Is Photo Stream what you want in a cloud-based photo solution?

[Phil A.]

For me, Photostream is pretty much useless - updating my photos automatically is nice but not a massive feature and the inability to delete individual photos, share photostreams between users and keep it for more than 30 days means it's a very limited "product"

Personally, I've subscribed to Adobe Carousel as it does provide a lot more functionality:
1) I can share a carousel with my wife and daughter and they can add their photos to it so we have a single photo library
2) I can set up a second carousel and share selected photos with my dad and other family members
3) It automatically syncs on my devices and people who you share with
4) Storage is unlimited and all my photos are available in the cloud, not just the last 30 days worth

Of course, one major issue with Carousel is that the photo management on OS X is very limited, but I got around that by installing picasa on my mac and pointed it at the originals folder within the carousel library. I can then use that to manage albums, face recognition, etc while using Carousel as a sync and distribution engine

 

[Thetonyk123]

I'll gladly use it once I can delete photos.

 

[CosmoPilot]

thats not a solution thats a work around and not "easy to use" at all

Again, being able to delete a photo from photo stream would be nice. But in the grand scheme of things, it is just a photo bin for you to import from, NOT to maintain as a photo album.

If your not on wifi while taking the pictures, you just delete the not so good pictures from the camera roll prior to getting on wifi. If you're on wifi and worried about clogging up photostream with bad pictures, turn it off (takes 4 finger presses).

I understand your frustration, but how is this worse than life before photo stream. I love not connecting all my devices to a computer to get the photos I want.

 

[cmChimera]

I just want the reverse. When I add a photo to a certain folder on my computer, I want it to appear on my phone. I would be satisfied then. Well, plus the delete thing, but I'm pretty sure that will come soon enough.

 

[BJMRamage]

Overall I like it.

I wish I had the option to sync when i wanted OR delete from the stream as I take multiple photos and don't always know which is best in a 5 second time frame. Also, I love to edit via Snapseed and once edited that photo is ALSO uploaded, I only want the edited version there.

I also wish it had a view on the web, say via iCloud.com or maybe even a share/create a photo book via that same place.


OVERALL, I like it but wish it was fine tuned a bit better. Yes, I could disable PhotoStream or turn WiFi off but wish there was a way to halt it first that was "a tad" easier.

 

[xxBURT0Nxx]

The fact that you have to have Lion installed to take advantage of Photo Stream makes it completely useless to me.

 

[redscull]

But in the grand scheme of things, it is just a photo bin for you to import from, NOT to maintain as a photo album.

In the grand scheme of things, an unmanaged photo-bin is basicly useless. That's photo-stream in a nutshell. There's nothing wrong with it, but there's no point for it, either. It's just a toggle in my iCloud settings that will always be set to Off.

I don't need my iPad to see my iPhone's photos because I'll have my phone on me. Always. If I'm on the go, there is no wifi and thus no photostream. If I'm on wifi and I want to see the pictures bigger, I'm not going to bother with the 9.7" iPad, I'm going to use my 17" MBP or my 52" HDTV.

And I don't take photos with my iPad (that camera is for face-time only), so the reverse scenario doesn't even exist. Plus, why would I ever care to sync the photos to the 3.5" screen?

I'll never view photostream on my mac because I use my laptop for my iOS devices; I want to be able to sync/backup from anywhere, not just at home. And my MBP is mine; my wife has her own that her phone syncs to. The shared desktop is shared; it's not associated with anyone's iCloud or Apple IDs.

I do have an always-on mini connected to an HDTV in the family room that would be cool for something like photostream. But it's shared and unpassworded; I specifically don't want it logged into my account. And thus it can't see my photostream because this stupid feature is really only meant to sync to the computer+login that I normally sync my iOS devices to.

That's the failing with photostream. It's not for sharing. The only person meant to see my photostream is ME because it only syncs the photos to devices either on my person or logged in with my most-private credentials.

I want my family computer able to display a photostream of snapshots taken by any iOS device of any member of the household without also bundling in the contacts and calendars of those people. But that's not what it does. It doesn't make it easier to view your photos with anyone but yourself.

 

[aperry]

Many of the new photo features in iOS5 seem half-baked to me. Photostream is a cluttered mess, there's no web interface for your photostream, and albums created in iOS can't be sync'd back to iPhoto (as far as I can tell?). Seems like they were pressed for time on this release. Unfortunately some of these limitations make the features useless.

 

[gentlefury]

Is it really that so many people don't understand photo stream? It is NOT a gallery. It is a mid-point for your photos. That is ALL! You snap a pic, it goes to the stream, if you have any other devices that have photo stream enabled it goes there....THAT IS ALL! If you want a gallery use flikr or picasa! Seriously, quit complaining about a kick ass FREE SERVICE!

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Overall I like it.

I wish I had the option to sync when i wanted OR delete from the stream as I take multiple photos and don't always know which is best in a 5 second time frame. Also, I love to edit via Snapseed and once edited that photo is ALSO uploaded, I only want the edited version there.

I also wish it had a view on the web, say via iCloud.com or maybe even a share/create a photo book via that same place.


OVERALL, I like it but wish it was fine tuned a bit better. Yes, I could disable PhotoStream or turn WiFi off but wish there was a way to halt it first that was "a tad" easier.

I typically am not in a wifi area when shooting pics. So if there is a pic I don't like I will delete it after I take it....it won't go to the stream until I am on wifi.

