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First Impressions of Photos for OS X: 'Vast Improvement' Over iPhoto

ksuyen said:
Yes and yes and yes. Photo works without iCloud. But why you opt not to use iCloud? Just curious, because in my experience, I find iCloud has been tremendously improved. Much superior to the other cloud services including Google.
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Mostly just a personal thing. I like having the actual library where I can always get to it - even if the internet is down, for whatever reason.
 
darknyt said:
I have an almost 400 GB iPhoto library. If they are actually removing the split library function and the new management abilities for large libraries aren't MAGICAL, then this freaking thing is DOA.

I have the hardest time fathoming why Apple doesn't support the very thing they seem to want - people to use Macs for years. That means big photo libraries and you had better provide the means to manage them effectively.
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Way to jump to conclusions without even using it. Good job.
 
Question for people using this app:

If you use it with the iCloud features turned off, do you still have the ability to sync your albums to iOS devices using iTunes?

I make heavy use of this feature and would really hate to lose it, since I distrust using the Cloud for photos.
 
*Wall of text warning*

Would be nice if Apple for once improved the workflow for us that "works" in the field and then want to move over the fieldwork to our library on our main editing devices when we are back at home.

Lets say i take a bunch of photos at an airshow or whatever, then i want to be able to throw the photos into Photos on my MBP and start doing some light editing, then, when i am back home i would be able to just right click on the newly created "Airshow" album and choose something "move or copy album to Jespers Mac Pro library" and continue working on my Album/Project on my MP.

I can do something like that with iCloud but would be much better to move around tens or hundreds of gigabytes of photos over the local network.

Yes, the Photos app is aimed more towards consumers but i would like that function anyways even for consumer styled stuff. Like going on vaccation, taking a bounch of photos, then editing on my MBP and then back home send vaccation album locally to my MP.

Multiple devices and multiple libraries have been a hazzle for over a decade even in Apples Pro apps, FCPX and Aperture doesnt have a good support for this either.
 
tongefactor40 said:
Every time I move a photo from All Photos to a specific album, it keeps the original in the All Photos section, is there anyway to avoid this? Once I move a file, I want it gone from the main photo section.
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All Photos is exactly what it is named, all the photos. Putting it in an album isn't suddenly going to make it not a photo.
 
I just want to be able to decide what's in the cloud and what isn't, and be able to sync what isn't in the cloud to my devices via USB cable or local network.

(also, that's small for a wall of text. Usually those warnings precede encyclopedic posts of "War and Peace" proportions!)

JesperA said:
*Wall of text warning*

Would be nice if Apple for once improved the workflow for us that "works" in the field and then want to move over the fieldwork to our library on our main editing devices when we are back at home.
...
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zorinlynx said:
The thing that upsets me most about this is that they USED to. Aperture is an amazing software product. Many professional photographers LOVE it and want to keep using it.

There's no reason Apple couldn't have continued developing Aperture for enthusiasts and pros, and still released Photos for the masses. At this point I'd be happy even if Apple only provided bugfixes and continued support for future versions of Mac OS X.

Why has Apple shifted their focus this way? They're a big enough company to provide something for both.
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Apple isn't that big at all compared to MS and Google. Don't compare Apple's engineering resources by their revenue or profits. They actually have something like 30-40K engineers or less, I don't have the exact numbers. They have more retail store people than they do software engineers.

You can't scale software engineers nor can you just throw money at it. You need really smart people and they have to fit within your culture, that's hard to find, even more difficult at Apple. They practically make you attend their Apple university when you're hired before you can even start working IIRC.

However, Apple is focusing more on making things simple to use, not on advanced apps for power users. They rather let another software company handle this and in this case, it's Adobe with Lightroom. It does seem like for many people, it's Windows that's now a better fit (or Linux/BSD) than OS X.

Apple has been letting go of the Pro apps over the past five years, and unless users revolt against them, they'll continue to do so.
 
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macUser2007 said:
I am stupid, I guess. I got excited about it initially, signed up for a mid-tier plan (200gb, I think), then turned on Family Sharing and thought, Wow, now I can finally view my photos on Apple TV without jumping through hoops.

Nope! iCloud is limited in so many ways: you can't actually share space with your significant other for anything but photos. Like backing up her iPhone (64gb). The phone keeps asking her to upgrade. Or how about consolidating all my photos on iCloud? Nope, not that easy. How about putting other stuff, like random files and sharing them with my "Family?" Nope, Apple doesn't want me to do that either.

So, I cancelled iCloud. I have DropBox Pro, DriveOne (5tb for $99 per year, plus access to the Office Suite!) and Google Drive. Oh, and I have or have tried stuff like PopDrive, Box, etc..

