iCloud Photo Library, Photo Stream & how to make sense of your photos
Taking the place of Photo Stream next year, Apple's iCloud Photo Library will consist of a brand new photo app for Mac and a new way to sync photos across all your devices.
Until iCloud Photo Library comes out of beta next year with a proper OS X counterpart, the current photo experience on iOS and the Mac can be confusing. Users have the option to turn on iCloud Photo Library (Beta) but also the option to keep Photo Stream as well. Photo Stream will disappear next year at some point, along with the death of Aperture and iPhoto for Mac which Apple has announced it is discontinuing.
If users choose to leave iCloud Photo Library off, the old Photo Stream paradigm will stay in place. Photo Stream will save the last 30 days of your photos to the cloud (or last 1,000 pictures, whichever is greater), it did not count against iCloud storage and Photo Stream did not save videos.
The biggest advantage of Photo Stream is its compatibility across all devices, including Mac. Any new photo taken on your iPhone or iPad would show up in the Photo Stream in iPhoto, Aperture and on any other iOS devices associated with the account. The downside is the 30 day / 1,000 photo limit. Although if you remembered to open iPhoto and let Photo Stream sync, all your photos would be saved on your Mac, not just the previous 30 days.
iCloud Photo Library in it's current form will save all your photos and videos to the cloud and is limited only by your current available iCloud storage. Photos will sync between your iOS devices like Photo Stream, but do not show up in iPhoto or Aperture on the Mac. Users can access their iCloud Photo library via the web at iCloud.com and even upload photos from the web interface.
Before you enable iCloud Photo Library, know that it is currently a beta product. I personally have seen bugs in the syncing of photos. Currently my iPhone says iCloud Photo has not backed up in 30 days, even though I continually connect to wifi and attempt to manually start the sync process.
If you don't use a secondary backup method for your photos, such as Dropbox, Google+ or Amazon, I advise waiting for Apple to release the non-beta version of iCloud Photo Library next year when it's fully baked.
To enable iCould Photo library, go to the Settings app on your iOS device and select iCloud. Then tap on the Photos section underneath iCloud Drive in the list.
Move the top slider to enable iCloud Photo Library (Beta). This will update your photo library on the device and may take a few minutes. Once enabled users can also choose to have the full quality photo saved to the cloud and an optimized version kept on the device to preserve space. If users want to continue using Photo Stream on their Mac, enable Upload to My Photo Stream on this menu. You will not see the Photo Stream on your device, but it will be available in iPhoto and Aperture on your Mac.
Once iCloud Photo Library is enabled, your Photos app on iOS will appear different. Before, users would see the Camera Roll and My Photo Stream separately. You would also be able to delete a photo from Photo Stream while keeping it in your Camera Roll.
With iCloud Photo Library enabled, the Photo Stream and Camera Roll sections disappear and a new All Photos heading takes their place. Both photos and videos will now sync to the cloud when your device is connected to a Wi-Fi network.
After enabling iCloud Photo Library on an iOS device, logging into iCloud on a web browser will reveal a new Photos (Beta) app.
Here you can browse all your photos and videos by Moment or just "All Photos". Albums created on iOS can also be seen here.
Users can select a Moment or multiple images to download locally on their computer.
Until iCloud Photo Library comes out of beta next year with a proper OS X counterpart, the current photo experience on iOS and the Mac can be confusing. Users have the option to turn on iCloud Photo Library (Beta) but also the option to keep Photo Stream as well. Photo Stream will disappear next year at some point, along with the death of Aperture and iPhoto for Mac which Apple has announced it is discontinuing.
If users choose to leave iCloud Photo Library off, the old Photo Stream paradigm will stay in place. Photo Stream will save the last 30 days of your photos to the cloud (or last 1,000 pictures, whichever is greater), it did not count against iCloud storage and Photo Stream did not save videos.
