Apple’s plans to boost the iPhone 18 Professional‘s Digicam app led it to contemplate buying Halide, however the talks finally collapsed and had been adopted by a fierce authorized dispute between the startup’s co-founders, in accordance with The Data studies.
In the summertime of 2025, Apple reportedly held discussions to amass Lux Optics, the developer behind the favored iPhone digital camera apps Halide, Kino, and Spectre. The corporate concluded that it might get a greater provide from Apple sooner or later following updates to the app. Two months after the talks concluded and not using a deal, Apple set about recruiting Lux’s co-founder and designer Sebastian de With.
Lux CEO and co-founder Ben Sandofsky is claimed to have fired de With in December over monetary misconduct. de With introduced that he had joined Apple’s design staff in January.
Sandofsky has now filed a lawsuit within the California Superior Courtroom of Santa Cruz in opposition to de With, accusing him of improperly utilizing greater than $150,000 in Lux firm funds to pay for private bills since 2022, in addition to offering confidential materials and supply code from Lux to Apple.
Through the discussions to amass Lux, Apple staff purportedly informed the startup that its mental property was a serious consideration in evaluating the corporate. Apple apparently wished to amass Lux to bolster the built-in Digicam app, which is claimed to be “prime precedence for the corporate proper now.” The iPhone 18 Professional will “match professional-grade cameras by way of sure superior options,” necessitating an improve of the built-in Digicam app. Apple will not be named as a defendant within the case and it isn’t accused of any wrongdoing.
de With’s authorized representatives say that the lawsuit is meritless and deny that he “used, transferred, or disclosed any Lux mental property” as a part of his new job at Apple. They added that the lawsuit was solely filed after de With raised considerations with Sandofsky about monetary irregularities at Lux and had requested entry to its monetary data and funds, suggesting that it was a “retaliatory response to these efforts and an try to keep away from scrutiny of that conduct.”