I agree, to me it's a part of the original 'creative' side of Apple.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Discontinuing Physical Photo Books Printing Service Later This Year
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Anyone know if this will apply to the calendars? I use this every year to hand out as Christmas presents and the quality is always great.
Steve died in 2011. The iOS Cards service was discontinued in 2013. I enjoyed both the Cards service and the Photo Books - both were a great product that I used all the time.
Not sure if it works in the UK though. Won't work on my older MacBook either as I'm not updating the OS to High Sierra.
[doublepost=1531431139][/doublepost]
I disagree, it's still lovely to send birthday and Christmas cards and it's amazing to make photo albums of skiing holidays with friends etc. It's a service that i've really enjoyed using for years. The quality was excellent as was the service!
Awww, this is too bad. My parents always enjoyed getting the books and calendars output directly from iPhoto. I’ll miss this.
Sad as I would purchase dozens of books each year for my clients...over the years the quality improved and when these would be sent to the client they always commented on the fact that the presentation and quality matched the Apple brand...and sure there are others that have much higher end quality but as a good quick quality book, my clients couldn;t have been happier so now Apple is making my life and work harder...I guess I should have seen this when they killed Aperture and the freedom to design books in Aperture....sad to see...now I have to go out and spend more time to some other outsource...
WHY, WHY, WHY? Apple lately has a knack of returning to the mundane. Services and products are discontinued and updates are soooo slow to develop (once a year). Shutterfly offers nothing as nice as the Apple products. I guess Apple wants to be just like everyone else, mediocre!!!!
Apple will discontinue its physical Photo Books printing service later this year, as spotted by 9to5Mac. Using Photo Books, macOS users can choose from pictures taken on an iPhone or iPad, synced to the Mac Photos app, and build books, cards, calendars, and prints that are then mailed to them.
Now, a new message has been spotted in the Photos app on macOS 10.13.6 and states that final purchases for the built-in photo printing service will need to be placed by September 30, 2018. Afterwards, it appears that Mac users will have to opt for third-party companies like Shutterfly to craft physical books made from their digital photos.
Apple explains that users can integrate these third-party services into Photos with a Photos Project Extension downloaded from the Mac App Store. With these extensions, apps like Shutterfly can integrate photo printing services into Apple's own Photos app so users don't have to leave the app to build their photo books.
Image via 9to5Mac
For classic landscape-style books, Apple sells softcover books starting at $9.99 in a medium size, and increasing to $49.99 in hardcover and extra large size. Calendars are $19.99 each, cards start at $0.99, and posters for panoramic shots are also available for $12.99-$17.99. These prices should remain intact until the service shutters in the fall.
Article Link: Apple Discontinuing Physical Photo Books Printing Service Later This Year
I, too, would like to see what Photos extension is available in the App store; haven't found it yet.
For cost reasons, I historically went with Blurb instead of Apple, and I'm happy with quality. I've not tried the competition so I'm not claiming they're the best, but they do well for us. I do an annual family book with lots of photos and captions, organized by month, a reminder our family should 'do something' at least once a month, to make the 'story of our lives.'
If you take an interest in Blurb, a few quick tips:
1.) Book Wright is pretty easy and intuitive. You can insert, delete and resize text & photo windows.
2.) Image Wrap covers, with your photo printed right on it, are much nicer than dust jackets - which don't stay put, etc... (not a criticism of Blurb specifically, but dust jackets in general are problematic).
3.) I use premium papers, which limits me to 240 pages.
4.) I like the big 11x13" landscape books.
5.) Never pay list; they send out special offers every several days or so, from 25 - 40% off, just wait the little while it takes for a 40% off coupon to come out. Don't get suckered into only 25% off.
6.) I export photos into a folder to use just for my book project. In the past, trying to have Blurb software directly access an Apple photos app was incredibly slow & painful. Maybe that got fixed? Don't know, but the way I do things now works smoothly, so...
7.) When I have the book made, I have it make a PDF, which is good to send people I'm not paying to make a book for.
Perhaps others with experience with other alternative services will offer tips on those they use.
Richard.
For cost reasons, I historically went with Blurb instead of Apple, and I'm happy with quality. I've not tried the competition so I'm not claiming they're the best, but they do well for us. I do an annual family book with lots of photos and captions, organized by month, a reminder our family should 'do something' at least once a month, to make the 'story of our lives.'
If you take an interest in Blurb, a few quick tips:
1.) Book Wright is pretty easy and intuitive. You can insert, delete and resize text & photo windows.
