Inside iOS 7: Apple automates picture organization in new Photos app
One of the biggest application overhauls in iOS 7 is the Photos app, which has been redesigned to automate picture organization and take full advantage of Retina displays.
The Photos application is now divided into three menu options: Photos, Shared and Albums. The default is Photos, where pictures are automatically organized in a way that allows users to more easily find the shot they may be looking for.
At the macro level, photos are presented based on the year they were captured. A summary of the year appears to the right, showing where the pictures were taken, and offering a nice recap of places the user may have traveled.
Taking advantage of the iPhone's Retina display, tiny thumbnails of the images are presented with just enough detail to get an idea of what the picture is. Users can hold their thumb over the tiny images to view a larger thumbnail, and release their finger to pull up that particular image.
Tapping on a general area within a year dives down deeper and presents larger thumbnails organized by date and location. To the left, cities and regions are displayed, while on the right, a range of dates are shown representing when the pictures were taken.
From here, users can go yet another level deeper to view pictures from an even more specific date or event. At this point, the square thumbnails are the same size as they were shown by default in previous versions of iOS.
For iPhone users who take a large number of pictures, the redesigned Photos application will likely be viewed as a long overdue change. The automated organization works well and is logical, and makes finding older pictures much simpler.
In the second menu, Shared, users can create their own photo or video stream with iCloud. These images can be shared with friends, who can then comment or even add their own images from directly within the Photos application.
Finally, the Albums menu offers the traditional Camera Roll that was found in previous versions of iOS. For those who may prefer the old way that photos were displayed en masse, this legacy option remains.
Apple has also tweaked image folders in iOS 7 to automatically place panoramas and videos captured through the default camera application into their own separate spaces. Applications that can separately capture or edit photos may also create their own folders for easier organization.
Like in the rest of iOS 7, Photos gains new sharing functionality, including AirDrop for instant wireless transmission to local iOS devices. At the moment, AirDrop is not compatible with Macs.
Users may also share pictures through a text message, e-mail, iCloud, Twitter, Facebook, or Flickr. iOS 7 also includes built-in support for uploading videos to YouTube and Vimeo.
A final row of options for images includes: Copy, Slideshow, AirPlay, Assign to Contact, Use as Wallpaper, and Print. For videos, the options are Slideshow and AirPlay.
iOS 7 is currently in beta, and will become available publicly for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners this fall. For more in-depth information on iOS 7, see the other parts in AppleInsider's ongoing Inside iOS 7 series.
The Photos application is now divided into three menu options: Photos, Shared and Albums. The default is Photos, where pictures are automatically organized in a way that allows users to more easily find the shot they may be looking for.
At the macro level, photos are presented based on the year they were captured. A summary of the year appears to the right, showing where the pictures were taken, and offering a nice recap of places the user may have traveled.
Taking advantage of the iPhone's Retina display, tiny thumbnails of the images are presented with just enough detail to get an idea of what the picture is. Users can hold their thumb over the tiny images to view a larger thumbnail, and release their finger to pull up that particular image.
Tapping on a general area within a year dives down deeper and presents larger thumbnails organized by date and location. To the left, cities and regions are displayed, while on the right, a range of dates are shown representing when the pictures were taken.
From here, users can go yet another level deeper to view pictures from an even more specific date or event. At this point, the square thumbnails are the same size as they were shown by default in previous versions of iOS.
For iPhone users who take a large number of pictures, the redesigned Photos application will likely be viewed as a long overdue change. The automated organization works well and is logical, and makes finding older pictures much simpler.
In the second menu, Shared, users can create their own photo or video stream with iCloud. These images can be shared with friends, who can then comment or even add their own images from directly within the Photos application.
Finally, the Albums menu offers the traditional Camera Roll that was found in previous versions of iOS. For those who may prefer the old way that photos were displayed en masse, this legacy option remains.
Apple has also tweaked image folders in iOS 7 to automatically place panoramas and videos captured through the default camera application into their own separate spaces. Applications that can separately capture or edit photos may also create their own folders for easier organization.
Like in the rest of iOS 7, Photos gains new sharing functionality, including AirDrop for instant wireless transmission to local iOS devices. At the moment, AirDrop is not compatible with Macs.
