I don’t care how they do it but I want to be able to press and hold the flashlight icon and, without lifting my finger, immediately begin to slide my finger up and down to adjust flashlight brightness.
Boo form over function. Very minor nod to the increased granularity.
Interestingly enough, my phone (which is currently running iOS 26) doesn’t have the new flashlight UI, it’s still a regular slider. Very one-finger-slide-uppable. The new “feature” with iOS 18 onwards is only present on iPhone 14 Pro and later (the bubbly black blob that is the dynamic island is necessary)
this is because of the ability to control beam width fwiw https://appleinsider.com/inside/ios-18/tips/how-to-adjust-the-flashlights-focus-and-beam-shape-in-ios-18
IMHO, the problem isn’t the width adjustment, it’s that the control is now small and you have to change your grip to reach it. Apple could just added the left / right width swipes to a large full screen UI.
(Also worth noting, only recent Pro iPhones can control beam width. Left / Right beam width control is disabled for not-pro phones but the UI is still the same clunky Dynamic Island thing)
Hear me out: what if instead of making a weird flashlight thing, why not just swipe left and right to adjust the width? Then you have the best of both worlds!
That’s what is does. Up / Down is brightness, Left / Right is width.
But without lifting up your finger and, presumably, stretching it up to the dynamic island popup
When gatekeeping/incentives go wonky