2.) Image Wrap covers, with your photo printed right on it, are much nicer than dust jackets - which don't stay put, etc... (not a criticism of Blurb specifically, but dust jackets in general are problematic).
3.) I use premium papers, which limits me to 240 pages.
4.) I like the big 11x13" landscape books.
5.) Never pay list; they send out special offers every several days or so, from 25 - 40% off, just wait the little while it takes for a 40% off coupon to come out. Don't get suckered into only 25% off.
6.) I export photos into a folder to use just for my book project. In the past, trying to have Blurb software directly access an Apple photos app was incredibly slow & painful. Maybe that got fixed? Don't know, but the way I do things now works smoothly, so...
7.) When I have the book made, I have it make a PDF, which is good to send people I'm not paying to make a book for.
Perhaps others with experience with other alternative services will offer tips on those they use.
Richard.
In my opinion, Apple should actually discard all these old apps and just focus on their new ones such as The News and Voice Memo apps. Those are what getting users excited not the old garbage the macOS is still having hidden somewhere, the needless utilities that nobody ever uses. The new ones will become much more helpful for daily users. I'd definitely record many of my lectures directly on my MacBook once I have the Voice Memo app running on it. I think, with doing these steps, the OS can get cleaned up a little bit, it can reduce its size too, but also make it clearer what app you should use for which purpose. Otherwise, it'd be confusing and overwhelming even for long-term Mac users.
In fact I'm really excited for Mojave, but the question is whether or not this software update is relatively stable. I mean, when High Sierra first came out, it was terrible. I couldn't stand it at all, especially in comparison to old Sierra. I hope Mojave fixes a number of these issue, just like iOS 12 has done with iOS 11. I'm currently running iOS 12 on my iPhone 6, and I have to admit that it's significantly faster than 11. The phone feels more alive and responsive. I'm surprised that I'm not experiencing as many bugs as I used to when I was on 11.4. It's really strange to see that a beta release is more stable than the final gold master release!
In fact I'm really excited for Mojave, but the question is whether or not this software update is relatively stable. I mean, when High Sierra first came out, it was terrible. I couldn't stand it at all, especially in comparison to old Sierra. I hope Mojave fixes a number of these issue, just like iOS 12 has done with iOS 11. I'm currently running iOS 12 on my iPhone 6, and I have to admit that it's significantly faster than 11. The phone feels more alive and responsive. I'm surprised that I'm not experiencing as many bugs as I used to when I was on 11.4. It's really strange to see that a beta release is more stable than the final gold master release!
I know right?Yeah totally. It's only worth 700 BILLION dollars. They should totally take your advice.
Oh stuff off Apple. So sick of them discontinuing their good products.
I think it was Kodak Labs, no longer available to end users such as us, of course. I, too, ordered many items via this service. Guess I'll try mPix, as they always have a good product line at Photoshop World, and they are based in Missouri, close to me. I like Bay Photo also; they do magnificent metal prints.
Any info about their paper types, etc? Didn't see any info on their very nice website.
Because there is so much emphasis on the hardware including the OSes on what it can do these days and so much less on what actually what can be achieved with the very nice hardware at least that is my impression
Remember iLife? Aperture? I think Steve was a lot thinking from his perspective about what the hardware is used for. I was always looking forward to his keynotes and nowadays I don‘t even bother to watch. I am not saying the developments that are happening are not great like the upcoming dark mode, it is good but with that I cannot do anything different in the sense what I could‘t do before on my computer. Of course we can still get printed books elsewhere but I liked the ones from Apple.
+1
Sorry to say it, but I tend to agree... What makes/made Apple the consumers champion was the attention to detail and care of the smooth integrated "user experience" above the hodge-podge of 3rd party apps that didn't play together.
At home our stairway walls are filled with various Apple made calendars of our children growing up and family members past and present and we enjoy them every time we use the stairs.
Apple is sucking the iLife out of Apple products (Aperture... Airport products... decent iMovie... decent iPhoto etc...) in pursuit of margins... Sometimes a smaller profit but "pleasure of use" outweigh profit margins.
This post 100%. Apple loves going to great lengths to tell us it's product's are for the "creative" types among us; then they kill a service and suggest the "creative" types use a third-party service as Apple has no interest serving those "creative" types who bought Apple hardware.
Find it weird to see them discontinue stuff like this. Even if they might've not made a lot of money. It doesn't seem like a service that needs a lot of people working on it full-time and since they're sitting on a ridiculous amount of cash, why not keep the service...
Sorry man. I assumed it read this way, but I was being completely sarcastic.
