iCloud.com Photos App Gains New Zoom, Email Features

[coolfactor]

Doesn't help that the iCloud web ui sucks.

Please elaborate.

----------

Apple has this magical talent of always screwing up their Cloud business. iCloud is one of the most expensive cloud storage services but still it's lacking features and is inflexible as hell. Seriously Apple, MS is offering unlimited cloud storage under $70 a year and you get MS Office as a bonus... Apple needs to stop trying and start doing.

First, iCloud is not _expensive_. Just because it's not as cheap as competing offers doesn't mean that it's expensive. Good, now we have that out of the way.

Please tell us how it's inflexible?

----------

For everyone against the idea of or complaining about the price of cloud storage, check out BitTorrent Sync! Peer-to-peer file transfers. Same great experience and integration that these cloud solutions are trying to provide, but without cloud part.

 

[thelookingglass]

Given the track record of Apple's online services it will:
- take 73 days to upload all your photos
- uploading will halt for several days without any explanation, slowly driving you insane.
- the photo collection on your iPhone will be synced as well and will obviously continue to sync while you're away from your wifi network with no option to pause the process. Expect a huge bill from your phone operator.
- 94 photos will refuse to sync without any clue why or how to fix it.
- one day, all your photos will be missing only to magically return the next day. The heart attack is a bonus.
- you can upload jpg and png files, but only photos taken with the iPhoto camera are 100% compatible. Other images sometimes refuse to sync. No explanation is given, they just don't show up in iCloud. You ask yourself why.
- for 15% of your photos, no thumbnail will be generated. Your beautiful photo collection looks horrible. For days you try to make iCloud generate the missing thumbnails.
- when editing some photos, the changes will not propagate to other devices and their status will indefinitely be set to "Waiting..." The only solution is to remove and re-add those photos, but they will no longer be chronologically ordered as a result.
- some iCloud photos will show up on your iPhone but will be missing on your iPad. You don't know why and it's bugging you.
- if you want to make space, you'll have to select each photo you want to delete one by one. Then, they will moved to a "recently deleted" folder where you have to delete them again. Your deleted photos will also remain in your Photos Stream, Camera Roll and Shared Streams where you also have to delete them to make space.

After many frustrations and wasted days, you dump all your photos in Dropbox. Done.

Hilarious and probably will prove to be completely true, except the part about Dropbox. I much prefer OneDrive. Service is similar, pricing is far better.

 

[zorinlynx]

Has Apple outlined a backup strategy for iCloud Photo Library yet? How do you back up your photos?

 

[MikhailT]

They need to make an app for icloud drive. I still have to upload documents to google drive.

I must be missing something, iCloud Drive has been available on iCloud.com for awhile here: https://www.icloud.com/#iclouddrive

Apple needs to add more free storage. I have two devices and a MBP. 5 GB isn't nearly enough to back up an iPhone and iPad, store photos, emails, and documents.

I know it sounds stupid to shout, "MORE FREE STUFF," but cloud storage is too ubiquitous now to start charging for what competitors offer for free.

Can't we have 5 GB per device or something? We are paying a premium for the hardware.

It is stupid. Nothing is free, Apple still have to pay for these free storage. 5GB among hundreds of millions of devices is expensive no matter how you want to cut it.

If you want more, feel free to either pay for it, switch to a competitor who will give you more for less, or use the local iTunes backup that has no restrictions on how much you can backup your data.

Please tell me why ANYBODY is entitled to give you free stuff? You didn't pay for cloud storage when you bought your iOS devices, the 5GB is just a bonus. You're not entitled to anything more.

 

[sonicrobby]

I must be missing something, iCloud Drive has been available on iCloud.com for awhile here: https://www.icloud.com/#iclouddrive

I think they mean a native iOS app

 

[Tech198]

features..

Makes iCloud.com that much better knowing you don't need an email client.

 

[irishv]

Still no ability to view or edit metadata? Also still blocked by enterprises blocking iCloud Documents & Data?

 

[MikhailT]

I think they mean a native iOS app

Wouldn't the Document Picker modal take care of that already?