 

[aperry]

Is it really that so many people don't understand photo stream? It is NOT a gallery. It is a mid-point for your photos. That is ALL! You snap a pic, it goes to the stream, if you have any other devices that have photo stream enabled it goes there....THAT IS ALL! If you want a gallery use flikr or picasa! Seriously, quit complaining about a kick ass FREE SERVICE!

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I typically am not in a wifi area when shooting pics. So if there is a pic I don't like I will delete it after I take it....it won't go to the stream until I am on wifi.

If that is all Photostream is designed to be then I wonder why my Apple TV has the option to display my Photostream as a a screensaver. I wouldn't expect that if it's just meant to be a "midpoint". Sounds more like a "gallery" feature to me.

I think it's just half-baked and they ran out of time for the delete feature. Likewise I'm sure there will be a web interface for it at some point (complete with social features, etc).

 

[gentlefury]

If that is all Photostream is designed to be then I wonder why my Apple TV has the option to display my Photostream as a a screensaver. I wouldn't expect that if it's just meant to be a "midpoint". Sounds more like a "gallery" feature to me.

I think it's just half-baked and they ran out of time for the delete feature. Likewise I'm sure there will be a web interface for it at some point (complete with social features, etc).

Sounds more to me like they decided to add a little feature to the apple tv since it DOESNT HAVE ANY INTERNAL MEMORY!! I wouldn't read so much into it. They could have left that feature out, then people would complain they can't see it on their apple tv.

You realize you will only be seeing your last 30 days worth of pics with that screen saver right?

 

[aperry]

Sounds more to me like they decided to add a little feature to the apple tv since it DOESNT HAVE ANY INTERNAL MEMORY!! I wouldn't read so much into it. They could have left that feature out, then people would complain they can't see it on their apple tv.

You realize you will only be seeing your last 30 days worth of pics with that screen saver right?

Of course I realize that. I also realize that I was looking at a cluttered mess of blurry throwaway pics mixed with random images I saved from the web, and only a few good photos sprinkled in there that I really would like to view on my ATV2....and all of this could be cleaned up with a simple *delete* feature. God forbid you take a photo that you really have to remove for some reason. I guess the whole set needs to be wiped, right? Ridiculous.

Anyway, getting back to the title of this thread. My answer: NO

If they add a delete feature: YES

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By the way, I just voted and apparently I'm not alone. 70% would like the ability to either delete photos or only sync the ones that stay in the camera roll (I would take either one of these options). Looks like 90% of people find this feature inadequate. And we're on an Apple fanboi site.

 

[redscull]

Is it really that so many people don't understand photo stream? It is NOT a gallery. It is a mid-point for your photos. That is ALL!

Right. Its functionality is not misunderstood. The argument is that a mid-point for my photos is useless and stupid. Had it been a proper gallery, it'd have been a cool new feature that I'd enjoy using. But it's not a fun or useful feature. It's just a pointless thing that serves no purpose.

The confusion is around why Apple would bother creating this pointless functionality. I think it has to be assumed that it's going to be expanded in the future.

 

[APlotdevice]

Sounds more to me like they decided to add a little feature to the apple tv since it DOESNT HAVE ANY INTERNAL MEMORY!! I wouldn't read so much into it. They could have left that feature out, then people would complain they can't see it on their apple tv.

You realize you will only be seeing your last 30 days worth of pics with that screen saver right?

Technically the AppleTV 2 has 8GB of internal flash memory. It's just only used for caching at the moment.

 

[wallysb01]

Is it really that so many people don't understand photo stream? It is NOT a gallery. It is a mid-point for your photos. That is ALL! You snap a pic, it goes to the stream, if you have any other devices that have photo stream enabled it goes there....THAT IS ALL! If you want a gallery use flikr or picasa! Seriously, quit complaining about a kick ass FREE SERVICE!

If that's all this is supposed to be, it is really, really useless. So, I can share pictures with myself, but only for 30 days and can't delete anything? How is this better than a flash drive to share pictures between your computers or emailing yourself the good pictures you actually want to keep off your iPhone?

Right now, this photo stream thing is just junk. Add in a delete feature and maybe it becomes somewhat useful. IF you could select a folder to keep in the cloud permanently, obviously it would be size restricted, that would help a lot. As would being able to access it on a computer that is not your own. Ie. I'm over at a friends house, and I want to show them some of the latest family pics on their computer, and not my iPhone.

Its just useless. Combinations of other currently available tools are better suited for what this photo stream is apparently trying to do.

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Right. Its functionality is not misunderstood. The argument is that a mid-point for my photos is useless and stupid. Had it been a proper gallery, it'd have been a cool new feature that I'd enjoy using. But it's not a fun or useful feature. It's just a pointless thing that serves no purpose.

The confusion is around why Apple would bother creating this pointless functionality. I think it has to be assumed that it's going to be expanded in the future.

It probably will be. Like with many things Apple, the 1.0 is really still a beta. They let the public help them with the QC.

 

[BJMRamage]

I typically am not in a wifi area when shooting pics. So if there is a pic I don't like I will delete it after I take it....it won't go to the stream until I am on wifi.

For me I take photos of my cooking, sometimes in progress and take 2-3 photos and then don't always have the time to check each in detail. then i like to tweak the colors some.
and my house has Wifi so they go straight there.

I like the idea behind this. and just hope Apple "upgrades" this service to make it more user friendly and fun to use as well.