My assumption is that this service is being mothballed because the number of people using it is so low it doesn’t justify the cost of operating the print facility. Anecdotally, I know I personally haven’t used any of Apple’s print services since back when they had the Cards app. And I don’t know of anyone, friends or family, who has printed a photo book with them in the past 5+ years. Anyone I know that does a book uses Shutterfly or something like there where you can use a promo code to get the book for next to nothing.
this is terrible news, the apple photo books are top notch quality for the price. i hope i can find a good replacement company. my wife and i print photo books pretty regularly and people always compliment the quality of the books. anyone know of any good replacement photo book creation websites that aren't awful quality (i.e. snapfish)
Hi everyone!
MJ from PrestoPhoto here
I wanted to just reach out in the comments here to let any current Apple customers know about our site. We've been printing Apple Photo Books since 2004. Additionally, when Apple Aperture was discontinued back in 2014, we provided (and still provide) our customers the ability to design in Aperture and print with us!
Currently, we are able to print projects created on Aperture, iPhoto, and Photos by exporting to a PDF. We have a specially calibrated production line dedicated to producing a final product as close to the Apple products you know and love as possible! We are dedicated to our customers and work hard to meet our customers printing needs.
If you'd like to learn more, or just have some questions for me, feel free to send us an email at support@prestophoto.com. You can also just browse our site too, as it's full of helpful tips and tricks for designing print products
Warm Regards,
MJ
MJ from PrestoPhoto here
I wanted to just reach out in the comments here to let any current Apple customers know about our site. We've been printing Apple Photo Books since 2004. Additionally, when Apple Aperture was discontinued back in 2014, we provided (and still provide) our customers the ability to design in Aperture and print with us!
Currently, we are able to print projects created on Aperture, iPhoto, and Photos by exporting to a PDF. We have a specially calibrated production line dedicated to producing a final product as close to the Apple products you know and love as possible! We are dedicated to our customers and work hard to meet our customers printing needs.
If you'd like to learn more, or just have some questions for me, feel free to send us an email at support@prestophoto.com. You can also just browse our site too, as it's full of helpful tips and tricks for designing print products
Warm Regards,
MJ
Who has been doing Apple's photo products?
Years ago it was Ofoto/Kodak Gallery, which had very good quality (yet through apple was usually cheaper).
[doublepost=1531491676][/doublepost]
I agree. Exactly how much margin does it save? If Apple is abandoning much of its software and telling people to rely on third-party apps just how much of an advantage can they claim to offer? One of the great things about Photos/books/cards/prints integration is it was really easy to do. Compare to Shutterfly and other services where you have to upload in a kludgy fashion, and then confirm the sizing is right, use an online configurator to crop and adjust, etc. It's a pain - and exactly the same pain you'd have on a windows-based computer.
Hi everyone!
MJ from PrestoPhoto here
I wanted to just reach out in the comments here to let any current Apple customers know about our site. We've been printing Apple Photo Books since 2004. Additionally, when Apple Aperture was discontinued back in 2014, we provided (and still provide) our customers the ability to design in Aperture and print with us!
Currently, we are able to print projects created on Aperture, iPhoto, and Photos by exporting to a PDF. We have a specially calibrated production line dedicated to producing a final product as close to the Apple products you know and love as possible! We are dedicated to our customers and work hard to meet our customers printing needs.
If you'd like to learn more, or just have some questions for me, feel free to send us an email at support@prestophoto.com. You can also just browse our site too, as it's full of helpful tips and tricks for designing print products
Warm Regards,
MJ
Hey, I plugged you guys on the other page! I've been printing PDFs from Photo on Presto Photo for a few years now. Love the price, love the quality.
My only real complaint is that there is no real customization of the spine to match the Apple Books. The Apple Books I print have a black spine with a white Serif font. On Presto, they seem to pull a color from the cover image and have a black San Serif font. The OCD part of me wants the new books to match my old books, but I don't see any way to match it on Presto. Any plants to do more custom spines in the future?
Also, will Presto Photo integrate printing directly into Photo if Apple is going to open it up to third party printing through Project Extensions? Would love to not deal with the whole uploading a PDF thing if possible.
It also kills me a little inside to have to pay $10 to remove the watermark on the back of the book... just saying.
Bean counters as CEO’s only look at the bottom line. Cut was does not make money.
For the riches company in the world, they can’t take a hit on a service? Sometimes the little things stand out to make a company great, not the stockholder quarterly earnings meeting...
[doublepost=1531494204][/doublepost]
Uh...which ones?