iPhoto for iOS, Updates for iMovie and Garageband Go Live on App Store

[mactmaster]

I just can't believe that iPhoto doesn't have star ratings. Is there some reasoning behind that I'm missing, does apple want to get away from ratings for photos, or did they just not get around to including the functionality?

I think they're trying to get away from a star rating. They do have a ribbon option which you can use on your favorite photos and you can hide photos to get rid of the bad ones. They also allow you to flag which can be useful while working with sets of photos.

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iPhoto for iOS has me so disappointed in that it's this big tease, just shy of being wonderful. The interface is great, and it really does 60% of what I use Aperture for. Here's the problem.. Without the camera connection kit, it's worthless for anything but iPhone pics.

Here's the issue some may not be aware of, it may change how much you choose to use the app. The only time the images you see on your iOS device are the full resolution photo are when beamed from another iOS iPhoto app, from the Camera connection kit (of note here, is that Apple's documentation states that while iPhoto can open your camera's RAW files, it will only be displaying and editing the jpg layer stored within, hurting DSLR users' use for the app), or from the camera roll taken on that device. Everything else is compromised.

While photostream DOES store the original jpg, png, tif or raw files, they are only downloaded to Aperture or iPhoto for OSX. Saving to the camera roll or iPhoto on iOS downloads a compressed image "formatted for the device," which seems to average around 3.5mp in my experience. So if you want to edit a photo from your iPhone 4S in iPhoto on your iPad, you NEED to use the Beam feature to get the full 8mp photo, photostream is worthless in this instance.

Syncing albums from iPhoto or aperture to your iOS device through iTunes provides similar compromising size reductions (something I was unaware of until now). I understand the reason these systems were put into place-saving space on your limited size iOS device, where photos larger than the screen could display were wasting valuable bits. However, now apple has provided a great image processing tool, as well as photo organizing-for some-solution. It's really bad that these photo compressing habits aren't more transparent!

Before I can seriously use iPhoto for iOS, I need to either have beam options to and from the Mac clients, an option for at least iPhoto on iOS to download the full photostream files, or a toggle in iTunes for not compressing albums. Honestly the beaming option in conjunction with iPhoto or Aperture library browsing through Home Sharing would be the best solution. Why can my apple tv see my entire mac's photo library but the advanced iPad post pc tool is stuck with this very detached iTunes syncing solution?

Yeah, there has never been an easy way to send full resolution photos between iOS and OS X. I hope they add Beam to the OS X iPhoto but perhaps it requires Bluetooth 4.0? I have not tried it yet.

You can check out PhotoSync on the iOS App Store. It's the best app I've found to send full-res photos between Mac and iOS but it requires a companion app and both devices need to be on the same WiFi network.

 

[SBlue1]

great update!

 

[foiden]

I have to say, after getting a little time in with these apps, I really do like the updates. I'm also finally convinced that they're really going somewhere nice with this iCloud thing. At first, I was really worried about what's going to happen to my Galleries with the dropping of them in July.

But now that I got to use iPhoto and the Photo Journal interface, I have to say that this is indeed an improvement. The fact that they give you such a nice free method to not only share photos, but to have them organized in an interface for others to view them trumps gallery in some ways. You can set it up so only people getting a shared email will have the access codes to view, or you can actually have it publish it as a public web page. But I think what makes it actually a bit better is that as long as you have iCloud set up already, there's a lot less setup for publishing your stuff in this iPhoto.

Also, onces published, it seems like it does delta send updates if you edit the journal later (as long as you're connected with iPhoto on), removing the need to do a whole republish and resend of sharing emails. They could use the same link unless you turn off sharing for the journal and back on (causing it to create a new key for where it is stored), but one never needs to do that if you're just editing it.

Beaming is fast and it's a godsend. This also means I need no other hardware, connection kit, or anything for photo stills if I just happen to have my Wifi-only/Bluetooth only iPad on a trip with me, and I'm using the phone to take pictures. (Mainly because on iPad2, I still rather use the phone. iPad Generation 3 seems to be the one that finally improves the camera over the phone one.) I just beamed a vacation trip directly from phone to the iPad, performed some easy but great looking light and color enhancements and published all to the family in minutes. Some of the light enhancements (since you can use precise finger strokes and zooming) allowed me to actually conjure up impossible lighting conditions which made people previously suffering from backlight shadow completely visible, brightening the shadowed person's body in the shot. But even in close inspection, hard to tell that the special lighting wasn't done in the camera (nor with use of extra lighting) at time of shooting.

This has to be the fastest, most convenient, high grade touch-up interface I've used. It gets the job done, so fast.

 

[Cory Bauer]

iPhoto for iOS has me so disappointed in that it's this big tease, just shy of being wonderful. The interface is great, and it really does 60% of what I use Aperture for. Here's the problem.. Without the camera connection kit, it's worthless for anything but iPhone pics.

Here's the issue some may not be aware of, it may change how much you choose to use the app. The only time the images you see on your iOS device are the full resolution photo are when beamed from another iOS iPhoto app, from the Camera connection kit (of note here, is that Apple's documentation states that while iPhoto can open your camera's RAW files, it will only be displaying and editing the jpg layer stored within, hurting DSLR users' use for the app), or from the camera roll taken on that device. Everything else is compromised.

While photostream DOES store the original jpg, png, tif or raw files, they are only downloaded to Aperture or iPhoto for OSX. Saving to the camera roll or iPhoto on iOS downloads a compressed image "formatted for the device," which seems to average around 3.5mp in my experience. So if you want to edit a photo from your iPhone 4S in iPhoto on your iPad, you NEED to use the Beam feature to get the full 8mp photo, photostream is worthless in this instance.

Syncing albums from iPhoto or aperture to your iOS device through iTunes provides similar compromising size reductions (something I was unaware of until now). I understand the reason these systems were put into place-saving space on your limited size iOS device, where photos larger than the screen could display were wasting valuable bits. However, now apple has provided a great image processing tool, as well as photo organizing-for some-solution. It's really bad that these photo compressing habits aren't more transparent!

Before I can seriously use iPhoto for iOS, I need to either have beam options to and from the Mac clients, an option for at least iPhoto on iOS to download the full photostream files, or a toggle in iTunes for not compressing albums. Honestly the beaming option in conjunction with iPhoto or Aperture library browsing through Home Sharing would be the best solution. Why can my apple tv see my entire mac's photo library but the advanced iPad post pc tool is stuck with this very detached iTunes syncing solution?

I'm glad you wrote this, as I'm sure you're not the only one who didn't realize the photos on your iOS devices when copied from your Mac are compromised. Just one point to add though; those photos you see on your Apple TV are the same "optimized" copies that iTunes creates for your iPhone an iPad.

There needs to be a beam feature added to iPhoto and Aperture, and the edits need to remain non-destructive from the desktop to the mobile device and vice-versa. Also, star ratings.

 

[dgalvan123]

What I want to know is, if I download iPhoto for ipad, and i get the camera connection kit and start editing photo's on my ipad, will they transfer to Aperture and or iPhoto so I can edit them more?

I want to know this too.