The biggest advantage of Photo Stream is its compatibility across all devices, including Mac. Any new photo taken on your iPhone or iPad would show up in the Photo Stream in iPhoto, Aperture and on any other iOS devices associated with the account. The downside is the 30 day / 1,000 photo limit. Although if you remembered to open iPhoto and let Photo Stream sync, all your photos would be saved on your Mac, not just the previous 30 days.
iCloud Photo Library in it's current form will save all your photos and videos to the cloud and is limited only by your current available iCloud storage. Photos will sync between your iOS devices like Photo Stream, but do not show up in iPhoto or Aperture on the Mac. Users can access their iCloud Photo library via the web at iCloud.com and even upload photos from the web interface.
Before you enable iCloud Photo Library, know that it is currently a beta product. I personally have seen bugs in the syncing of photos. Currently my iPhone says iCloud Photo has not backed up in 30 days, even though I continually connect to wifi and attempt to manually start the sync process.
If you don't use a secondary backup method for your photos, such as Dropbox, Google+ or Amazon, I advise waiting for Apple to release the non-beta version of iCloud Photo Library next year when it's fully baked.
To enable iCould Photo library, go to the Settings app on your iOS device and select iCloud. Then tap on the Photos section underneath iCloud Drive in the list.
Move the top slider to enable iCloud Photo Library (Beta). This will update your photo library on the device and may take a few minutes. Once enabled users can also choose to have the full quality photo saved to the cloud and an optimized version kept on the device to preserve space. If users want to continue using Photo Stream on their Mac, enable Upload to My Photo Stream on this menu. You will not see the Photo Stream on your device, but it will be available in iPhoto and Aperture on your Mac.
Once iCloud Photo Library is enabled, your Photos app on iOS will appear different. Before, users would see the Camera Roll and My Photo Stream separately. You would also be able to delete a photo from Photo Stream while keeping it in your Camera Roll.
With iCloud Photo Library enabled, the Photo Stream and Camera Roll sections disappear and a new All Photos heading takes their place. Both photos and videos will now sync to the cloud when your device is connected to a Wi-Fi network.
After enabling iCloud Photo Library on an iOS device, logging into iCloud on a web browser will reveal a new Photos (Beta) app.
Here you can browse all your photos and videos by Moment or just "All Photos". Albums created on iOS can also be seen here.
Users can select a Moment or multiple images to download locally on their computer.
Comments
I got my GF an AppleTV before Xmas. She has an iPad and an iPhone 5, no mac.
I loaded 4,000+ photos of hers from my work computer (iMac) using her iCloud Drive.
All the photos show up on both devices, but for the life of me, I cannot get AppleTV to see or show the photos! Ugh!
I've not kept up with Apple lately, I still run SL on my original intel iMac (can't upgrade OS-it just won't die), I have a 4s running iOS8. Sold my ipad a few generations ago and sold my original AppleTV a long time ago. Not sure I understand how Apple is running iCloud with streaming, etc. I just want all my stuff in the cloud and have all my devices see it. AppleTV really blows....there should be one button (click) to see all my frigg'n photos! Ugh!
I upgraded her iCloud storage.
The problem stemmed from the fact that she had her iPad and iPad full with photos and videos. So we had to delete them on the devices (before iCloud storage upgrade) to install iOS8. Then upload them to iCloud Drive....I then connected the AppleTV and it only shows 334 photos. Ugh!
I would really like my videos synched, but this seems like a mess at the moment.
So without Photo Stream, do all of the devices automatically sync all photos from lCloud Photo Library? That seems like a lot, and if I don't want a photo on a particular device, if I delete it on my iPhone, does it delete everywhere?
I actually kind of like Photo Stream ... the way I use it, I am able to have any picture I've taken in the last 30 days on any device show up on any device. If I want to edit a picture, I can do it from the photo stream without touching the original. What happens if I edit a photo on iCloud Photo, does it change the original?
So the way Photo Stream works once you turn on iCloud Photo is to only send photos for downloading with iPhoto on the Mac? ... and presumably the Apple TV, though the previous post suggests that functionality may be broken at the moment.
Appreciate the attempt to clarify, but without more details, I'm gonna have to wait on this one.
What is the total size of those 334 photos? I imagine the AppleTV being quite low on storage would appreciate an attached HD.
I would really like my videos synched, but this seems like a mess at the moment.
So without Photo Stream, do all of the devices automatically sync all photos from lCloud Photo Library? That seems like a lot, and if I don't want a photo on a particular device, if I delete it on my iPhone, does it delete everywhere?
