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Is Photostream necessary?

8

8317645

Cancelled
Original poster
Dec 25, 2011
100
1
Hey Guys, I tried to find a category where this post would fit but there were multiple options so I chose here...

Basically, I have an iPhone 4s and a Mac.. and I was wondering if Photostream was really necessary for me to use if I generally never pull the pictures up on my computer.

I always had it activated up until today when I realized that when I was connected to 3G after I took a picture I had the data transfer circle spinning next to the 3G meaning that data was being used. With me being on a limited plan I try to conserve as much data as possible for obvious reasons.

Since Photostream just helps me to transfer photos to iPhoto which i rarely use I figured that it's just unnecessary to have it activated, since it doesn't even serve as a formal backup. So with this said, Do you believe that I'm just better off leaving Photostream off since it seems to benefit people with multiple iOS devices such as iPhone, iPad, and mac. Unlike me where I just have a Mac and an iPhone

Opinions on this will be greatly appreciated as I don't want to remove all my Photostream photos and regret it.

-Ace
 
alFR said:
AFAIK it only transfers pictures when you're on WiFi.
Click to expand...

I purposely turned off the wifi and took a picture while on 3G and believe it or not I got the data transfer circle.. Try it for yourself

Perhaps its pushed using 3G, then added while on wifi because that's exactly what happened.. The photo was added to the Photostream after turning my wifi back on
 
There's a Setting that says whether it should upload over 3G as well as WiFi.
I'm on an unlimited plan ('Three' in the UK) so I have this set 'on' but it's off by default

If you never want your photos on your Mac, PhotoStream still gives you cloud backup of your last 1000 photos ...

But I guess you can get that too either by doing a wired sync with iTunes (it backs up everything) or by setting your iPhone to backup to iCloud

So I guess you should be covered anyway as long as you're backing up your phone somehow.

In which case I guess you can turn PhotoStream off ....
 
Sirolway said:
There's a Setting that says whether it should upload over 3G as well as WiFi.
I'm on an unlimited plan ('Three' in the UK) so I have this set 'on' but it's off by default

If you never want your photos on your Mac, PhotoStream still gives you cloud backup of your last 1000 photos ...

But I guess you can get that too either by doing a wired sync with iTunes (it backs up everything) or by setting your iPhone to backup to iCloud

So I guess you should be covered anyway as long as you're backing up your phone somehow.

In which case I guess you can turn PhotoStream off ....
Click to expand...

Sums up exactly what I was going to say to be honest
 
Photo Stream does create a formal back-up believe it or not. I just went through this whole thing but opposite of your situation. I have a lot of pics I want saved on my mac. So I had photo stream on, and also my camera roll backing up to icloud. I found however, that in addition to the Photo Stream tab in iPhoto, events are created for each months photo stream For example, All of my December Photo Stream photos have been replaced with new ones. However, in iphoto events there is an event named "December 2011 Photo Stream" and all of my photos from December are there. And that is the same for every month I've had photo stream on. I had a problem with not having enough space on icloud (free 5 gig) because of backing up my camera roll. But since I've found this, I keep iCloud on but I turned off my Camera Roll from backing up. So now I have more then enough space to back up everything in the phone and still have a backup of my photos in iPhoto. I also have wifi itunes sync on for all of my apps, music and phone settings.
 
I really like the photostream feature of iCloud for the reasons some users point out in this thread.

Some problems I have with it is that you can't delete a photo from the photostream, my kid takes a lot of black images with it and so on.

The other thing is it don't take backup's of videos yet, so with them you still need to move them around the old syncing way.
 
I turned the stuff off.
I don't want any pics or anything automatically syncing with anything.
I wanna be the one who decides when and where which pics gets shared with what.
 
I love photo stream. Having my pictures sync from my iPhone to my iPad and Mac is priceless.

If not for the fact that you can't delete pictures from it, it would be perfect.
 
8317645 said:
I purposely turned off the wifi and took a picture while on 3G and believe it or not I got the data transfer circle.. Try it for yourself

Perhaps its pushed using 3G, then added while on wifi because that's exactly what happened.. The photo was added to the Photostream after turning my wifi back on
Click to expand...

You got data transfer, but did it actually transfer the picture? Mine is not showing up since I turned off wi-fi, but pictures taken afterwards on a different device are showing up.
 
4sFanatic said:
I turned the stuff off.
I don't want any pics or anything automatically syncing with anything.
I wanna be the one who decides when and where which pics gets shared with what.
Click to expand...
Same here. I can see that it's a useful feature for some people, but not me. I shoot a ridiculous amount of photos with my iPhone and I don't need to waste the battery by letting it sync every time I do so.
 
4sFanatic said:
I turned the stuff off.
I don't want any pics or anything automatically syncing with anything.
I wanna be the one who decides when and where which pics gets shared with what.
Click to expand...

quit taking pics of yourself... "down there"... and you don't have to worry about it lol.
 
johax84 said:
I really like the photostream feature of iCloud for the reasons some users point out in this thread.

Some problems I have with it is that you can't delete a photo from the photostream, my kid takes a lot of black images with it and so on.
Click to expand...

It is annoying that you cannot delete individual photos from Photostream - either you must delete everything on Photostream, or nothing.

I have no source, and to be honest I'm not sure where I read this, but I am under the impression that this issue will be addressed in the upcoming iOS upgrade.

Take this for what it's worth...:D :p
 
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