How to revert iOS 18.5 video play button and scroll bar changes?

The Photos underwent a major change with the release of iOS 18. You can do some customization but not, I think, what you want:

Customize the Photos app on iPhone - Apple Support

It can take a while to adjust to a new iOS version, especially when making a big jump like iOS 15 to iOS 18. Lots of things are different.

You can let Apple know your thoughts on the changes here:

Product Feedback - Apple

LiSkynden wrote:

It’s funny or more like really annoying that when they (Apple) change stuff, it would be easy (I think) to let users choose if they want this new or keep the old stuff but nope. 

I mean they changed the photo editing background from black to white (why?) but THAT you can change it back to black. 

And that would result in there being so many options that Settings would become unwieldy and many people would be very confused. Apple has never been known for giving a lot of options. Their philosophy (really Jobs's philosophy) was "We know better than you do what you should have." That has changed a bit of the last decade or so but perhaps not as much as some people would like.

I never got what is a purpose for this kind of updates. Change for change or more like “fix it till it’s broken” and don’t let people have any ways to change it back. 

Just because you don't like the change or thought the old way was great doesn't mean everyone agreed. Apple gets lots of feedback on how people use their phones. Not only do they have the feedback page but they also see data on how you use your phone (not your personal data) if you have given them permission. As the saying goes, you can't please all the people all of the time.

Oh and one bug kind of thing that is still there is the video edit trimming. When you try to trim the beginning of the video, the end of the clip disappears and you can drag the edit slider only so far except if you release your finger and start again. 

I was really surprised that coming from ios15 to ios18 and that is still there. 🙄

And you still can’t cut videos. 

I imagine you can do that in iMovie.

You quote by pressing the quotation mark icon in the options bar at the bottom of the editing box. I find it best to do that before typing my response.

In full screen view, there's no indication if what you are looking at is a video or a photo except: that a video will start paying immediately, but this worked the same on iOS 15.8.4. (took out my iPhone 7 to verify). There are no playback controls in full screen either on iOS 15.

On both versions you need to tap once on the screen to get playback controls.

And in iOS 15, it's even less intuitive, because you need to tap on the picture in the row of pictures at the bottom of the Photos app to actually be able to scrub through the video.

In iOS 18, with the playback controls visible, you can pause, mute by tapping on the icons, or drag the white line left or right to scrub quickly through the video.

View photos and videos on iPhone - Apple Support

LiSkynden wrote:

When you scroll through your photos and videos, in full screen, nothing indicates if it is a photo or video.

That is incorrect. A video timer appears below the videos (as in the upper right here). The screenshot is from my iPad, but the iPhone has the same behavior.

[Edited by Moderator]

Your screenshot shows two photos/videos that occupy the full width of the screen. Mine shows an area under the “Photos” or “albums” area that have 5 photos/videos across a row.

LiSkynden wrote:

(how do I quote here?)

If you’re asking how to quote from someone’s previous post, press the paragraph sign followed by the quote marks as shown here.