Ok... what happened to my camera roll?

[Surf Monkey]

I suspect most people would want the current behaviour: for a single delete to remove the photo from both.

You'd be wrong. Most people want to keep their source files on their desktop system, not their phones. Deleting files from mobile devices to save space while leaving them in iCloud where they (used to) have no impact on the device unless the user wants them to is a vastly preferable behavior.

 

[zhenya]

Honestly, the old photo stream system had its own quirks so I can see why they felt the need to do something, but off the bat this system is really confusing. In the old system it was a pain to have to delete photos from both the Camera Roll and Photostream, but on the other hand it was sometimes handy - say with work or throwaway photos I could delete them on the Photostream but keep them on the device.

The biggest stumbling block is definitely going to be the loss of the Camera Roll because literally everyone I've ever seen looking at pictures on an iPhone just goes into that long contiguous list and starts browsing. The Collections just isn't the same thing.

 

[kirky29]

I'm a little confused on this...

So now if I delete a picture from the album Instagram, will the picture delete everywhere else?

On iOS 7 if I delete a picture from an album it wouldn't delete from the camera roll album.

 

[shawndc1]

apple really messed this up

 

[MacManTexas56]

You'd be wrong. Most people want to keep their source files on their desktop system, not their phones. Deleting files from mobile devices to save space while leaving them in iCloud where they (used to) have no impact on the device unless the user wants them to is a vastly preferable behavior.

it's almost 2015.....people want their stuff in the cloud not on a desktop. What's the point of this cloud stuff if you can't save anything you want to it

 

[iPhone7ate9]

The stupid thing about this change is now when I take a photo, and it uploads to my photostream, when I delete it from my device it automatically removes it from my photostream on my iPad (still on iOS 7). Before I could delete a photo from my iPhone camera roll (to save space) and it would still be in my stream. How is this better?

I agree I will run out of space

 

[wacky4alanis]

I prefer the camera roll. That's one of the reasons I'm still on iOS 7.

I don't want my pictures (or anything of mine really) in the cloud, so I don't use it. I just back up my phone to my computer once a month or so (using a wire). That's how I've always done it, and that's how I will continue to do it until it is no longer an option.

For me it's not so much about privacy. I honestly don't care who sees my photos - they're not that interesting. It's about maintaining positive control over all of my media. I like knowing where it is stored, and how to access it. The cloud is like a mysterious disk up in the sky I have no control over. I prefer using the disk in my house. I know where that is. And wireless syncing/backups just seem random and unpredictable. What if I store a bunch of crap on my phone temporarily that I don't need or want to be backed up? I like the wire.

 

[Surf Monkey]

it's almost 2015.....people want their stuff in the cloud not on a desktop. What's the point of this cloud stuff if you can't save anything you want to it

First, the problem isn't so much whether or not I want to use the cloud, though it should be obvious that there are issues with doing that for two reasons, 1) that you're not ALWAYS connected to the network and 2) that I'm dealing with copy written images that I'm not thrilled about having automatically uploaded to someone else's servers. That anyone in 2014 would be unaware of these issues is rather stunning.

But the central issue here is not so much the cloud. The issue is the blurring of distinction between images created ON the device and images MOVED TO the device over the cloud. Apple seems to think that all images are created equally. That simply isn't the case. I use a bunch of different tools to make images. I need to know whether what I'm looking at was made ON the phone or was MOVED to the phone via the cloud. The current setup gives me no way of determining which images are which. THAT was the reason the camera roll was useful. It contained photos that were MADE OR DOWNLOADED BY THE PHONE as opposed to images in the photo stream, which came to the device over the cloud.

That is a VERY important distinction, particularly when you're using different devices to make images. If all you use is your iPhone camera I suppose it's not a big deal, but if you're using several stand alone cameras, your iPhone and editing images on a number of other hardware it's absolutely CRITICAL to know where each image is coming from. Mixing them into one great big bucket with no distinctions is an interface disaster and a big mistake on Apple's part in my opinion. And it's clearly confusing people who don't have the same requirements that I do, because, as I said before, all photos are not equal. Camera roll served a specific purpose. It needs to be restored to the software.