 

[sonicrobby]

Wouldn't the Document Picker modal take care of that already?

I have no idea what that is @_@ I mean it possibly could, and there are apps that access iCloud drive, but I think they want something native from Apple.

Thats what I would like to see. I'd really like to see a "preview" app from apple. Its had iCloud support for a while, and now its own folder in iCloud drive. What I currently do to keep my documents in sync is to open them in iBooks on my mac and sync it there. Im VERY surprised that iBook pdfs were not incorporated into iCloud drive.

 

[MikhailT]

I have no idea what that is @_@ I mean it possibly could, and there are apps that access iCloud drive, but I think they want something native from Apple.

Thats what I would like to see. I'd really like to see a "preview" app from apple. Its had iCloud support for a while, and now its own folder in iCloud drive. What I currently do to keep my documents in sync is to open them in iBooks on my mac and sync it there. Im VERY surprised that iBook pdfs were not incorporated into iCloud drive.

It's explained here: http://www.imore.com/icloud-drive-documentpicker-ios-8-explained

 

[Msail30bay]

Where is thePhoto app in iCloud.......???? I don't see it. A my suppose to dump photos into the iCloud Drive in Finder and THEN that would automatically create it.......... like what I did with movies - then it created a Quicktime folder.

................................... hope they bring the iCloud Drive app for the iPhone

 

[blablabla23]

Please elaborate.

UI is too heavy graphically; aesthetically pleasant but not practical for productive work at all.

no list view for folders or documents -- apple insists on using icon view; no viewable file/folder properties; no sort capabilities; no search function… the list goes on.

granted, these can be easily fixed but with apple i seriously doubt it'll be anytime soon.

--

First, iCloud is not _expensive_. Just because it's not as cheap as competing offers doesn't mean that it's expensive.

you're thinking affordability. 'Expensive' is a relative term. If it costs more than its competitors that yes, it's expensive.

 

[Mtmspa]

Apple has this magical talent of always screwing up their Cloud business. iCloud is one of the most expensive cloud storage services but still it's lacking features and is inflexible as hell. Seriously Apple, MS is offering unlimited cloud storage under $70 a year and you get MS Office as a bonus... Apple needs to stop trying and start doing.

Sounds more like a puishment than a bonus.

 

[Redneck1089]

Incredibly poor offering and incredibly poor substitute for Aperture.

 

[Nuvi]

Please elaborate.

First, iCloud is not _expensive_. Just because it's not as cheap as competing offers doesn't mean that it's expensive. Good, now we have that out of the way.

Please tell us how it's inflexible?

Eh... unfortunately when one service is more expensive than other services then it is in matter of fact (surprise surprise) an expensive service. You can get unlimited, high quality cloud storage for five users under $100 a year. Compare that to Apple's service and tell me Apple isn't again (iTools, .Mac, MobileMe and now iCloud) loosing its grasp on cloud services.

Many cloud services offer good, flexible and easily accessible API (also for mobile use) so variety of apps can have direct hooks on cloud storage. Also their services integrate directly on (desktop) OS level both on Mac and Windows. On top of that many offer web access. The main point is that modern cloud storage providers allow you to use the storage the way you want to and are not trying to dictate how to use it. Apple wants to dictate and customers don't like it especially when the service is poor and overpriced.

 

[jcarucci]

SmugMug works well

After using Aperture for a few years, I made the decision to move all of my photos to Lightroom. I also have an account on SmugMug where I put all of my photos. They allow you to have private galleries and nested folders. So I have a structure like this, top level folder are years, within each year are twelve galleries, one for each month:
2014
- January
- February
- etc
2013

Every weekend I put all of my new photos in Lightroom and sync them to SmugMug. The best part about SmugMug is that you are allowed to store unlimited photos for $40 a year! They have a good iOS app that allows you to view all of your photos. You can download individual libraries for access offline. You can also upload photos directly from your iPhone or iPad.