Users may also share pictures through a text message, e-mail, iCloud, Twitter, Facebook, or Flickr. iOS 7 also includes built-in support for uploading videos to YouTube and Vimeo.
A final row of options for images includes: Copy, Slideshow, AirPlay, Assign to Contact, Use as Wallpaper, and Print. For videos, the options are Slideshow and AirPlay.
iOS 7 is currently in beta, and will become available publicly for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners this fall. For more in-depth information on iOS 7, see the other parts in AppleInsider's ongoing Inside iOS 7 series.
Comments
Videos are in the camera roll in the album section grouped together. I haven't taken video using iOS 7 yet, so I don't know if it will store it there. Ok, I just made a video and it put in the videos section with my existing ones.
In iTunes 11 we lost the ability to see big cover artwork, now the Events in iPhoto.
This sucks, total disrespect for the customers
Click Albums a the bottom and then choose Events.
Albums looks like the old view.
I don't have that option. I have camera roll, panoramas, videos, last 12 months, and last import. No events.
Hmm, what did I do right?
Events
From my Mac
When you restored, did you set it Photos to sync from iPhoto in iTunes?
I didn't restore. I just did an update as I've always done through the years. I only restore on GM builds since most people will be updating when the GM is released. I did check my iTunes and it is checked off. I'll remove them and put them back on to see what happens. Thanks for the reply.
But... hate most of the new icons; they all need work. This is important point, because I usually love Apple's icons. And never themed my older iPhones when they were jail-broken.
Most of these (from Dribbble) aren't perfect, but are much improved over Apple's current default iOS 7 icons:
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/zwg7vYY.jpg[/IMG]
I had problems way back using the full image and Upgrade through iTunes. Ever since, I make sure I have a few good backups and use the latest dev release of Xcode to restore.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ghostface147
I cannot stand the new photos app. I spent a lot of time catagorizing events in iPhoto and synced them to my phone. Now, it's just a mess. The events are gone. It's now categories that have no relation to my events. I guess I'll have to get the iPhoto app, even though I heard it sucks.
To be blunt, I don't like the iPhoto app either. It's unclear what each tool does and it is generally underwhelming as an app. I bought it and used it no more than twice.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ireland
...
But... hate most of the new icons; they all need work. This is important point, because I usually love Apple's icons. And never themed my older iPhones when they were jail-broken.
....
I'm not crazy about a few of the new icons I've seen also. I wonder if it's due to their style guide not being completely developed yet... It's also possible that we're being shown "dummy" icons until the finals have been patented, copyrighted and protected as much as they can be first.
Or they can just hit update instead of restore and not need to be in a UDID slot.
I think the iPhoto app is great. You need to sit down and use it for at least half an hour to work with all the tools available. It's really nice to create journals and share those moments, and the journal, with friends. You can sync through iPhoto with other people near also having iPhoto open. A caveat is that iPhoto imports your pictures into its app, it's not using the original photos from your camera roll.
@Ireland
Thanks for the screendump. Strange that the Settings icon is different than the one I saw in the keynote.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilBoogie
I think the iPhoto app is great. You need to sit down and use it for at least half an hour to work with all the tools available. It's really nice to create journals and share those moments, and the journal, with friends. You can sync through iPhoto with other people near also having iPhoto open. A caveat is that iPhoto imports your pictures into its app, it's not using the original photos from your camera roll.
@Ireland
Thanks for the screendump. Strange that the Settings icon is different than the one I saw in the keynote.
Let me just put it this way...I know they can do much, much better with the iPhoto for iOS app.
I haven't used the iOS 7 Photo app, but from looking at it and hearing how it works it does sound like some functionality is lost. I look through my photos by location, event and faces quite often.
I must say though that I've never understood people keeping hundred and hundreds of pictures going back years and decades on their iPhone. I guess it's just the way I use the device, but it's not near ideal for a large library or for showing photos to others. Now, doing all that on an iPad makes a ton more sense to me what with the increased screen real estate and built in photo album.
The iPhoto app is not perfect but it does a bang up job of sharing photos in online journals as well as editing photos. Too bad the tools and storage are a bit confusing though.