I actually kind of like Photo Stream ... the way I use it, I am able to have any picture I've taken in the last 30 days on any device show up on any device. If I want to edit a picture, I can do it from the photo stream without touching the original. What happens if I edit a photo on iCloud Photo, does it change the original?
So the way Photo Stream works once you turn on iCloud Photo is to only send photos for downloading with iPhoto on the Mac? ... and presumably the Apple TV, though the previous post suggests that functionality may be broken at the moment.
Appreciate the attempt to clarify, but without more details, I'm gonna have to wait on this one.
Yes, iCloud photo library photos show up on ALL devices in which the feature is enabled. And yes, editing changes the photo everywhere. A good idea would be to turn on "optimize storage" options, which stores only the thumbnails and only downloads the original photo when you view it. This probably saves 90% of space required.
To me, the ideal feature would be if you could just specify on each device how far back you'd like it to load the photos from the cloud. ie, only show the last 30 days, 6 months, year, forever, etc. It then hides the rest.
I can see how iCloud photos can be confusing to many, but I think it's the required solution going forward. Photo management is an extremely complex problem, as everyone handles photos differently. iCloud Photos seems alot simpler to understand than photostream, and its nice peace of mind knowing everything is being backed up. They just need to make it easy to create an "offline" album if you only want to edit some photos locally for whatever reason, as well as the ability to only show certain timeframes on different devices. The main pain point right now is that there is no desktop client, and that should alleviate things in Q1 2015.
Thanks.
my Apple TV is great. love it. as for photos, I wouldn't want a single button that shows them all. not all of my photos are for living room viewing.
I got my GF an AppleTV before Xmas. She has an iPad and an iPhone 5, no mac.
I loaded 4,000+ photos of hers from my work computer (iMac) using her iCloud Drive.
All the photos show up on both devices, but for the life of me, I cannot get AppleTV to see or show the photos! Ugh!
I upgraded her iCloud storage.
The problem stemmed from the fact that she had her iPad and iPad full with photos and videos. So we had to delete them on the devices (before iCloud storage upgrade) to install iOS8. Then upload them to iCloud Drive....I then connected the AppleTV and it only shows 334 photos. Ugh!
What is the total size of those 334 photos? I imagine the AppleTV being quite low on storage would appreciate an attached HD.
Why? They are coming out of the cloud, not local, aren't they?
...but I wonder whether she signed into her iCloud account on Apple TV?
Gave it time to recognize them all? Or at least, it needed that time with iPhoto,
if I'm remembering my own experience...One moment, I could only see a few hundred photos,
got frustrated and pissed off (nothing unusual there) and walked away.
When I went back to it later, they were all there...(and I mean several thousand).
My own problem with Apple TV and using specific streams as screensavers (while listening to music, e.g.)
is that ATV periodically loses track and reverts to the National Geographic photos Apple provides.
Happens on both our ATV's, so I'm thinking our TW cable modem is losing connection for fractions of a second
causing ATV to reset without us noticing any other effects...(?)
(Yeah, I'm not a tech wizard, if that wasn't already obvious.)
I have always been an early adopter of Apple products and iCloud Photo Library is no different. I have purchased 200 GB of storage and my entire 75 GB library is already in the cloud.
I experienced problems using the web interface to upload photos to iCloud. Among them was the fact that there is currently no tool that allows direct upload from iPhoto. What I did was dragged photos from iPhoto to a folder, which makes a copy of the photos, and then uploaded the folder. This caused many photos to loose their geotag information. Not all photos were affected this way but the majority were. This was unacceptable to me so I deleted whatever I had in the cloud and started over.
This time I went in the iPhoto library folder (by right clicking and selecting "Show contents") and selected all photos in the "Masters" folded. I attempted to upload them in one shot and that broke the web interface completely. I now have a gray screen with a spinner in the middle every time I open the Photos app in iCloud.com
I did not give up however. I turned on iCloud Photo Library on my iPad and airdropped the contents of my Masters folder 600 items at a time. Once the photos were received by the iPad, it immediately started uploading them.