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For me it's not so much about privacy. I honestly don't care who sees my photos - they're not that interesting. It's about maintaining positive control over all of my media. I like knowing where it is stored, and how to access it. The cloud is like a mysterious disk up in the sky I have no control over. I prefer using the disk in my house. I know where that is. And wireless syncing/backups just seem random and unpredictable. What if I store a bunch of crap on my phone temporarily that I don't need or want to be backed up? I like the wire.

That's an EXCELLENT way of putting it. "Positive control over media." I wish I'd thought of that. I agree 100%. That's exactly what has been removed with this "update."

 

[zhenya]

Yep, besides the confusion with this change, my biggest concern is knowing where my pictures are being stored, for how long, at what cost to me, and how I pull them all down if I want. Apple is completely obfuscating this at the moment, so there is no way I'm going to stop automatically uploading them to the storage provider of my choice that gives me this transparency.

 

[Surf Monkey]

Yep, besides the confusion with this change, my biggest concern is knowing where my pictures are being stored, for how long, at what cost to me, and how I pull them all down if I want. Apple is completely obfuscating this at the moment, so there is no way I'm going to stop automatically uploading them to the storage provider of my choice that gives me this transparency.

Right. It's important to know WHERE the files are and no "they're local AND in the cloud" is NOT a reasonable solution. It's critical that users have the CHOICE of whether or not to send an image up to Apple's servers or not and whether or not to store a source file on the phone, on the desktop, on the iPad or wherever the USER wants to store that file. The idea that Apple knows better where your file should be and then proceeds to refuse to let YOU know is absurd on the face of it, as is the aggressive and insulting apologetics that have been going on in this thread by those who have been admonishing people like me to "get over it" and stop pointing out this issue.

 

[JayBlox]

Camera Roll acted at a temp folder

I don't know about everyone else but as i took pictures, videos or downloaded images that i would reference back to from time to time they would reside in my camera roll. During my free time i would import camera roll pictures and organize them by making a folder in my iMac pictures folder using iPhoto on my iMac. I was then able to select whichever picture folders i chose to put on my iPhone through iTunes by navigating to my pictures folder on the iMac. now when going to "Moments" you will see all the pictures embedded in with the organized pictures put in folders i have 5,000+ pictures and to find a picture that used to be in camera roll through the 5000 pictures is a pain and who even knows when that picture was saved from the web or taken anyways. that is the problem with missing camera roll and organizing by year.

 

[Surf Monkey]

I don't know about everyone else but as i took pictures, videos or downloaded images that i would reference back to from time to time they would reside in my camera roll. During my free time i would import camera roll pictures and organize them by making a folder in my iMac pictures folder using iPhoto on my iMac. I was then able to select whichever picture folders i chose to put on my iPhone through iTunes by navigating to my pictures folder on the iMac. now when going to "Moments" you will see all the pictures embedded in with the organized pictures put in folders i have 5,000+ pictures and to find a picture that used to be in camera roll through the 5000 pictures is a pain and who even knows when that picture was saved from the web or taken anyways. that is the problem with missing camera roll and organizing by year.

That's just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[C DM]

I prefer the camera roll. That's one of the reasons I'm still on iOS 7.

I don't want my pictures (or anything of mine really) in the cloud, so I don't use it. I just back up my phone to my computer once a month or so (using a wire). That's how I've always done it, and that's how I will continue to do it until it is no longer an option.

For me it's not so much about privacy. I honestly don't care who sees my photos - they're not that interesting. It's about maintaining positive control over all of my media. I like knowing where it is stored, and how to access it. The cloud is like a mysterious disk up in the sky I have no control over. I prefer using the disk in my house. I know where that is. And wireless syncing/backups just seem random and unpredictable. What if I store a bunch of crap on my phone temporarily that I don't need or want to be backed up? I like the wire.

