Hi Foxfire64! I too am very unhappy and disappointed with the new Photos app and with Apple in general. The original was much more intuitive, elegant and actually "usable". However, I doubt very much if Apple will be going back to the iOS 17 version any time soon, if ever. There are many other benefits of iOS 18 that warrant upgrading.
I am a retired Photographer and take a lot of photos. I was recently in Europe for 3 months and captured over 12,000 images. So, I bit the bullet and figured out a way to organize my Photos app to best suit my way of handling my images.
You may want to play around with the customization to find your best layout. This is what I did.
I opened Customization (at the bottom of the Photos app) and turned off everything but Pinned Collections, Trips and Recent Days. (BTW, Recent Days is basically the same as Recent in iOS 17, except that now you have all days/dates available there.) I'm kinda a minimalist, so I keep it simple. This eliminates most of the clutter. Before you tap the X to exit this screen, choose the order in which you will mosts likely use these. Now, tap X to return to your Photos.
Next, you will see the word "Modify” next to Pinned Collections. (By the way, if you haven't discovered this yet, the > next to all the options, is used to enable you to see all of the options in that collection on a new page, if you will.)
Tap Modify and you will be shown the options for adding things to your Pinned Collections. I choose, in this order, Albums, Favorites, Videos, Screenshots, Recently Saved, Recently Deleted and People & Pets. Once you’ve selected the things you want in Pinned Collections, you can reorder them anytime by simply returning to Customization. You can even choose a particular album to be in Pinned Collections (scroll to the bottom).
Know that you will most likely not get your Photos app to look like iOS 17, however, you can get pretty close. And remember, just because you have customized it now, you can always go back to the customization screen and make adjustments anytime.
There are also many YouTube videos that discus this customization process. Watch a few to see if they may also assist you in finding a way to get what you want from the new iOS 18 Photos app.
I do realize that this may only seem like a workaround, however, like I said earlier, Apple will most likely NOT go back to the previous version. If you have hope that they might, I encourage you to write to Apple at www.apple.com/feedback and voice your opinion. Writing to them is the only way they will ever see our frustrations with some of the awful “improvements” they make us endure.
[Edited by Moderator]