I am now happy to report that my entire 75 GB library is in the cloud. I was extremely pleased to see that it only takes 1.2 GB on my iPhone with the "Optimize storage" option turned on. That is really impressive, and the photos that are stored on the device are not just thumbnails. They look pretty decent on full screen. You can verify that by turning on Airplane mode and trying to access a photo older than a week (or which you haven't opened in the last week). First it will complain that it can't download the full resolution picture but it will show you an acceptable low red version, which looks good enough on the iPhone screen. As mentioned earlier it keeps the last week worth of photos in high resolution.
With the above in mind there is really no need to specify time frames for separate devices. Just turn on the optimize storage option and you will have all your photos on all your devices without having to worry about the space they take up. As for an offline album I suspect that photos you have favorited will be always available in high resolution but I have not had a chance to test that yet. You will always have a low resolution version of every photo available offline, which is acceptable for viewing on the device.
I hope this information is useful to people especially those who are not willing to wait for the Mac app to come out and simplify the process. I am glad I was impatient and after having used it for a week I can't believe how many times it came in handy to have every single photo I have ever taken, accessible on my iPhone.
That's good info, thank you. I would presume [@]digitalclips[/@] is happy to read this info as well. Possibly [@]ThePixelDoc[/@] as well.
I am wondering if the order gets retained; were your images all from iPhoto projects listed alphabetically and is it displayed correctly on your iPad and iPhone? Including iCloud.com?
And if I may ask, have you also uploaded any videos, and are these displayed in correct order, syncing over properly as well?
I ask as I'm having my fair share of issues with photos on my iPhone and iPad. On the desktop I use Aperture and some of the projects sync over in a special 'Events' folder, some are just in the photos section. Importing photos onto my iPad with the CCK do not show up in the system folder 'Last Import' etc. Anyway, I'm ranting away - sorry about that. And welcome to the forum.
Another year, another "brand new" way of managing photos from Apple — or maybe another two or three ways of managing photos, depending on your device? Who knows? Recently Apple appears to have lost its focus on basic usability in its neophilic fondness for chasing constant interface change.
I worry that those in the Apple iPhoto "team" may labour under the assumption that iPhoto is as much the centre of every Mac user's existence as it is theirs. I am pretty certain this is not the case. Indeed, it may surprise Apple to learn that many (I daresay most) Mac users don't want to have to spend time reorganising photos to fit Apple's latest schema, or re-learning to do stuff that once was easy (i.e. already learned).
Lets hope that Apple has spent some of its many billions undertaking rigorous, user-centred design research before developing its latest iteration of the cloud-based photo storage/sharing approach. Half-baked, "never-mind-the-functionality-look-at-the-new-flat-icons" software from a company with Apple's history and resources would be simply unacceptable.
A.
Another year, another "brand new" way of managing photos from Apple — or maybe another two or three ways of managing photos, depending on your device? Who knows? Recently Apple appears to have lost its focus on basic usability in its neophilic fondness for chasing constant interface change.
I worry that those in the Apple iPhoto "team" may labour under the assumption that iPhoto is as much the centre of every Mac user's existence as it is theirs. I am pretty certain this is not the case. Indeed, it may surprise Apple to learn that many (I daresay most) Mac users don't want to have to spend time reorganising photos to fit Apple's latest schema, or re-learning to do stuff that once was easy (i.e. already learned).
Lets hope that Apple has spent some of its many billions undertaking rigorous, user-centred design research before developing its latest iteration of the cloud-based photo storage/sharing approach. Half-baked, "never-mind-the-functionality-look-at-the-new-flat-icons" software from a company with Apple's history and resources would be simply unacceptable.
A.
What a ridiculous, sensational, ultra-whiny post, that has little to do with reality, littered with the usual, lazy troll horse-shit of Apple "losing it's way".
First of all, the current photo-management method, photostreams, was first introduced by Steve Jobs in 2011 and released that same year. This is STILL the default, recommended system, as iCloud photo library is still in beta and OFF by default on all devices. It will probably leave beta in 2015, whenever the new Mac photos app is released. So, 4 years for Apple to update their photos paradigm- a fucking eternity in the tech world. It's been 4 years since the iPad was released. Tell me, how often should Apple rethink and improve things, so that you don't get offended? Once every decade? Every 2 decades?
