Video Playback on iOS 18 is Broken - Video size is small and timeline ends early when setting video to full frame or zooming in. Serious bug.

Yup! Everything about this update regarding video playback and the Photos app is atrocious. I have 18.1 right now and at first I thought the issue where when you zoom in and try to play the video only some of it shows was fixed… But it actually isn’t fixed. It works intermittently. Meaning if you click play and watch it in the stupid small size it’ll play fully through but if you zoom in on the video to try to enlarge it, and then hit play half of the time, it only plays one second of the full video no matter how long the video is. There are rubbers that in 18.2 that the issue of videos opening in a smaller screen and whether in the full screen, the plate controls are removed is apparently fixed. But we will see soon. I hope that they bring back the dab slider/scroll bar/thumb down scrubber. That was invaluable and made playback and seeking for certain parts of the video easy such as to grab screenshots or to quickly jump to a section of that you’re looking for. Now it’s completely mysterious because of the translucent white bar and you have no idea where you are when you’re thumbing away especially on longer videos.

Not fully. ONLY the issue of the video player window showing in a small screen has been fixed.

In iOS 18.2 still the issue when playing back slow mo videos sometimes it only allows to see 1 second of the video. The scroller goes fully left to right and it only shows 1 second of the video no matter how long it is.

Also having the thumbnail scrubber at the bottom like in 17 and prior versions is much more desirable. Especially for longer videos having this narrow like to roll the finger on for seeking and rewinding / fast forwarding is a chore and finicky.

Should not have this bar over the video. Having the thumbnail scrubber was so much easier especially bc you can flick to slide through a bunch of footage and easily identify with the thumbnail preview specific sections to jump too. It should be available in the main player screen, not just relegated only to the edit mode.

In iOS 18.3 most of the video playback woes still exist. When zooming in on a slow-motion video, more times than not the video won’t play the full length. Meaning if the clip is 10 seconds long for example, by the time you get to the far right / end of the new crappy scroll bar, the video hasn’t played fully through. It will only show a few seconds length of the 10 seconds long video.

And in general the new video scroller is horrible as most people have echoed in this thread. They really need to bring back that thumbnail scrubber which allows users to quickly and precisely seek to a certain part of the video. This stupid thing white scroll bar forces a very specific press on screen and many times I cannot grab it until trying 3-4 times. It’s very difficult to go back and forward with it too. I liked how I could “flick” the thumbnail scrubber at the bottom to jump ahead a bunch of frames and quickly seek back and forward.

Why Apple has reversed their whole philosophy of innovation and simplicity is mortifying. Apple needs to read all these forums and check their feedback and bug report submissions. This is so bad that I have 2 colleagues who switched to android.

Please make sure you keep submitting feedback/bug reports to Apple specifically for the photos app here:

Product Feedback - Apple Photos

Here’s a YT video I made demonstrating the exact issue. Only posted a day ago and it has over 1,000 views and tons of comments. I’m happy other people are speaking out about how bad this iOS 18 update ruined Apple Photos and video playback and video usability. Apple please for the love of God fix this urgently. Whoever spearheaded the rollout should seriously be fired. Whoever approved it should also be fired!

Video of Issue

Please fix Apple Photos and iPhone videos urgently! They also should fix the editing / annotation of images. Taking a screenshot makes it tiny on the screen so if you you try to draw or type on it it’s the same nonsense of a tiny screen area. Editing any photo to draw or type on it shrinks the image on the screen. It should not be this way. Keep both images / photos and videos full screen. This is not an issue in any other app. It’s so bad it makes me wonder what the heck Apple is doing and how these people who are supposedly very bright tech wizards are employed there.

You nailed it. Thanks for chiming in. Please if you can post something similar in the forum of a feedback/bug report on Apple’s iPhone and Apple’s Photos section that would also help. I swear if this isn’t fixed by 18.2 I am probably going to switch to a Samsung or Google phone. This is incredulous. Not having proper functionality is inhibiting me from conducting my private instruction business properly on the field as I can’t show a full screen video frame by frame to my students. Nor can I zoom in to look at areas closer in the video because as you said it only plays a second of the video once zooming in. The update is laughable and it’s a major step backwards by Apple. We can only hope someone has some logic there still and the wherewithal to step up and rectify the situation.

Feedback - iPhone - Apple

Feedback - Photos - Apple

According to this article Apple has reverted video playback functionality to open videos in full screen now. Clicking on the video simply shows and hides the scrollbar. According to the article the white thin scrollbar is still there and the much easier to use thumbnail scrubber is still no longer in the video playback area; only for edit mode I presume.

It will be interesting to see if at least in edit mode the video will remain full screen or reduce to a smaller window. I’m hoping it allows screenshots taken to stay in full screen while annotating, and previously saved screenshots to open in full screen from the Photos app. We shall see.

https://9to5mac.com/2024/11/11/ios-18-2-photos-app/