All iPads Want mum to ditch white MacBook for iPad Air. How would she manage iPhoto library?

Shouldn't it be her decision?

transition it

get her an iPad...
let her use it, with her photos imported...
i do the same thing with photography on my iPad mini... but i resize the images.

let her use the devices together... and she will naturally fall out of love with the macbook.

patent10021 said:

Caveats: She'd not only need a wireless keyboard (no problem) but a lot of the normal text editing functions are absent on the iPad. As an example, most people use the mouse/trackpad to get to a position in the word doc for editing.

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Paired with a wireless keyboard, you can use the cursor keys when composing text.

Apple added tons of functionality for bluetooth keyboards with the iPad, which makes it very easy to use when paired with the Pages app.

New iOS 7 Keyboard Shortcuts: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1631767/

iPad dums too many people down and limits what they can do. Have her spend a little time watching some Apple instructional videos for OSX ... she'll learn lots and may enjoy it too.

Macbook is much easier to learn and use than an iPad because you have a physical keyboard and trackpad/mouse. So it would be a step backwards to force an iPad on her as iOS is a totally different operating system and the apps are different too.

Just show her the new wonderful tiny thin MacBook Air... She won't have to relearn anything and it's more portable, lighter and a huge upgrade over what she has.

Edit
I would teach her the basics of using finder, once she knows about it she can find anything.

Leave her alone if she's happy.

Do not forget DropBox. I prefer it over the Apple solution, anyday!

patent10021 said:

Also I'm wondering how easy it would be for her to manage her 10GB iPhoto library. Not huge but she needs complete control of this as she uses iPhoto for design portfolio. She wold definitely enjoy having an iPad to take to job sites to show off portfolio like she does with my iPad.

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I think a laptop is superior in managing an iPhoto library and I'd not move or try to convince her to move to an iPad. Especially if she needs a design portfolio. Perhaps a better solution is for her to use Aperture or Lightroom on the laptop.

Editing, categorizing, and exporting in iPhoto can easily and quickly done on a laptop. Imo, its more awkward trying to do that on a tablet.

Adobe is purportedly looking to release LightRoom for the iPad and that might be an option, but they'll be charging you 99 dollars a year and all the images will be stored on the cloud. I personally wouldn't want to spend 99 dollars just for the ability to edit/access my images in LightRoom on the iPad - but that's just me

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Lucille Carter said:

Do not forget DropBox. I prefer it over the Apple solution, anyday!

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True, but does it integrate into iPhoto as that's what the OP's mother is using.

kathyricks said:

Macbook is much easier to learn and use than an iPad because you have a physical keyboard and trackpad/mouse. So it would be a step backwards to force an iPad on her as iOS is a totally different operating system and the apps are different too.

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Especially if you already have a MacBook. And since it's a white MacBook, she must have had it for years

If the white MacBook breaks down eventually, I'd consider a MacBook Air which has much of the weight advantage of the iPad.

Another vote here for the Macbook Air....it seems more suited for her needs.

Although I owned and used various iPad's....and love my iPad Air, I would never consider it as a main work machine.

I've lost count of people in the office who justify an iPad as they can use it for work (minute taking, presentations etc), only for them to revert to pen and paper after a couple of months. I know you say she only uses basic apps, but is that because she is using a 14 year old machine?

By getting both a more modern MBA and an iPad (assuming budget allows), the experience will be more 'Zen like' than what she is used to now anyway, purely because the two devices integrate better over the cloud.

iPads are great, but I wouldn't say they are designed to be the ONLY piece of tech a person has for their day to day work.

patent10021 said:

Why do you think I'm posting this? She's not.

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I was just kidding

I vote for the iPad Air.

I'm a Apple power user and I use my iPad Air 90% of the time and iMac 10%. The only limitation on an iPad would be storage at 128GB, but if you don't think that will be an issue for a few years then Air all the way.

slffl said:

I vote for the iPad Air.

I'm a Apple power user and I use my iPad Air 90% of the time and iMac 10%. The only limitation on an iPad would be storage at 128GB, but if you don't think that will be an issue for a few years then Air all the way.

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I have both a Mac and iPad, and my experience is the opposite. The Mac is superior for almost everything and gets far more use. I know that one *can* use an ipad only to manage a large photo library, but I don't think it's the most appropriate tool for the job.

I'm a little confused if the issue with the Mac is file management and file structure, for a person who mostly uses the Mac for photos. Just plug in the camera, and let iPhoto import the photos. What file management?

patent10021 said:

Why do you think I'm posting this? She's not.

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I know how you feel right now. My mom has an iPad 3 (Retina). Get the largest storage capacity you/her can afford/need. If she has 10gb of photos I would get the 64gb because I like getting extra. I would make a backup of those photos to either iCloud or your computer. The benefit to iCloud is it does it constantly when connected to Wi-Fi.

patent10021 said:

How do you think she could manage her portfolio? An annual subscription to iCloud for her library?
.

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iCloud doesn't work quite the way you you seem to think.

You can't store, access, or manipulate an iPhoto Library (the kind used by the OS X app) from iCloud. While there is the iPhoto app for iOS, it's mostly a photo editor that integrates with the iPhone/iPad's Photos app and Camera Roll.

iCloud can store photos in two ways, one which may cost you money, the other is free:

Camera Roll: The contents of the iOS device's Camera Roll are included in the iCloud Backup by default. People who have large Camera Rolls (or backup several iOS devices to the same iCloud account) may have to buy additional iCloud storage space, or simply transfer photos they don't need to their computer, and delete them from the iOS device to save money. If you have a lot of photos on an iOS device it's not hard to exceed the 5gb of free backup space. The real limit to paid iCloud backup space, no matter how much you buy, is the available memory on the iOS device, which, face it, is a lot more limited than today's Mac/PC HDDs. It doesn't function as an extension of your device's storage like DropBox can. In your case, either your mom has enough space on her iOS device for her entire library, past, present, and future, or you still have to rely on a computer, Drop Box, etc., for the rest of the library.