Fact 2: Not a fucking thing has changed for users using photostreams, and it looks like people can continue using this for the foreseeable future.
Fact 3: Clearly this has been inthe works for a while, and Apple is taking their sweet time getting photos for Mac right- otherwise they would have released it with Yosemite. Another inconvenient fact that contradicts your entire premise of Apple rushing half-baked products to market.
Fact 4: Apple is asking you or anyone else to fucking re-organize anything. How lazy can you possible be, so that you're not willing to spend a few min adjusting and learning a superior system once every few years?
Fact 5: iCloud photo library is what many of us have been asking for, for a while. The ability to have peace of mind knowing every photo taken is saved to the cloud, and accessible through a web browser as well as easily through other iDevices, without using a tacked on 3rd party service or social network.
There's nothing about the new photos paradigm that even hints Apple is "chasing constant interface change", as you so smugly state. The interface barely even looks different- and what is different is simply that way to accommodate the new functionality.
Amazing how people like you can bitch and whine so vociferously about positive progress, and pretend you're somehow being victimized by it.
I'm presuming that a degraded copy of each file showing up in that structure is being stored locally. If I have 10MB raw image files I still have to capture and create a local small footprint image to see when sorting through my collection.
When you look at your Mac what does your set up say about your local files reflecting that view?
Also don't waste your time trying to sync your iPhoto library from your Mac to your iPad via iTunes. I tried that hoping that once my entire library was on my iPad I can turn on the iCloud photo library option and everything will upload automatically. When I tried to turn it on the iPad told me that photos synced through iTunes can not be uploaded to iCloud photo library and that if I want to turn it on, all photos synced through iTunes will be deleted. That was rather disappointing but not surprising after I thought about it for a while.
I know the web interface does not currently allow you to upload videos but you can airdrop them from your Mac to an iOS device with iCloud photo library enabled and they will get uploaded fine.
Because historically in tech, if Apple doesn't continuously "try" to define user experience, then either a) another company will; which then adds to b) a stagnant compromised UX that becomes a defacto "standard way of doing things" that is neither elegant for it's time nor oriented in base functionality so that features can be added later.
The above statement is completely wrong. There is no other functionality that effects people and their lives, more than the memories that photos provide. While YOU may take it for granted, most people do not want to lose any of those memories... ever... regardless of their own carelessness or the tech company they prefer to "help" manage those memories.
Getting photo management right, in all phases of the development of Photos is... and very well should be... one of if not THE priority at Apple. The taking of quality pictures has been the battle ground of mobile devices for quite a while now, so it stands to reason that the management and security of the results of all of the tech that has been thrown at the quality side be realized post haste. Simply said: simple, secure, synced photo management is the new "sticky factor" to selling Apple devices at the margins that Apple wants to continue to enjoy. Entertainment license, whether apps, games, movies, TV or music will be scattered across domains... and should be. Photos on the other hand are a product of each and every individual's create ability, and very valuable personal asset. Just ask anyone who has lost pictures from their iPhone.... or ask Apple itself, since it loudly touts using Apple devices to "create your own masterpiece" in it's advertising.
"Let's hope (1)" for lot of things from Apple in 2015... but most of all that they don't listen to people like you (hint: they don't) and forge a path to simple "set it and forget it" asset security and reliable sync to all Apple devices and the Cloud no matter what anyone has to "re-learn". If they add full editing features themselves from the get-go, and/or make the Photos API and powerful extensions framework available to developers.... it'll be a big bonus, but IMO a second priority. You might call it "half-baked" at that point and miss the power "under the hood" while deriding the "flat icons" all you want.
What I sincerely believe to be fact at this point, is that Apple is developing "the glue" (frameworks and APIs) that will afford the extension developers... to build powerfully integrated functionality and attached feature "parts" to their "photo system". Again IMHO: that's a GREAT thing!
"Let's hope (2): people, media and investors (speculators) lay off "the billions" that Apple has available to them in 2015. Fact: that stash is only going to get bigger if they do the big things right, and leave the little things to their vested community of evangelists and developers.