Based on my experience with all of these, iCloud is the worst of them all, and expensive to boot.

So, you tell me why you think it's so great?

As far as iPhoto, its database got corrupted a few years ago and I lost metadata for all of my old photos. I don't like the way the database is structured and I would take a lot for me to trust it again.
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I agree with that. Dropbox and one drive are all excellent alternatives to iCloud. Actually better considering that they're much more generous with space. Amazon is doing the same as well. iCloud isnt even in the same ballpark right now. The one thing they do offer is a seamless way to automatically upload photos and some people will want that. But for most people, this thing is not terribly compelling if you have to buy space to use it meaningfully.
 
DJB53086 said:
I had my iPhoto library on an external had drive.

How do I import an entire library into the new Photos app?
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My recommendation is to do the following:

1) Launch the new Photos app
2) Do not import your existing Library, let it create a new one when it opens
3) Go to Preferences and change the library location to your external HD
4) Go to File -> Import, and import your existing Library

This is what I did, and it worked wonderfully.
 
It feels like, from 2000 until around 2010 the Apple ecosystem was getting more and more powerful in ways that were geared towards both regular users AND professionals. Things were getting better every year.

Then recently they reversed course, and are catering exclusively towards the mass market. They used to do both, very well. This change of course is sad and annoying to a power user who has loved Apple products for so long.

I really don't want to be one of those "this wouldn't happen if Steve Jobs were still alive" people, but it seems awfully suspicious that this started happening at full tilt right after he passed, doesn't it? Steve liked BOTH regular users AND professionals and wanted to be in both markets.

MikhailT said:
However, Apple is focusing more on making things simple to use, not on advanced apps for power users. They rather let another software company handle this and in this case, it's Adobe with Lightroom. It does seem like for many people, it's Windows that's now a better fit (or Linux/BSD) than OS X.

Apple has been letting go of the Pro apps over the past five years, and unless users revolt against them, they'll continue to do so.
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tongefactor40 said:
Every time I move a photo from All Photos to a specific album, it keeps the original in the All Photos section, is there anyway to avoid this? Once I move a file, I want it gone from the main photo section.
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All Photos is just all your photos. It's not a duplicate if that's what you were thinking. You can't move anything out of "All Photos" because then it wouldn't actually be all photos. Think of it more like a built in Smart Tag than a folder. It's not a folder in any way, shape, or form.
 
zorinlynx said:
It feels like, from 2000 until around 2010 the Apple ecosystem was getting more and more powerful in ways that were geared towards both regular users AND professionals. Things were getting better every year.

Then recently they reversed course, and are catering exclusively towards the mass market. They used to do both, very well. This change of course is sad and annoying to a power user who has loved Apple products for so long.
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This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Apple was/is great at creating great products BECAUSE they have a clear focus. They'll run into trouble if they try to cater to everyone.

One advantage they have now that they have not had in the past is that they have a hugely successful community of third-party developers that are supporting the platform. Apple does not need to deliver on a product to fit every person's needs - they only need to deliver on a PLATFORM which can fill every person's needs.

That being said:
1) This is a beta product - it will be improved and features will be added over time
2) This is not just an App, but a platform - it supports third party plugins that will be able to extend its functionality
3) At the end of the day, if the product you are using does not suit your needs, you need to start using a different product that does
 
Infinitewisdom said:
I agree with that. Dropbox and one drive are all excellent alternatives to iCloud. Actually better considering that they're much more generous with space. Amazon is doing the same as well. iCloud isnt even in the same ballpark right now. The one thing they do offer is a seamless way to automatically upload photos and some people will want that. But for most people, this thing is not terribly compelling if you have to buy space to use it meaningfully.
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If you think iCloud is just cloud storage and that Apple's prices are only reflective of the amount of storage you get, then you're missing the point of it. iCloud allows people to have their information synced between devices and backed up without any interaction. It's seamless, integrated, and incredibly easy to set up. For most people it's peace of mind and that's something people are willing to pay for. It's not meant to be a file hosting service like Dropbox, One Drive, or Google Drive.
 
Here are the iCloud options for people asking about them:

25gb288.jpg
 
what is it like to move a iphoto library over? Does it create a new library? Will something break down the line for compatbility reasons?

Also, is it still a photo database?
 
So do we have confirmation that folders are present in the new app? For example, I can make a folder called 2014 and then put an album for every month inside of it? Secondly, can you nest a folder within a folder? (Aperture allowed this)

Thanks! (any screenshots of this would be great)
 
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