All iPads iOS 7 screws up photo importing to my iPad 3

[Mark Booth]

I'm a photographer. For years, I'd haul my MacBook Pro around with me so I could edit images I shoot while on the road. In 2012 I got my first iPad (3rd generation). Shortly thereafter I purchased Apple's Camera Connection Kit (SD card reader) and a third-party 30-pin card reader that handles Compact Flash Cards in addition to SD cards. Life was good. Using the iPad I could quickly and easily peruse hundreds of images on my flash cards and selectively import just the ones I wanted to import to the the iPad. That allowed me to quickly share them (in person and on the web) after I'd applied any necessary editing to them in iPhoto or other image app on the iPad.

All of that joy and happiness was under iOS 5.

Fast forward to this past weekend, when for the first time in several weeks I attempted the same process while on a trip. The difference: I updated my iPad 3 to iOS 7 since the last time I tried the card readers.

Oh My God! Talk about totally screwed up! The card readers (both Apple's and my third-party reader) "work" with my iPad 3 running iOS 7, but they are EXCRUCIATINGLY slow!

How slow is that? You won't believe me but I'll tell you anyway!

iPad 3 with iOS 5: Loads thumbnails for 302 RAW images in less than 30 seconds

iPad 3 with iOS 7: Loads thumbnails for 302 RAW images in 3 HOURS!

To be fair, I didn't actually let it run for 3 hours. That's just my estimate based on how long it takes the iOS 7 iPad to load the thumbnails for 6 images. I gave up after 6 images because JUST THE THUMBNAILS for 6 images took more than 5 minutes to load!

Don't believe me? I made a video to prove it:

http://www.thephotobooth.net/Apple/IPad-3-Thumbnail-Load/36649619_KXmqqD#!i=3047589904&k=8JvpmdT

This has rendered my iPad 3 completely useless for my photography purposes.

In searching the web, I'm not remotely the only person experiencing the problem. Apple's own forums are filled with similar complaints. And, apparently, Apple's newer Lightning SD card reader is similarly plagued by problems for those that upgraded their iPad 4 to iOS 7 (or purchased an iPad Air with iOS 7 already on it).

If I could figure out a way to "downgrade" my iPad 3 to either iOS 5 of iOS 6, I would! Buying a new iPad won't solve the problem because the problem is iOS 7. So, I'm left considering the option of buying a used iPad 3 (or 4) with iOS 5 or 6 still on it.

This is all beyond ridiculous! How can something that works so perfectly under iOS 5 (and 6) be so screwed up under iOS 7?

Mark

 

[Carlanga]

it's prob loading the whole picture instead which is why it's taking that long.

 

[Mark Booth]

it's prob loading the whole picture instead which is why it's taking that long.

Yep, that's probably what is happening. But how stupid is that?!

One more clear sign that iOS 7 was released before it was truly ready. All to the inconvenience of the customer. NO communication from Apple on the subject. If it made the evening news, THEN we might get something from Apple.

At the very least, Apple should tell its customers that it is aware of the problem and that they plan to have it fixed by xyz date!

Mark

 

[Mark Booth]

In further testing, loading image thumbnails from SD card is faster (using either the third-party card reader I used in my video, or using Apple's SD card reader). Faster than CF card I mean. But even using SD card, image thumbnail load is SIGNIFICANTLY slower under iOS 7 than it is under iOS 5.

Assuming 300 or so RAW images on each type of card:

Worst-case scenario: CF card third-party reader, which takes 2+ hours to load all thumbnails to the iPad 3 under iOS 7

Best-case scenario: SD card in either Apple's reader or the third-party reader, which take 20-30 minutes to load all thumbnails to the iPad 3 under iOS 7

BOTH of those PALE in comparison to iOS 5! With iOS 5, the image thumbnail load with EITHER type of card is 20-30 seconds.

Mark

 

[mofunk]

Those photos look like crap too on iOS7 because they are cropped. I use my iPad for photography as my portfolio. I don't even want to show clients because my images are cropped. I hope Apple fixes this and your problem too.

I've seen something like this with the iSight camera. When Apple started putting camera in their Macs, they disabled/changed the use of the iSight camera.

 

[Mark Booth]

A friend with "connections" inside of Apple has brought the photo import situation to the attention of an Apple engineer. I've provided additional information and, HOPEFULLY, this issue will be resolved in iOS 7.0.5!

But how long before we get it?!?!

Mark

 

[Carlanga]

A friend with "connections" inside of Apple has brought the photo import situation to the attention of an Apple engineer. I've provided additional information and, HOPEFULLY, this issue will be resolved in iOS 7.0.5!

But how long before we get it?!?!

Mark

At 7.1 or later I would assume

 

[Mark Booth]

No word back from any of the Apple engineers regarding this problem. I sure wish I could take my iPad 3 back to iOS 5 or 6!

Mark

 

[scottwaugh]

No word back from any of the Apple engineers regarding this problem. I sure wish I could take my iPad 3 back to iOS 5 or 6!

