Can someone explain to me the 'Photos' app in iOS 8?

[saintforlife]

There are three different tabs called Photos, Shared and Albums. In the Albums, the Recently Added seems to have the same pictures as the Photos tab. Panoramas and Videos get their own albums. In iOS 7 I could tell the difference between the photos on my device and photos on the cloud 'Photo Stream'. But Photo Stream seems to have disappeared in iOS 8. Also I only have the 5 GB space on my iCloud. So I need to know what photos are where (device or cloud) and how much space they are taking. How can I tell the difference?

I see many photos that I have taken on my iPhone are also on my iPad and vice versa, but not all the pictures are on both devices. There doesn't seem to any rhyme or reason to how that works or what photos show up where...at least not that is apparent.

Anybody else think the 'Photos' app in iOS 8 is very un-Apple like needs a lot of streamlining? The app is too busy and confusing.

 

[afsnyder]

iOS 8 replaced Camera Roll with Recently added and somehow My Photo Stream disappeared probably due to the intention of having iCloud Photo Library ready for prime time, but that fell through but the app wasn't updated.... so bad on Apple there leaving out the album.

Luckily, it has returned in the iOS 8.1 beta (as well as Camera Roll) so expect it to come back in a few weeks when iOS 8.1 is released with Apple Pay support and a bunch of bug fixes and changes.

My Photo Stream photos never counted towards your 5gb space, and none of the photo storage did either.

 

[MEMSMaster]

No.

That's the simple answer. Longer answer is:

1) As of right now, photo management on iOS and iCloud is a mess. It _appears_ to have no underlying architectural consistency or well-thought-out set of user actions and expectations.

2) The changes made to photo management for iOS 8.0 broke the methods about 2/3 of all iPhone users actually used to manage their images

3) It is possible that when the next major update to the Macintosh OS is released that there will be a set of changes across all the OS', apps, and services that unify image management

3a) I really hope so, because right now it is a mess
3b) Part of the problem seems to be that the Apple designers and programmers really don't have a good understanding of how ordinary human beings manage pictures - they are too lost in shiny tech world to get that their elegant solutions don't work for most non-tech-absorbed people
3c) The Apple campuses apparently have infinite amounts of free high-speed WiFi, and presumably Apple developers use free iCloud accounts. They similarly seem to have a hard time dealing with the possibility that these conditions may not obtain everywhere their customers might be handling their photos

4) Related to 3b, if you attempt to discuss this situation in any online forum a horde of iOS 8 apologists will descend and accuse you of being "resistant to change" and "angry because your cheese was moved". When my cheese is taken off my plate while I am eating it and put onto the trigger of a rat trap I do get angry, yes. But the apologists are sure that you are using it wrong, not that Apple may have made some bad design choices.

 

[dadudeness]

iOS8.1 will bring back Camera Roll - so if you dont use iCloud Photo Library basically we'll be back where we were in iOS7.

 

[afsnyder]

No.

That's the simple answer. Longer answer is:

1) As of right now, photo management on iOS and iCloud is a mess. It _appears_ to have no underlying architectural consistency or well-thought-out set of user actions and expectations.

2) The changes made to photo management for iOS 8.0 broke the methods about 2/3 of all iPhone users actually used to manage their images

3) It is possible that when the next major update to the Macintosh OS is released that there will be a set of changes across all the OS', apps, and services that unify image management

3a) I really hope so, because right now it is a mess
3b) Part of the problem seems to be that the Apple designers and programmers really don't have a good understanding of how ordinary human beings manage pictures - they are too lost in shiny tech world to get that their elegant solutions don't work for most non-tech-absorbed people
3c) The Apple campuses apparently have infinite amounts of free high-speed WiFi, and presumably Apple developers use free iCloud accounts. They similarly seem to have a hard time dealing with the possibility that these conditions may not obtain everywhere their customers might be handling their photos

4) Related to 3b, if you attempt to discuss this situation in any online forum a horde of iOS 8 apologists will descend and accuse you of being "resistant to change" and "angry because your cheese was moved". When my cheese is taken off my plate while I am eating it and put onto the trigger of a rat trap I do get angry, yes. But the apologists are sure that you are using it wrong, not that Apple may have made some bad design choices.

Yea thats not the long answer. You're just ranting...

 

[MEMSMaster]

Yea thats not the long answer. You're just ranting...

So I'm sure you can point me to a simple, concise, complete, understandable one-page document on apple.com that explains how all the pieces of photo management work? Something I can use to help the non-techie artists in my family understand how to manage their images? Cause I haven't seen that link yet...

Heck, I'll even take 1.5 pages with a flowchart or diagram.

 

[youknome]

Long story short it's rubbish. Camera roll shouldn't have disappeared- I would've liked to only see photos I've taken with the iPhone camera in one organised folder by date. Like before.