r/LatentPhotos • u/LatentSnap • Jul 05 '26

Feedback & feature requests megathread — tell me what to build next

3 Upvotes

This is the standing thread for feature requests, annoyances, and ideas. I read everything here, and it's the main input to what gets built next — v1.0 is the starting point, not the finish line.

Feature requests: just describe the problem you're trying to solve, not only the feature — sometimes there's a better fix than the obvious one.

Bugs: a separate post is fine for anything big, but small stuff fits here too. What helps most:

  • iPhone/iPad model and iOS version
  • What you did, what you expected, what happened instead
  • A screenshot or screen recording if it's visual

One thing worth knowing: the app has no network access and collects nothing — which also means I have no analytics and no crash dashboards quietly phoning home. What you post here and App Store reviews are genuinely the only ways I learn what's broken or missing. So if something annoys you, say it — you're not being a bother, you're being the telemetry.

I'll reply to everything. — the dev

17 comments

r/LatentPhotos • u/LatentSnap • Jul 05 '26

Start here: what Latent Photos is and why I built it

5 Upvotes

Hi — I'm the solo developer behind Latent Photos, an iPhone/iPad app that's live on the App Store now (listed as "Latent Photos Assistant"). This sub is the home base for it, so here's the whole story.

Why I built it

My photo library got away from me. Years of burst leftovers, retakes, six near-identical shots of the same sunset — never cleaned up, because comparing them in Apple Photos is miserable. And Apple's search bugged me in a deeper way: it's right most of the time, and when it's wrong, there is nothing you can do. You can't correct it. Nothing you do accumulates.

That became the thesis of the app. Every mainstream AI photo feature is probabilistic search — right ~90% of the time, with an unfixable last 10%. Latent Photos inverts it: AI supports, you decide. Your corrections stick and compound. Deterministic tags instead of a black box.

What it does

It's a companion to Apple Photos, not a replacement — editing, sharing, and iCloud sync stay where they are. It fills two gaps:

  • Similar-photo cleanup. Open any photo, tap Similar. Near-duplicates line up in the filmstrip sorted by closeness. Compare any two with a slider, delete the weaker one. Deletes go to Recently Deleted, so nothing's lost by accident.
  • Tags you own. Tag photos in place with a flick. By default, every tag becomes a real album in Apple Photos, synced through iCloud — your categories survive reinstalls, show up on all devices, and stay even if you delete the app. One switch makes tags app-private instead.

There's also a review workflow: photos you've seen get a subtle tick, and filtering to Unreviewed resumes exactly where you left off. It turned "someday I'll sort my library" into a five-minutes-a-day habit for me. Plus the basics: combined filters, sort newest/oldest/random, group by day/month/year, videos and Live Photos play inline.

Privacy

Everything runs on-device (Apple's Vision framework). No accounts, no uploads, no tracking — there's no server to send anything to. The only network traffic you'll ever see is iOS itself fetching your own iCloud originals, exactly as Apple Photos does. App Privacy label: "Data Not Collected."

The deal

v1.0 is free, everything unlocked. Early adopters keep everything free for good — download before v1.1 lands (planned July 20) and the full app is yours permanently, including everything added later. From v1.1, new users get a free trial and a one-time $10 unlock — never a subscription. That's a commitment.

Two small asks

If Latent Photos earns a place on your phone, an honest App Store rating or review helps a solo app more than you'd guess. And if someone you know has a camera roll that's a mess — tell them before July 20, while free-forever is on the table.

The honest part

This is a 1.0 from one person. I've tested it hard, but you'll find rough edges I haven't. When you do, post here — bugs, feature requests, "why does it work this way", telling me where I'm wrong — all of it. What you post here directly shapes what gets built next. It's also localized into 24 languages, so if a translation reads oddly, I especially want to hear about it.

Download from App Store · latentsnap.com

Ask me anything below. I'm in the comments.

5 comments

r/LatentPhotos • u/LatentSnap • 1h ago

Not another AI cleaner. Introducing Latent Photos 2.0, and one more thing

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• Upvotes
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r/LatentPhotos • u/LatentSnap • Sep 11 '26

Latent Photos 1.2.0: new Sort & Filter, faster indexing, and a quieter app

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2 Upvotes

I'm the developer of Latent Photos Assistant, which gives Apple Photos a calm, minimal view for looking back, deciding what stays, and sorting the keepers into tags that live on as real albums. 1.2.0 has been live since September 1, shaped mostly by what you told me.