I know that this is some extra work compared to the automatic sync that iCloud photo promises. But I don't trust Apple with my photos anymore. I don't like that they abandoned iPhoto and Aperture without having a replacement app ready to go. I know that Adobe will continue to support Lightroom for many years because photography is one of their main businesses. SmugMug has also been around for several years and I think they have a good sustainable business model.

 

[8281]

I agree, they should give us more storage if we have more devices
But the 20GB plan is only 1$ per month, which isnt bad. When they finally do the mac app, Ill probably have to up my plan to 200GB to keep all my pictures in the cloud.

What the icloud photos app does need though are the full features of iPhoto, adding faces, places, dates etc. Does anyone know if it have any of these yet?

True, it is cheap, but it's the principle of the thing! I just feel Apple is getting behind, just like with the Apple TV. Say what you will about Google, but they are way ahead of Apple with cloud solutions.

 

[vixster1901]

I don't get why everyone is complaining that 5gb of iCloud storage is not enough for backup.
You don't have to use iCloud for backup.. use photo stream to send all pictures to your computer then backup computer. Then you don't need iCloud for picture backup. I would be surprised if anyones address book or calendar is 5gb's!

On another note, I am waiting for Apple or any other company to come out with a DAM solution.. Come on, we need an affordable DAM solution. There is nothing out there. Portfolio is gone!

 

[swingerofbirch]

A problem with iCloud is that many of its services are invisible—they're features baked into applications. So when Apple completely changes an iCloud service, it's not like going to a new web-page. It's not clear what is changing.

I am a veteran Apple user. I upgraded to iOS 8 and Yosemite (iOS 8 has worked fine for me; Yosemite has been a mess). There are new features in both that Apple wanted me to turn on: iCloud photos and iCloud Drive.

I turned on neither because I frankly don't completely understand what either is or what happens to the services I already have with regard to my current iCloud data. On the iPhone, I'm not even entirely sure which of my data is stored in iCloud–aren't settings for almost all apps in iCloud? And if I turn on iCloud Photos will my photo stream still show up in iPhoto and automatically import all photos?

I am sure I could investigate all this, but I kind of don't want to break things more than they already feel broken, especially since I 1) already have dropbox and don't need another dropbox service and 2) don't want any product from Apple with beta in the name, since Yosemite is a non-beta product and works like it's in beta still.

 

[bluespark]

After using Aperture for a few years, I made the decision to move all of my photos to Lightroom. I also have an account on SmugMug where I put all of my photos. They allow you to have private galleries and nested folders. So I have a structure like this, top level folder are years, within each year are twelve galleries, one for each month:
2014
- January
- February
- etc
2013

Every weekend I put all of my new photos in Lightroom and sync them to SmugMug. The best part about SmugMug is that you are allowed to store unlimited photos for $40 a year! They have a good iOS app that allows you to view all of your photos. You can download individual libraries for access offline. You can also upload photos directly from your iPhone or iPad.

I know that this is some extra work compared to the automatic sync that iCloud photo promises. But I don't trust Apple with my photos anymore. I don't like that they abandoned iPhoto and Aperture without having a replacement app ready to go. I know that Adobe will continue to support Lightroom for many years because photography is one of their main businesses. SmugMug has also been around for several years and I think they have a good sustainable business model.

Your workflow comments are useful, but it is wrong to assert that Apple abandoned Aperture and iPhoto without having a replacement app ready. What Apple actually did was to let people know, well in advance, that it planned to abandon Aperture and iPhoto in the future. This was done so that professionals and other serious photographers could have plenty of time to adjust their workflows as they need to. And, as Apple promised, it updated Aperture to work with Yosemite. Everybody had been hounding Apple for a roadmap, and is now criticizing Apple because Apple gave them one.

Don't get me wrong -- I am very disappointed by Aperture's demise. I seriously doubt anyone currently at Apple could equal that program's design. But Apple told us what they were going to do long before they did it. Let's not beat them up about being transparent.

 

[SteveBlobs]

Well done. This has to be one of the best, funniest and most accurate comments I've read in a long time.

