Apple announced a significant upgrade to its Photos app on Monday, introducing a dedicated slideshow maker that lets users turn any selection of photos and videos into polished, shareable presentations. After years of relying on limited native options or third-party tools, this feels like a welcome return to form for longtime Apple users.
What’s New in the Photos Slideshow Feature
According to the announcement, the updated Photos app now allows you to:
• Select any set of photos and videos from your library and instantly play them as a slideshow.
• Customize the experience with precise controls for slide duration, transition styles, and background music.
• Save as a video — New in iOS 27, users can now export the entire slideshow directly to their Photos library as a video file for easy playback, sharing, or archiving.
This goes beyond the more basic slideshow options available in earlier versions of iOS (such as iOS 18 and 19), giving users greater flexibility and permanence. While previous iterations often felt like an afterthought, this version positions slideshows as a first-class creative tool.
Broader Photos App Improvements
The slideshow maker is just one highlight from today’s announcements. Apple is also rolling out several other welcome enhancements to the Photos ecosystem:
• The ability to save individual frames from videos as standalone, still photos.
• More flexible and intuitive album organization tools.
• Emoji reactions and a “recent activity” view inside Shared Albums.
• Full-resolution access to photos and videos in Shared Albums, removing previous compression limits.
• New automatically generated smart collections, including “Captured by Me” and “Identity Documents.”
• Drastically improved, context-aware search results for people and pets.
These changes, combined with the broader Apple Intelligence-powered editing tools (such as Spatial Reframing, enhanced Cleanup, and Extend) unveiled alongside them, signal a strong focus on making Photos a more powerful, creative hub.
Why This Matters (and Why Users’ Reactions Are Mixed)
Longtime Apple users have been quick to point out that robust slideshow features existed in legacy apps like iPhoto and Aperture over a decade ago. Comments on developer and enthusiast forums reflect a predictable mix of excitement and eye-rolling: “iPhoto had this over 20 years ago,” one user noted. Others are already hoping for deeper ecosystem integration, such as the ability to export these custom slideshows directly to an Apple TV to use as screensavers.
Still, the ability to natively save custom slideshows as standard video files is a genuine step forward, especially for users who want to quickly create memorable recaps of vacations, family events, or milestones without needing to open a dedicated video editor.
Availability
The new features are expected to arrive with iOS 27, macOS 27 (Golden Gate), and related operating system updates later in 2026. Developer betas are rolling out this week following today’s announcements at WWDC, with a public release scheduled for the fall.
MacDailyNews Take: If you’ve been frustrated by the lack of easy, customizable slideshow tools in recent years, this update should feel refreshing. It’s not revolutionary, but for many users it’s exactly what Apple’s Photos app has been missing.
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[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]