As the busy holiday event season approaches in 2025, Simple Booth is rolling out the most exciting app update of all time.
Get ready for improvements that elevate every part of the Simple Booth experience and make running an iPad photo booth easier than ever. Version 5.0 of the Simple Booth HALO® app introduces a suite of powerful new features.
Here’s what’s new:
- It starts with a redesigned preset editor to make settings easier to navigate.
- From there, you can now design advanced layouts in the powerful new layout designer—this tool is like 100 new features in one and is guaranteed to revolutionize the way you create photo booth templates.
- Next, we have a new WhatsApp send option for worldwide photo delivery.
- You can also now write a custom thank you screen message that guests see at the very end of their session.
- Finally, we have a DSLR & mirrorless camera integration to boost image quality to the moon. 🚀
The best part? All of these features are available this week.
Explore the table below to see which HALO software plans support each new feature:
| Feature | Available in Plans |
| Layout designer (most features) | All HALO plans |
| Guest-editable text (text edit tool) | Plus plan and up |
| Multiple layouts (per preset) | Core plan and up |
| WhatsApp send option | All HALO plans with standard message, Plus and up for basic customization |
| Custom “thank you” screen message | Plus plan and up |
| DSLR & mirrorless camera integration | Core plan and up |
Earlier this year, we also introduced features like background blur, AirDrop sharing, and remote device management, making 2025 a banner year for new Simple Booth features and improvements.
Simple Booth HALO continues to lead the industry as the top photo booth app, with 30,000+ customers, a 4.7 star rating on the App Store (based on over 2,300 ratings!), and 40M+ moments captured.
Whether you’re a photo booth rental operator, brand or agency marketer, serving up interactive experiences at your portfolio of restaurants, or somewhere in between, this release will help you deliver memorable experiences in every setting.
Let’s dive deeper into each new feature and unpack the goodness.
Preset Redesign: A More Visual Workflow
This release introduces a completely redesigned preset editor that looks amazing and, most importantly, makes the setup process more clear and intuitive. Instead of scrolling through endless rows of settings panels, you now see the entire booth flow upfront and the settings groups that relate to each section.
With this streamlined approach, it’s faster than ever to build your booth flow, customize the design, and make sure you tailor every aspect of the user experience you need to. Plus, it allows you to preview the entire user journey from the start screen to photo delivery.
For operators running multiple activations—or handing setups off to staff—this redesign means a faster workflow, greater consistency, and less room for error. It’s a shift toward a more visual, user-friendly way of working that saves time and makes running a photo booth easy (and fun) just like it should be!
As you explore the redesigned preset view, you might notice one thing missing: the design panel.
That’s because Simple Booth built the most powerful design tool in the photo booth industry. It’s called the “layout designer” and it lives at the top of the new preset editor.
Layout Designer: Custom Designs Made Easy
The new layout designer lets you build advanced custom photo booth layouts directly inside the HALO app or the online dashboard—no additional graphic design tools required. Everything you need to design professional layouts is now in one place.
In the layout designer, you have complete control over every detail: where the photos go, how text and graphics are arranged, and even background gradients, motion types, and multiple layout options for each event.
Want a border around your photos or a background color behind them? Done. Need to align a logo, tweak fonts, or round the corners? Easy. You can even import assets from previous presets or choose from 60+ themes in the Simple Booth library, keep the graphics you like, and add your own twist.
Struggling to put a couple’s name on a photo strip is a thing of the past. New text layers allow you to choose the font, colors, alignment, and even shadow.
The layout designer was designed to handle everything operators need in one powerful, easy-to-use tool.
Watch Simple Booth’s CEO, Mark Hennings, provide a demonstration of the layout designer in action:
Beyond the basics, you can:
- Design dedicated digital and print layouts.
- Add dynamic QR codes that link to galleries, uploads, profiles, or custom URLs.
- Offer multiple layout options to participants to choose from, each with their own motion type (still, GIF, Live GIF, Rebound, or video).
- Copy layers, undo/redo changes, and align elements with precision.
We left no stone unturned in building this incredible suite of design tools, including all the bells and whistles you’d expect from the top new photo booth template editor.
Watch Simple Booth’s CEO, Mark Hennings, cover the layout designer in depth in this video:
The new layout designer is built for everyone:
- Everyday people who want polished layouts without getting a degree in graphic design.
- Event professionals who need a faster, all-in-one setup tool.
- Creative teams who want flexibility to quickly bring branded overlays into events.
The goal is simple: make it easier than ever to create polished, branded designs that “wow” guests and encourage them to share.
And what better way to create shareable moments than to allow guests to personalize their photos?
Guest-Editable Text: Personalization at Scale (Bonus Feature)
Inside the layout designer, the new guest-editable text layers puts creativity directly in your guests’ hands. Instead of leaving with the same static frame as everyone else, guests can type their names, captions, hashtags, or custom messages right onto their photos before sharing.
Popular use cases include:
- Digital guest books where attendees leave names or notes.
- Company name badges or conference ID tags.
- Personalized captions or nicknames for keepsake photos.
- Trending styles like “baseball card” templates.