Photo Stream and Shared Photo Stream:

Photo Stream provides additional free storage, it's not part of the iCloud storage quota used for backups (and you can't buy more space). It'll hold about 1,000 photos before Apple starts deleting the oldest ones. That may sound limiting, but... You can setup the Mac's (or PC's) iCloud Control Panel and iPhoto (or Aperture, or the PC's Pictures folders) to automatically download new additions to Photo Stream - they'll be added to the iPhoto Library on the Mac as photos are shot, and/or edited images are added to PhotoStream/Camera Roll. No need to sync the iOS device to the computer to transfer images, and the photos will be saved to the computer well before Apple is likely to delete older images from the Photo Stream. (Photo Stream does have daily and monthly image upload limits, to prevent pros from using it for their daily business needs).

Shared Photo Streams: This is also additional free space, and there are limits here, too (again, you can't buy more). But unlike the "regular" Photo Stream, Apple does not delete images from Shared Photo Streams - you just hit the ceiling at some point. Each Shared Photo Stream can be considered an album. It can be a nice place for family photo albums, "brag book" images, etc. Shared Streams can be created on the Mac or the iOS device, and viewed and edited from either. They can also viewed on the web by people who have the URL, similar to most photo sharing sites. Shared Streams, however, are too limited to use as an iPhoto Library substitute.

This Apple article will tell you more of what can be done with iPhoto on iOS: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH3266

http://help.apple.com/icloud/

Bottom line? iCloud integrates pretty nicely with iPhoto (on both Mac and iOS), just not in the way you seem to hope.

Get her an iPad. She has 14 days to try and and fit it into her workflow. If things don't work out and she decides that she really doesn't like it, you can take it back.

You can look into dropbox instead of buying her a new iphone lol.

patent10021 said:

Hey, since she is now using on an iPad Mini the only issue of course is photo management.

Since there are camera kits, how could we manage photos on a WD Passport? (she doesn't have an iPhone capable of iCloud streaming)

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A Passport is a plain external hard drive, it can't run software, it depends on a computer's operating system to do things like copy files, and it also depends on being connected to a computer or powered USB hub for power - a camera connection kit alone can't provide that. It's not an appropriate solution.

WD has other drive products that can be free-standing - they have an iOS App that allows you to connect directly to the drive. These are their "cloud" drives (My Book Live is probably the best-suited for your needs).

FYI, Apple's Camera Connection Kit is a one-way solution. You can import photos to the iPad from a camera or an SD card, you cannot export from the iPad.

OR

Buy a newer iPhone so she can use iCloud and what would be the best way to manage GB of photos going by what you said above?

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iCloud requires a minimum of iPhone 3GS and iOS 5. Maybe a new iPhone is a good idea if she has something older than a 3GS. If, however, she has a 3GS or newer, there should be no issue using iCloud - update iOS if she's still on iOS 4.x. (I should note that nearly every iOS App requires at least iOS 5, if not more - including the WD, DropBox, and MEGA apps - they would not be a solution to the "can't connect to iCloud" problem. WD requires iOS 5, DropBox iOS 6, MEGA iOS 7.)

MEGA, a new storage company allows 50GB so I'm wondering if that's an option too.

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Any cloud storage service that allows uploads from an iOS App is possible. It's really a matter, for me, of how your mom uses iPhoto to organize her photos. (See more below).

Right now with her iPad Mini the only way to sync photos from MacBook iPhoto library is to connect iPad to MacBook via iTunes. Turning on Photo streaming doesn't work because it only starts with NEW photos. We could use SHARE but then we'd simply be sharing GBs of photos to iCloud.

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You can add photos to Photo Stream and Shared Photo Streams via iPhoto - that's how I create all my Shared Streams (well, I use Aperture, but it's the same thing for these purposes). Only new photos are automatically added. The issue with iCloud, as I mentioned before, is that storage is limited.

The best solution for you depends in large part on the size of that iPhoto library. iCloud, DropBox, MEGA, or any other service that has an iOS App is a possibility. The question is whether you can get by with a free account, or have to subscribe to additional space (and again, at least for now, you can't buy additional iCloud space for Photo Stream/Shared Photo Stream).

The problem for me with online photo sharing/storage sites, whether it's Shared Photo Stream or DropBox is that they are based on traditional file storage systems (one of the issues you said your mom had with her Mac) - if you want to have the same photo in two albums, you have to make (and store) two copies of that photo. In iPhoto, you have just one master copy of the image, and you can place that image in as many different albums as you like, without using additional storage space. If you edit the image, that same edit is instantly seen in every album in which the photo appears. If you delete the master image, it instantly disappears from every album.

This particular aspect of iPhoto for OS X is lost on many people, so they may never take advantage of it. They put a photo in an album, and don't think to add it to any other, or think they're wasting hard disk space if they do.

So in large part, what's suitable for your mom depends on how your mom uses iPhoto's features. If she's a one-photo-one-album person, then Shared Photo Streams or DropBox or MEGA can be an easy conversion - she'll just duplicate existing albums that are on the Mac, and upload new photos from her iOS devices. If, however, she puts the same photo into many different albums (eg. Sally's 7th Birthday, Favorite Family Photos, Best of 2013, Grandkids...), it won't be so gentle on cloud storage quotas. If she uses Faces to find all photos of a particular person, if she searches for photos by date, if she likes to keep every photo she takes, but only puts the best in albums... Then iPhoto on the computer may be the only solution, even if she uses her iPad for day-to-day photo viewing.