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ShoddyWorker

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 12, 2008
11
0
Global Traveller
(inc. feedback sent to A)
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Hello, I would like to say that I am generally unimpressed with iLife 09 and I would like a refund, but I feel I also have to say a bit more.

Bugs:
When connecting my Canon 820 IS, the photos get imported however when I select "Do not delete photos" iPhoto ignores this and deletes them from the camera.

The database does not auto-compact even after removing imported photos - is of a monolithic size and is sucking the space from my time machine.

As for the Places element - I LIVE IN THE UK - My preferences indicate this - we invented history and placenames - why on Earth would I want to see London, Arkansas as the first option - In fact I wager that millions-more people have seen London, England, UK than London, Arkansas. As for entering in the information for non-GPS chipped cameras - well that is simply a massive pain the in the hole. Your concept of event/location is hosed here. I want to mark on the map venues, in fact I can pinpoint on the map where something took place - but unless the god of Google maps has decided it exists, it seems everything taken within 20 miles of London, England, UK is in the same place. Canary Wharf was apparently in Hertfordshire. meh, I thought it's a beta and will ... oh hang on, no, it's a full product which cost me 85 quid.

Tried with my iPhone 3G - it plots everything beautifully - very impressive, then you try and click on the little gt arrow and you see all photos taken in "London" not the actual one taken at this spot - I struggle to see how you made your keynote speech work without faking it - because I tried to mimic the Paris effort - to no avail.

I recently went to Japan on holiday - I plotted Andy's bar in Yurakucho, then everything turned Japanese. AGAIN - READ MY PREFERENCES, I'm in the UK, British keyboard layout and your app then spouts Japanese back at me. This is one thing I would have expected a US application to have addressed - after all you did occupy the country for years. How come it can't interop in English - the god of Google no doubt is to be blamed and not Apple I guess. Funnily enough it doesn't work that way. You've made me pay for this.

As for the face detection - own up - it's just guessing right? Seriously, how does my Nan and Grandad look like the same person? I know they were not related before marriage - in fact it's gone through my albums and suggested "everyone" apparently looks like them and made me do the work of tidying up its efforts

Pre-iLife 09, one reboot in 9+ months on my MBP. Post-iLife 09 install, 5 reboots (and counting) replete with numerous crashes, terminated unexpectedly and lock ups. iLife '09 must be an embarrassment to you lot. It even makes your first Apple TV look good. No wonder Steve ducked out of presenting this load of twaddle, ironically, I had an issue with malabsorption as I found iPhoto '09 deleted my originals from the camera unexpectedly.

So, let's have a look at iWeb. Hmm looks the same clunky interface. Am I missing something? This seems to not be the "significant upgrade" the keynote led me to believe. You've added two templates which are a right pain to update and manipulate or heaven forbid personalise and brought the widgets to the front. Nice to see that you've finally realised that not everyone wants mobile me pushed on them. You might be skating close to Microsoft's IE litigation territory here with the pushing of MobileMe and AdSense.

Now none of this would have seriously annoyed me, except perhaps the photo deletion issue, if iLife 09 was a free upgrade for loyal 08 users. But being charged 85 quid for the family pack feels like I've been robbed now I've installed it and tried it.

I'm really disappointed with what you've made and feel a little cheated. Time will tell, but I reckon iLife 09 will be your Vista to iLife 08's XP.

Oh and why did it keep telling me iPhoto had recovered 25 photos each time it rebooted? (another 1.8Gig added each time it did this) - I had to eventually delete all the "recovered" flat file entries and finally iPhoto gave-up trying to steal all my drive space.

I would like a refund and would also like reassurance that you will fix these issues or recall the product. If you are not fixing the problem - can you tell me if there will be an option to request iLife 08 on new Mac purchases?

As for a feature request - how about letting me store my photo library somewhere other than my laptop? I can't afford to give up 17Gig to my photos, but on my external drive I can. Better still - have a word with the Macbook hardware dept. and ask them to make HDDs user-upgradeable parts - Moore's law also works for storage and with your behemoth that is iPhoto's database, we're all going to need to upgrade our hardware soon. Wow - this really does sound like a Microsoft customer's rant eh? :) Should have stuck to hardware and Operating systems I guess...

So, how do you want to do this? Are you going to refund my credit card, admit you've put something to market a little too early to make the Macworld deadline and let me keep the product as a sign of good faith? Or are we going to have to run through a big email exchange first? I have the time to do the latter while the iPhoto beach ball is still spinning as it works out if my mate's cat looks like my dead Nan.

Seriously, some money back and an apology for losing my photos would be a start.