Watch Simple Booth’s Marketing Manager, Emilie Crimmins, show how guest-editable text layers work:
Dynamic text sizing ensures every design looks polished, no matter the length of the message. Guests walk away with a personalized memento instantly—no editing required afterward.
Watch Simple Booth’s CEO, Mark Hennings, cover guest-editable text layers in depth in this video:
For operators, guest-editable text layers offer more interactivity without adding extra steps. It scales easily for large groups and adds the kind of personal touch that encourages guests to share their photos far and wide.
And once those photos are ready, the next step is making sure guests can receive them instantly—no matter where they are in the world. That’s where our new WhatsApp send option comes in.
WhatsApp Send Option: Global Reach, Simple Privacy
Great designs deserve to be shared, and the new WhatsApp send option makes it effortless for guests around the world.
Instead of relying on text messages—which can be costly or unreliable in certain areas—WhatsApp delivers photos seamlessly over WiFi or cellular. It’s fast, familiar, and trusted by billions of users, with built-in privacy protections guests already know.
Watch Simple Booth’s Marketing Manager, Emilie Crimmins, show how easy WhatsApp delivery is for your guests:
With this option, guests can instantly send their photos or videos to themselves without worrying about carrier fees or SMS issues. For operators, it adds another powerful delivery method to your toolkit alongside text, email, QR code, and AirDrop—so every guest gets their photo in the way that works best for them.
Whether you’re hosting a festival, a corporate event, or a tourist activation, WhatsApp ensures guests walk away with their photos in seconds, no matter where they’re from.
And while WhatsApp makes receiving photos easier than ever, the DSLR & mirrorless camera integration takes photo quality itself to the next level.
DSLR & Mirrorless Camera Integration: Professional-Grade Photos
For years, our team of photographers and tech-lovers have dreamed of the day we could combine the quality of a DSLR camera with the simplicity of the Simple Booth HALO app.
Today, we finally can.
The new DSLR & mirrorless camera integration connects the HALO app to external Canon cameras for incredible, professional-quality photos and videos. You still get all the filters, editing tools, and seamless guest flow Simple Booth is known for—now paired with studio-grade image quality.
This integration is a game-changer for rental companies looking to move upmarket. It expands your setup options, unlocks premium photo quality, and opens doors to new clients who expect nothing less than the best.
Connect over USB for long-event reliability or wirelessly over WiFi for more creative setups. Either way, you get the best of both worlds: DSLR power with HALO ease-of-use.
Ready to see it in action? Here’s a preview from Simple Booth’s Support Manager, Emily Devlin:
The DSLR & mirrorless camera integration works seamlessly across:
- Stills and layouts.
- GIFs and video.
- Filters and effects inside the HALO app.
This flexibility lets you deliver unique, professional results without sacrificing ease of use.
How it works:
- Connect your Canon DSLR or mirrorless camera (compatibility list coming soon) to the iPad using a USB hub to keep both powered for long events.
- Use a dummy battery or USB-C power to run continuously.
- Insert an SD card to temporarily store files before seamless transfer into HALO.
- During Preflight Check, HALO automatically detects your camera, shows a live preview, and lets you adjust exposure in-app.
- Bonus: connect wirelessly for creative angles and setups not possible before.
For a visual step-by-step setup guide, watch Simple Booth’s Support Specialist, Brennon Tompkins, walk through the process:
Pro tips:
- Best starter camera: Canon R50 (flip-out screen + USB-C charging; a step up from R100).
- Camera settings: Program mode lets the camera manage exposure, HALO adjusts ISO/compensation. Manual mode allows for more control (try 1/60 shutter, f/4.0+ for groups).
- Focus: Enable continuous autofocus and People Detection if available.
- Video: Use an external mic for the best sound quality.
- Failsafe: If the camera disconnects, HALO automatically falls back to the iPad camera so events keep running smoothly.
Looking Ahead
While the current HALO hardware doesn’t yet support external cameras directly, this integration is a huge step forward. In the meantime, check out our Ultimate DIY Photo Booth Guide for DSLR + iPad setups, complete with gear lists and recommendations.
Photo quality has always been a top priority for our team, and this release is just the beginning of more enhancements to come.
Moving Forward: How These Features Benefit You
This release was built for today’s photo booth industry: event professionals who need studio-quality results at scale, brands and agencies creating interactive experiences, and international hosts who want sharing options that work everywhere.
With redesigned presets, powerful creative tools like layout designer and the text edit tool, global delivery through WhatsApp, and DSLR-level photo quality, you now have more flexibility and polish at your fingertips than ever before.
Our motto for product development is “simple, yet powerful,” and we’re excited to continue adding advanced options to our software, while keeping it as easy-to-use as possible.
From event pros to restaurant owners to global brands, Simple Booth is here to help you create experiences that guests remember—and share—long after the event is over.
We’d love to hear your feedback. Share your thoughts at marketing@simplebooth.com and let us know what you’d like to see in the next release.
So what are you waiting for?
Update your Simple Booth HALO app to v5 or higher to start exploring (available with iOS 26.1 or higher). You can also visit the Help Center for detailed guides and watch the announcement videos in this article to see each feature in action.
Ready to create, capture, and share photo experiences in a whole new way?