How should I design an iPad app using Apple's HIG?

Apple's HIG recommends using sidebars instead of bottom tab bars on iPadOS, supporting split views for multitasking, and adding pointer interactions. Apple HIG Skills provides instant, AI-ready guidance on all iPadOS conventions.

What are Apple's guidelines for adding Apple Pay?

Apple's HIG specifies exact payment button placement, flow design, error states, and UX patterns required for App Store approval. Apple HIG Skills gives your AI agent access to the full Apple Pay design guidelines.

How do I make my Apple app accessible?

Apple's HIG requires support for VoiceOver, Dynamic Type, sufficient color contrast ratios, and motor accessibility features like Switch Control. Apple HIG Skills covers all accessibility foundations and requirements.

How do I design for visionOS and Apple Vision Pro?

Apple's HIG for visionOS covers ornaments, volumes, immersive spaces, eye tracking, and spatial interaction patterns. Apple HIG Skills includes dedicated visionOS platform guidance and spatial layout references.

What are Apple's dark mode design guidelines?

Apple's HIG specifies using system semantic colors, material backgrounds, elevated surfaces, and vibrancy for dark mode. Apps should test in both modes and avoid hard-coded color values. Apple HIG Skills covers the full dark mode specification.

How should I design notifications for iOS apps?

Apple's HIG covers notification grouping, Live Activities, action buttons, and respecting user attention. Apple HIG Skills provides guidelines for the full notification system including widgets and complications.

Live Photos

Live Photos lets people capture favorite memories in a sound- and motion-rich interactive experience that adds vitality to traditional still photos.

A sketch of the Live Photos icon. The image is overlaid with rectangular and circular grid lines and is tinted blue to subtly reflect the blue in the original six-color Apple logo.

When Live Photos is available, the Camera app captures additional content — including audio and extra frames — before and after people take a photo. People press a Live Photo to see it spring to life.

Best practices

Apply adjustments to all frames. If your app lets people apply effects or adjustments to a Live Photo, make sure those changes are applied to the entire photo. If you don’t support this, give people the option of converting it to a still photo.

Keep Live Photo content intact. It’s important for people to experience Live Photos in a consistent way that uses the same visual treatment and interaction model across all apps. Don’t disassemble a Live Photo and present its frames or audio separately.

Implement a great photo sharing experience. If your app supports photo sharing, let people preview the entire contents of Live Photos before deciding to share. Always offer the option to share Live Photos as traditional photos.

Clearly indicate when a Live Photo is downloading and when the photo is playable. Show a progress indicator during the download process and provide some indication when the download is complete.

Display Live Photos as traditional photos in environments that don’t support Live Photos. Don’t attempt to replicate the Live Photos experience provided in a supported environment. Instead, show a traditional, still representation of the photo.

Make Live Photos easily distinguishable from still photos. The best way to identify a Live Photo is through a hint of movement. Because there are no built-in Live Photo motion effects, like the one that appears as you swipe through photos in the full-screen browser of Photos app, you need to design and implement custom motion effects.

In cases where movement isn’t possible, show a system-provided badge above the photo, either with or without text. Never include a playback button that a viewer can interpret as a video playback button.

Keep badge placement consistent. If you show a badge, put it in the same location on every photo. Typically, a badge looks best in a corner of a photo.

Live Photos

Live Photos

Best practices

Platform considerations

visionOS

Resources

Developer documentation

Videos

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