Best wishes and regards,
xx
P.s. I've started using the term "PC" now not "Mac" as my MBP now behaves like any other PC - slow, needs reboots, hangs and randomly loses my data.
 
What's this? Another forum member searching for sympathy?

The 820 IS isn't even a real camera, maybe that's your problem.

820 IS is a real camera - it's labelled as the 970IS in the UK and the IXY 820IS in Japan.

Sympathy - nope, money back - yup.

So do you have iLife 09 and are happy with your wash?
 
Rather than sending to Apple feedback that is full of cheap jibes that help no one, I think it would have been better if you had been more specific with your issues. If any were reproducible, then list the steps to reproduce etc.. etc..

I've found iPhoto to be one of the buggiest pieces of software that I've ever owned. This is a real shame since if the program would work as expected, it'd be a great program. I'm desperately hoping that it'll improve with the inevitable patches.
 
I do agree with a lot of your comments.

It doesn't feel like a polished product and the places feature is very frustrating to use. More work needs to be done on it but for the pricing and the alternative products in the marketplace I think it's competitive.
 
I really like iPhoto & have never had an issue with it.
One day I'll put all my shots in Adobe Bridge, but until I work it out I'm happy.

Is this a largely shared opinion on iLife 09? I'm considering the purchase.
I heard if you actually buy it, then it comes without the Trojan! :rolleyes:
 
Overall I'm happy with iLife 09 but it does feel a bit rough around the edges. More justification I guess for Apple abandoning MacWorld SF. In normal circumstances it may have been released in March ;)
 
Can you not store iPhotos library on an external like iTunes?

Yeah, sorry to be fair - you can if you start with a completely blank iPhoto lib.

But once you've selected your location for storing the photos you are kind of stuck with the location unless you delete the lib and then create anew.
 
Yeah, sorry to be fair - you can if you start with a completely blank iPhoto lib.

But once you've selected your location for storing the photos you are kind of stuck with the location unless you delete the lib and then create anew.

So you can't move the library and then hold 'alternate' down when you open iPhoto to tell it where the library has moved to like you can in iTunes? I have two iPhoto libraries and use alternate to choose which one to open. So I know you can move the libraries around a HD so I can't see why you wouldn't be able to do it with an external. My iTunes library is on an external, I moved it once it got to big for my internal.

Give iPhoto a try with your iPhoto library on your external.
 
First off, it's a bit of a rant to have sent to Apple and a little hard to read. You might want to consider breaking it down a little, using formatting to split up areas and making your points as bullets with explanations rather than just a personal rant. Secondly, just because you're having a tough time, it doesn't mean everyone else is so a blanket 'avoid' is a tad excessive.

As for the Places element - I LIVE IN THE UK - My preferences indicate this - we invented history and placenames - why on Earth would I want to see London, Arkansas as the first option

Actually, and I'm a Brit, we invented neither written history nor placenames. There are far older texts from Iran/Iraq than from the UK.

As for Places, while it's not perfect, it does kinda make sense to list places in alphabetical order - so London, Arkansas before London, England. Population or popularity would be far more arbitrary for users. If you create your own places, they do pop up at the top of the list when you put in that letter which is useful. What I would like to see if I entered the name of a city is what other options within that city there are (e.g. there are built-in places for Trafalgar Square, Tate Modern etc but only the ones that have a name starting with London show up in the listing)

Canary Wharf was apparently in Hertfordshire.

My Canary Wharf was happily in the Docklands when I entered it in Google Search. You do know that iPhoto picks up your location setting from the System Pref time zone setting so if you're not set to 'London' there, Google maps may well start centred on where it thinks you are. I only realised this when a friend complained about his starting at 'Cardiff'.

Tried with my iPhone 3G - it plots everything beautifully - very impressive, then you try and click on the little gt arrow and you see all photos taken in "London" not the actual one taken at this spot.

I zoom in on the Places map to the area so that I no longer just see a 'London' pin but several of them scattered around and click on the pin. I just get the pics from that pin.

I recently went to Japan on holiday - I plotted Andy's bar in Yurakucho, then everything turned Japanese.

My Hong Kong pics did something similar but they do still show up in the map and you can still search for them so I'm not wildly concerned at the moment. Part of me thought it was quite a cool trick but if you've gone to the effort of trying to get the right areas and then can't read them, there should be an option to turn it off!

As for the face detection - own up - it's just guessing right? Seriously, how does my Nan and Grandad look like the same person?

Again, you're having less luck than I am. Mine's been pretty accurate although there does seem to be one friend that it just doesn't want to recognise as often at the others. One thing that might be useful is to ID the people that appear in your pics most often before working on other family/friends. It reduces the number of false positives. Also, make sure when you're confirming names that you're also telling it when it's not the person rather than just ignoring it.