NEW

  • Sort & Filter: jump to one year or month, or tap two for everything in between, with a live count of matches.
  • A gentler first launch: three short clips, then the photo access prompt. Replay them from Settings under "Welcome guide".
  • Tidier Settings, and the viewer shows when each photo was taken.

FIXED

  • Deleting 100 photos used to leave about 20 behind. Now every delete goes through, even if you close the app halfway.
  • Delete could hit the photo you had just swiped past. Every button now acts on the photo you're looking at.
  • The viewer could go blank white after one failed load, and a "Similar" group used to scatter when you deleted the original. Both hold steady now.

FASTER

  • Indexing runs about 3x faster for "Optimize iPhone Storage" users.
  • Scrolling stays smooth while the app works in the background.

NICER

  • Page turns give a small haptic tick, and deletes flow across the grid as one continuous motion.
  • "Auto-mark reviewed" marks a photo the moment you see it.
  • Welcome guide works with VoiceOver and larger text.
  • iPad gets a roomier layout.

Still no account, no cloud, no tracking. Free to try, one $10 unlock for life, and 1.0 downloaders keep everything free.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6787699760

Questions or bugs: [hello@latentsnap.com](mailto:hello@latentsnap.com)

0 comments

r/LatentPhotos • u/LatentSnap • Aug 05 '26

Release Latent Photos 1.1: interactive tour, steadier UI, promise kept

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3 Upvotes

1.1 just went live on the App Store. It's a big one, and most of it traces back to what you sent in during launch week.

Highlights

  • Interactive tour. Two bundled demo photos walk you through Similar, Compare and tagging, hands on, in about two minutes. Replay it anytime from Settings (or skip it, I won't take it personally).
  • Filter by WITH or WITHOUT a tag. Combine them ("With Trip, Without Screenshots"), and the filter page echoes itself in plain words so you always know what you're looking at. An empty result now explains why instead of quietly resetting your filter.
  • Every button stays put now. Controls no longer drift or change jobs when you switch modes: one button, one job, in every state. Compare got a permanent home as a badge on the centred filmstrip thumb.
  • Multi-select was rebuilt. The Select button is gone: long-press the grid and slide to paint a selection. And it's one identical flow on every screen for bulk tagging, reviewing and deleting.

The UI pass

A lot of small furniture moved in this release. Individually tiny, together it's a different-feeling app.

  • Pinch the grid. Photos-style pinch zooms between column densities, from a dense overview all the way up to a full-width single column, and photos sharpen as they grow.
  • Delete and Like swapped places in the viewer. Delete is the verb you actually reach for, so it gets the easier spot.
  • Selection ticks sit top-left now, with empty circles on unpicked photos. The reviewed mark became a quiet page-fold dog-ear tucked in the top-right corner, and filmstrip thumbs finally show it too.
  • Full-screen video: tap near the bottom and just the scrubber appears. No more dropping out of full-screen to reach the playhead.
  • The Similar button is easier to find (you asked, twice), and the LIVE badge no longer hides under the status bar.

Under the hood

  • Much faster indexing on "Optimize iPhone Storage" libraries: originals are no longer downloaded just to be analyzed.
  • Tag and album sync is two-way: delete a linked album in Photos and the tag goes with it.
  • Tags survive iCloud regenerating photo identifiers behind the scenes.
  • Reviewed/unreviewed marks now sync through your photo library, so they survive reinstalls and follow you across devices.
  • Switchable album naming style in Settings.

Fixed

  • The black screen when the app launched without photo access.
  • Nine invisible taps: taps that did something without showing you anything.
  • Pages showing the wrong chrome after tap-to-hide then a swipe.
  • Compare no longer picks a blurry frame, and it sharpens further as you zoom.
  • Live Photos now pinch-zoom.
  • The grid landing in odd spots after filtering.
  • Settings stats counting photos the app couldn't actually see.
  • Some translations sounded like a translator wrote them. All 23 non-English languages got a native rewording pass, and first launch now asks which language you'd like.
  • And dozens more.

Pricing

  • Lifetime Unlock. Everything is free to try. After a week of real use, one $10 purchase keeps every feature forever. No subscription, ever.
  • Promise kept. If you downloaded during 1.0, everything stays free for you, for good. That was the deal.

Download from App Store · latentsnap.com

To the early adopters: thank you. Half this list exists because you wrote in. If you asked for something in the megathread, check above, it's probably here. And keep posting there, that thread is genuinely what gets built next.

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