All that is still there in iOS 8 with the difference of Camera Roll album basically just being in the photos tab with date/place dividers that can make it easier to find various photos.

 

[KUguardgrl13]

it's almost 2015.....people want their stuff in the cloud not on a desktop. What's the point of this cloud stuff if you can't save anything you want to it

Not everyone uses the cloud. I have 256gb on one Mac, 500gb on another, and 2.5tb on external drives that don't cost me a monthly fee to store things on. My iPhone and iPad are each only 16gb and can't store everything, so I have to offload photos occasionally in order to have free space for apps and music (no I don't stream music either; that's another monthly fee). I hate the idea of being nickeled and dimed to death just so I can access photos I took or music I want to listen to.

I want camera roll back just so my apps can access photos to upload. I only have 40 recent photos but I had 80-some in camera roll. Photostream wasn't useful to me, so that's irrelevant.

 

[Piertown]

Not everyone uses the cloud. I have 256gb on one Mac, 500gb on another, and 2.5tb on external drives that don't cost me a monthly fee to store things on. My iPhone and iPad are each only 16gb and can't store everything, so I have to offload photos occasionally in order to have free space for apps and music (no I don't stream music either; that's another monthly fee). I hate the idea of being nickeled and dimed to death just so I can access photos I took or music I want to listen to.

I want camera roll back just so my apps can access photos to upload. I only have 40 recent photos but I had 80-some in camera roll. Photostream wasn't useful to me, so that's irrelevant.

Try myroll app

 

[zhenya]

All that is still there in iOS 8 with the difference of Camera Roll album basically just being in the photos tab with date/place dividers that can make it easier to find various photos.

This is not true. The Photos tab is nothing like the Camera Roll was.

There is no way to scroll a linear view of thumbnails of a usable size.

Old photos imported to the phone are placed in the order of the date embedded in the files metadata, not the date you added the photo.

Photos taken on the phone and those imported from other devices are mixed together.

I'm sure there are other things as well.

The reason the Camera Roll and the old Photostream worked well was because MOST people care primarily about the photos they've taken in the last month or so. They understand that if they want to find something older they'll have to dig for it. This new system makes it far harder to keep track of the images most people are currently interested in.

 

[cynics]

I suspect most people would want the current behaviour: for a single delete to remove the photo from both.

In regards to photostream because I don't mind recently added and all that I find it poorly implemented.

I use my photostream for all my screen savers so there are plenty of pics I want to keep on my phone but not in my photostream displaying on my Appletv and Mac.

Apple implements one feature that ruins another feature. I use my iPhone for work so a lot of pictures I take are relatively boring or can be gross. But even if I didn't use my phone for work I would think the majority of pictures people take aren't photostream worthy.

 

[snowglider]

No answer to this bug either to do with lack of camera roll:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1782041/

 

[jmmo20]

My main complaint about this silly new system is that it just looks a lot less elegant. Look at the attached picture. 3 Photos taken with my phone the last week. Each one takes one row of photos, the rest is white empty space.

It so much like Windows. It feels like a Microsoft solution.
It's not an elegant Mac-like experience.

I hate it. I guess they could add a new meta calendar .. on top of "recent photos" add a smart album called "photos taken with this iphone". It's just metadata, bring back smart albums from iPhoto and that's it. Hell, make it even optional !! I don-t care.

 

[C DM]

This is not true. The Photos tab is nothing like the Camera Roll was.

There is no way to scroll a linear view of thumbnails of a usable size.

Old photos imported to the phone are placed in the order of the date embedded in the files metadata, not the date you added the photo.

Photos taken on the phone and those imported from other devices are mixed together.

I'm sure there are other things as well.

The reason the Camera Roll and the old Photostream worked well was because MOST people care primarily about the photos they've taken in the last month or so. They understand that if they want to find something older they'll have to dig for it. This new system makes it far harder to keep track of the images most people are currently interested in.

