Apple Wanted to Buy Halide Camera App — Now There Is a Lawsuit Over Stolen Code

iPhone camera app split by legal gavel with Apple logo

A nasty lawsuit between the co-founders of Halide, one of the most popular professional camera apps for iPhone, has revealed that Apple was close to acquiring the company in 2025 to boost the iPhone 18 Pro’s built-in camera app. The deal fell apart, and now the co-founders are in court accusing each other of fraud and theft.

Apple Wanted to Buy Halide

During the summer of 2025, Apple entered acquisition talks with Lux Optics, the company behind Halide. Apple wanted to upgrade the iPhone 18 Pro’s built-in Camera app with more advanced professional controls — and acquiring Halide would have given them a ready-made solution with years of refinement.

The talks ended in September 2025 when both co-founders — CEO Ben Sandofsky and designer Sebastiaan de With — agreed that continuing to develop Halide independently could increase the company’s value. De With later joined Apple’s design team in January 2026.

The Lawsuit

Sandofsky has now filed a lawsuit alleging that de With:

  • Misused over $150,000 in corporate funds for personal expenses
  • Took confidential Lux Optics source code with him when he joined Apple’s design team
  • Provided proprietary materials to Apple after his departure

De With’s legal team has denied the allegations, calling the lawsuit "retaliatory." They claim Sandofsky filed the suit to "avoid scrutiny" after de With requested access to the company’s financial records to investigate potential irregularities of his own.

What This Means for iPhone 18 Pro

The lawsuit raises intriguing questions about the iPhone 18 Pro’s camera capabilities. If Apple was willing to acquire Halide to improve its Camera app, it suggests significant camera software upgrades may be in the works for the next iPhone generation — possibly professional-grade controls currently only found in third-party apps.

The Bottom Line

This is a textbook Silicon Valley breakup — a successful app, acquisition interest from the world’s most valuable company, and two co-founders who couldn’t keep it together. The real losers might be Halide users, whose favorite camera app is now caught in a legal crossfire while one of its creators sits inside Apple’s design team with alleged access to the source code. Whether any of that code ends up in iOS 26 is the question nobody at Apple wants to answer.