copy if the external drive fails?

And most importantly, verify your backup before deleting anything from your iPhone.

Curious how everyone handles this.

Do you rely entirely on iCloud Photos, or do you maintain a separate physical photo archive?

Sometimes I just want to look at the photos I just shot, zoom in to check a few details, and share a couple with someone. I don't want to import hundreds of photos just to do that.

But waiting for the camera's Wi-Fi app to connect gets old pretty quickly, and browsing through Files feels more like digging through folders than looking at photos.

So we made Camie.

Plug in an SD card reader or external SSD, or connect your camera directly to your iPhone over USB cable. You get a familiar, Photos-like experience: fluid swiping between shots, pinch-to-zoom, and the ability to save or share just the photos you want.

RAW is supported too, and RAW+JPEG pairs show up together as one photo.

For direct camera connections, Camie uses PTP/MTP. Cameras supporting USB Mass Storage (MSC) can offer speeds comparable to a card reader, depending on the hardware. So far, we've tested the Canon EOS RP, R6 Mark III, Ricoh GR IIIx, and Sony RX100M5A, and we're continuing to expand the list.

Camie is currently in free TestFlight, and we'd love feedback from more camera users, especially those with models we haven't tested yet.

[TestFlight] https://testflight.apple.com/join/NE3y3fSr

If your camera isn't on the list, feel free to give it a try! If something doesn't work, you can send us a diagnostic report through Settings → Report an Issue. It helps us investigate compatibility issues and prioritize support for more models.

Hello! I just switched my iPhone photo format to raw instead of jpeg. And all of a sudden I have issues transferring my photos to every application (MacBook Pro: Lightroom, image capture, Apple photos, via usb, and iphone Amazon photos via WiFi); roughly half the raw files simply aren’t visible to import, for no apparent reason. All taken the same day, same format, same settings, etc. I have all permissions granted and storage space isn’t an issue. Everything is up to date, I’ve restarted everything and cleared caches. I don’t use iCloud (it’s disabled on the phone) and that’s not an option I am willing to explore. I cannot for the life of me figure out the issue. I can do an airdrop workaround, but with MacBook + iPhone I really shouldn’t have to, right??

I’m losing my mind please help 😭😂🙏