Pre-iLife 09, one reboot in 9+ months on my MBP. Post-iLife 09 install, 5 reboots (and counting) replete with numerous crashes, terminated unexpectedly and lock ups.

That doesn't sound right but while I'm sure it's a pain in the ass, it's not happening to everyone. I'd suggest going into the Genius Bar at an Apple store and asking them to have a look at it - they at least can look at the system logs and try to figure out what's causing the problems and pass that information back along the line. Your email gives little useful information for them to work with in terms of system configuration, other software and how you're using it.
 
If any were reproducible, then list the steps to reproduce etc.. etc..

Fair points. Try this:

  1. Open iPhoto 09
  2. Connect iPhone 3G
  3. Highlight image to import
  4. click "Import Selected"
  5. After import, options are "Delete Photos" or "Keep Photos"
  6. click "Keep Photos"
  7. Return to the photos on the iPhone 3G
  8. Gasp in amazement when you see iPhoto 09 has deleted the original.
:eek:
 
Can you not store iPhotos library on an external like iTunes?

Absolutely. Mine are stored on an external drive, also independantly backed up as well.

I haven't had a single issue worth ranting a wall of text complaint. Sounds like you've got more issues than just iLife '09.

Are you SURE the photo's are deleted and not "Hide already imported photos"
Are you SURE the database doesn't redo itself (mine fluctuates in size both up and down based on what I do... may not happen instantly but it DOES happen)
Facial recognition software isn't cheap, and what Apple included maybe isn't CSI top of the line but it's pretty damn good.
iLife is not a freebie and shouldn't be by any means. Same as no one should get Win98 just because they have Win95. They both look and act the same but with slight differences.
There have been several complaints about the UK places issue, and lots of tips on it already, search, macosxhints, etc would help. Sure it's probably not the best but it hasn't even had a update/patch yet to probably address some of these places issues.

Money back? You weren't forced to buy it, go fight to get your money back at the store you bought it from. Good luck with that.
Apology? Yah, we're all still waiting for our apology from Microsoft for Windows ME. THAT's not gonna happen.

EDIT:

Fair points. Try this:

  1. Open iPhoto 09
  2. Connect iPhone 3G
  3. Highlight image to import
  4. click "Import Selected"
  5. After import, options are "Delete Photos" or "Keep Photos"
  6. click "Keep Photos"
  7. Return to the photos on the iPhone 3G
  8. Gasp in amazement when you see iPhoto 09 has deleted the original.
:eek:

Just tried it. Worked just fine on mine. Photo's stayed.
 
Just tried it. Worked just fine on mine. Photo's stayed.

I've rebuilt the library from my old 08, reimported from the TM and now the photos are staying on the devices. Also the "found 25 deleted photos" recover issue has gone. I'm gonna put it down to a corrupted iPhoto lib following the "upgrade".
 
It also irritates me that OSX only comes with an American Oxford English Dictionary......

OXFORD ENGLISH IS .... BRITISH WHERE THE HELL IS MY BRITISH DICTIONARY?

I Downgraded from 09 to 08 iLife also as when i selected keep photo's from either my Olympus DSLR or my N95 8GB it deleted them off the device :(

Shame how Apple is more and more becoming the iPhone company :(
 
Fair points. Try this:

  1. Open iPhoto 09
  2. Connect iPhone 3G
  3. Highlight image to import
  4. click "Import Selected"
  5. After import, options are "Delete Photos" or "Keep Photos"
  6. click "Keep Photos"
  7. Return to the photos on the iPhone 3G
  8. Gasp in amazement when you see iPhoto 09 has deleted the original.
:eek:
Ok :) Send it to Apple then :)

It also irritates me that OSX only comes with an American Oxford English Dictionary......

OXFORD ENGLISH IS .... BRITISH WHERE THE HELL IS MY BRITISH DICTIONARY?
:(
There's a dictionary plugin SDK, you could create your own.
 
I've seen similar issues to the ones you describe in iPhoto.

Places generates a weird import result. Certain photos taken on the same 3G iPhone at the same time, are imported with differed pin locations when plotted on the map.

Nice rant, and it made me chuckle but perhaps we should review the topic subject line and create separate sticky threads for iPhoto 09 > Places | iPhoto 09 > Faces
 
I have definitely noticed a distinct lack of polish in iLife myself. I've no doubt in time Apple will patch most of these bugs but this is a disturbing new trend from Apple, releasing software that isn't quite ready.... disappointing.
 
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