Mark

Since this is critical to what you do, I'd buy a new iPad 4 (if you can still find one, they were still around after christmas (got one myself) - it'll have iOS 6 on it) or buy a used iPad 3/4 with iOS 6 on it and sell your iPad 3 with iOS 7. Who knows if or when this behavior your seeing will get solved and why put up with it.

Just an idea. Whatever the change in iOS 7 was, it has made this feature worthless.

 

[TJ61]

I understand that the best solution would be for Apple to make their stuff work like it did and like it's supposed to.

But, in case you're interested in alternatives (with added benefits):

I just bought a SanDisk Media Player, partly for the ability to view photos from an SD card on my iPad. It's a wireless device (creates it's own access point), has either 32GB or 64GB on board, and can accept SD cards up to 128GB. The card contents can be moved straight to the device memory, or you can import to the iPad (by selecting one at a time). iPad contents can also be moved to the device or the card.

I had my own issues with my CCK, and don't intend to look back.

 

[Mark Booth]

I understand that the best solution would be for Apple to make their stuff work like it did and like it's supposed to.

But, in case you're interested in alternatives (with added benefits):

I just bought a SanDisk Media Player, partly for the ability to view photos from an SD card on my iPad. It's a wireless device (creates it's own access point), has either 32GB or 64GB on board, and can accept SD cards up to 128GB. The card contents can be moved straight to the device memory, or you can import to the iPad (by selecting one at a time). iPad contents can also be moved to the device or the card.

I had my own issues with my CCK, and don't intend to look back.

But how fast is that device (SanDisk Media Drive)? Usually, I want to import select images from a card filled with hundreds. But what if I want to import 300-500 images from an SD card to my iPad (through the Media Drive)? How fast is it?

Also, remember that I shoot in RAW format on my 5D Mark III. The files can be as big as 26MB each. Under iOS 5, when I used the Camera Connection Kit (or my third-party 30-pin card reader) Apple's software knew not to import the entire 26MB file and instead imported a smaller version of it taken from the RAW file. Basically, it automagically created smaller JPG files from the RAW file and only imported the smaller JPG size. Which is fine (actually, it's perfect) for what I wanted to do with the photos on my iPad.

I suspect the SanDisk Media drive would move the entire RAW file. That could fill up the free space on my iPad pretty quickly if I need to pull in a lot of images.

BTW, what I mention above (that iOS 5 actually imported a smaller JPG version instead of the full RAW file) probably has something to do with why iOS 7 is so slow. If iOS 7 is trying to read the ENTIRE RAW file and plans to import that, I can see how it would slow things down.

As you mention, I don't think it's too much to ask of Apple to want the way it used to work to continue to be supported. But I do appreciate your recommendation! Thank you!

Mark

 

[Mark Booth]

It sounds like iOS 7.1 might be released in February instead of March. But will it solve this problem?

Any developers out there (with the latest 7.1 beta) willing to test it?

Mark

 

[Mark Booth]

Apple released iOS 7.0.6 today. I installed it on my iPad 3 and it DOES improve image thumbnail load speed via 30-pin card reader from CF or SD card. But, unfortunately, it's still significantly slower than iOS 5.

Thumbnail load time (NOT image import time, just the thumbnails for selective image import) for 302 images on a 16GB CF card (RAW files from Canon 5D Mark III):

iOS 5 - 25 seconds
iOS 7.0.4 - 2 to 3 hours
iOS 7.0.6 - 15 minutes

Obviously, 15 minutes is way better than 2-3 hours. But it sure would be nice to get back to 25 seconds!

Mark

 

[Mark Booth]

BTW, I actually (and finally) let all 302 image thumbnails load. After they were loaded, I selectively imported 10 of the images. I didn't time the import speed, but the import time seemed very similar to my experience with iOS 5. So, it's just the initial THUMBNAIL image loading that is terribly slow (compared to iOS 5).

And that's when I discovered a completely new problem with iOS 7's Photos App! Apple has removed the "Select All" option from the iOS Photos app. If you want to delete (or move, etc.) multiple photos within a single album, under iOS 5 there was a "Select All" option. Not anymore. With iOS 7, if you've got 250 images in an album and you want to delete 230 of them, you have manually touch the thumbnails for all 230 of those images. Ridiculous! With "Select All" I could select every image quickly and then deselect the 20 I don't want to delete. Much faster!

Thankfully, I can still use the Apple's Image Capture app on my Mac to easily and quickly delete multiple photos from my iPad. But Apple really needs to put back the "Select All" feature in the iOS Photos App!

Mark

 

[Mark Booth]

Yee ha!! iOS 7.1 fixes the slow loading of image thumbnails problem found in earlier versions of iOS 7! Using the same CF card with the same 302 RAW images, iOS 7.1 loads the thumbnails on my iPad in 22 seconds, a few seconds FASTER than iOS 5! Yee ha!!

That's WAY better than 3 hours (or even 15 minutes)!!

 

[ooahjen]

I actually just picked up an camera connection kit for iPad mini retina. it's really slow even for looking at 6 images. preview never show up.

I am running IOS 7.1, with JPEG from 5D and lumix G3. made no difference.

to be more exact. 6 images, 2 mins later... no preview. I can try import, but I have no idea what I am importing...

any pointers?