Given the track record of Apple's online services it will:
- take 73 days to upload all your photos
- uploading will halt for several days without any explanation, slowly driving you insane.
- the photo collection on your iPhone will be synced as well and will obviously continue to sync while you're away from your wifi network with no option to pause the process. Expect a huge bill from your phone operator.
- 94 photos will refuse to sync without any clue why or how to fix it.
- one day, all your photos will be missing only to magically return the next day. The heart attack is a bonus.
- you can upload jpg and png files, but only photos taken with the iPhoto camera are 100% compatible. Other images sometimes refuse to sync. No explanation is given, they just don't show up in iCloud. You ask yourself why.
- for 15% of your photos, no thumbnail will be generated. Your beautiful photo collection looks horrible. For days you try to make iCloud generate the missing thumbnails.
- when editing some photos, the changes will not propagate to other devices and their status will indefinitely be set to "Waiting..." The only solution is to remove and re-add those photos, but they will no longer be chronologically ordered as a result.
- some iCloud photos will show up on your iPhone but will be missing on your iPad. You don't know why and it's bugging you.
- if you want to make space, you'll have to select each photo you want to delete one by one. Then, they will moved to a "recently deleted" folder where you have to delete them again. Your deleted photos will also remain in your Photos Stream, Camera Roll and Shared Streams where you also have to delete them to make space.

After many frustrations and wasted days, you dump all your photos in Dropbox. Done.

----------

I'm sick of this "entitlement argument." Obviously we are consumers and are not "entitled" to ask Apple for more. But the fact that Apple makes crazy profits off us already, you'd think they could throw us a bone and give us enough iCloud storage to match the devices we buy from them. You're right, we're not "entitled" to it, but if Apple won't do it then someone else will and will still be able to turn a profit. And anyone not drinking the kool aid will probably switch to them.

Don't act so personally offended when people ask more of Apple. You should be grateful we do, otherwise they'd be giving people like you less.

I must be missing something, iCloud Drive has been available on iCloud.com for awhile here: https://www.icloud.com/#iclouddrive



It is stupid. Nothing is free, Apple still have to pay for these free storage. 5GB among hundreds of millions of devices is expensive no matter how you want to cut it.

If you want more, feel free to either pay for it, switch to a competitor who will give you more for less, or use the local iTunes backup that has no restrictions on how much you can backup your data.

Please tell me why ANYBODY is entitled to give you free stuff? You didn't pay for cloud storage when you bought your iOS devices, the 5GB is just a bonus. You're not entitled to anything more.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

If you want to save money on cloud services, set up a dedicated IP [static IP address at home], set up a NAS, turn on WebDAV services for you, and store your files you want everywhere via the NAS.

Sync the Mac to the NAS and test out how well those symlinked folders in your iCloud Drive map to your NAS.

 

[Abazigal]

You can't share it with Family Members, which is idiotic. I had purchased the 200 megs plan to test, but then my girlfriend keeps getting a message that her 64Gb iPhone 6 can't be backed up, because there is not enough storage.

I cancelled iCloud, but now it keeps popping up spam asking me to upgrade....

Dropbox and Google Drive, as well as MS's OneDrive are all far better and cheaper options for storage, or just for photos, Smugmug is a better option.

iCloud is expensive and useless, unless you don't know any better.

icloud does annoyingly, however, boast integration with my Apple devices on a system level, something which other cloud services like dropbox can't match. I love how icloud photo library is baked right into the photos app. Open the photos app, and my photos automatically sync. It just feels so much more seamless and convenient compared to a 3rd party storage service.

My iWork's documents also sync over automatically. Not to mention automatic backups every night while charging. It is expensive, but far from useless, IMO.

 

[maflynn]

Incredibly poor offering and incredibly poor substitute for Aperture.

Agreed but I'll give apple the benefit of the doubt since the Mac version of Photos is meant to be a replacement of Aperture not this.

 

[mattopotamus]

Wouldn't the Document Picker modal take care of that already?

It is not an option on IOS. When you click the share icon, icloud drive is not a choice by default. Sure a few apps may give you the option, but it needs to be available the same way messages, email, and flickr are.