As far as what the user I was replying to was talking about and what it comes down to for many others, which is simply being able to access all the photos they took on their phone and not get iCloud involved in some way, what I mentioned applies in the sense that you can get to all your photos on the photos tab and don't need to get iCloud involved.

----------

My main complaint about this silly new system is that it just looks a lot less elegant. Look at the attached picture. 3 Photos taken with my phone the last week. Each one takes one row of photos, the rest is white empty space.

It so much like Windows. It feels like a Microsoft solution.
It's not an elegant Mac-like experience.

I hate it. I guess they could add a new meta calendar .. on top of "recent photos" add a smart album called "photos taken with this iphone". It's just metadata, bring back smart albums from iPhoto and that's it. Hell, make it even optional !! I don-t care.

Image

Separsted by time and place. Perhaps visually not as fulfilling in some way, but rationally much more organized and straightforward than a large grid of everything where you just scroll around to find things and have no idea when or where something was taken short of just remembering it. It's different for sure and looks different but seems like it offers useful things with the way it's displayed.

 

[jmmo20]

As far as what the user I was replying to was talking about and what it comes down to for many others, which is simply being able to access all the photos they took on their phone and not get iCloud involved in some way, what I mentioned applies in the sense that you can get to all your photos on the photos tab and don't need to get iCloud involved.

----------

Separsted by time and place. Perhaps visually not as fulfilling in some way, but rationally much more organized and straightforward than a large grid of everything where you just scroll around to find things and have no idea when or where something was taken short of just remembering it. It's different for sure and looks different but seems like it offers useful things with the way it's displayed.

Well. As I say.. it's not elegant. It's unlike Apple.
In iPhoto there used to be a button to switch between the two views, all thumbnails or thumbnails sorted by date/album. Add such button to photo view maybe, and most people will be happy.

 

[C DM]

Well. As I say.. it's not elegant. It's unlike Apple.
In iPhoto there used to be a button to switch between the two views, all thumbnails or thumbnails sorted by date/album. Add such button to photo view maybe, and most people will be happy.

The current way seems more elgant to me than just a sea of thumbnails and that's it. That said, I agree, a toggle to offer both options would be good to have.

 

[joema2]

...as i took pictures...they would reside in my camera roll. During my free time i would import camera roll pictures and organize them by making a folder in my iMac pictures folder using iPhoto on my iMac...now...to find a picture that used to be in camera roll through the 5000 pictures is a pain and who even knows when that picture was saved from the web or taken anyways...

Exactly right. Without warning or notice, Apple essentially deleted the metadata that defined what photos were in Camera Roll. The fact our photos are still there is little consolation.

To anyone who thinks this isn't a big deal, do you use LightRoom or any similar photo organizer? What if all the metadata defining what collections/albums your photos were in was deleted, and all your photos were put in one big folder? Would you feel good because the photos themselves were not deleted?

Admittedly Camera Roll was one "album", but deleting any metadata whatsoever is a very serious step, especially if done without warning.

I am very surprised the trade press has not picked up on this and covered it more broadly.

 

[jmmo20]

Exactly right. Without warning or notice, Apple essentially deleted the metadata that defined what photos were in Camera Roll. The fact our photos are still there is little consolation.

To anyone who thinks this isn't a big deal, do you use LightRoom or any similar photo organizer? What if all the metadata defining what collections/albums your photos were in was deleted, and all your photos were put in one big folder? Would you feel good because the photos themselves were not deleted?

Admittedly Camera Roll was one "album", but deleting any metadata whatsoever is a very serious step, especially if done without warning.

I am very surprised the trade press has not picked up on this and covered it more broadly.

No metadata was deleted, just the way the photos are arrange? (i.e. what metadata is actually uised to sort the files).

 

[Scottm1207]

I agree

No reason to fix what wasn't broken. Yes, I know where my photos are, but want them in an album with all photos, not just recents. And when I go to Photos, I don't want them separated by place and date. Why? What is the compelling reason to do that with no option to just show all thumbnails without date and location? No sensible reason IMHO.