[NewsPoster]

A little over a week after the second developer beta of OS X 10.10.3, which includes the first public peek at the forthcoming Photos app, Apple has made a new version public for pre-registered beta testers. Build 14D87p is the first public beta of 10.10.3, and includes the Photos app for public testing for the first time (developers had been able to to use the application in the previous two betas). The public version appears to be identical to the second developer beta, numbered 14D87h.

MacNN offered a first look at Photos for OS X nearly a month ago, calling it a slick integration of features from iPhoto (many) and Aperture (few) that coordinates with, but is superior to, the existing iOS version of Photos. It mostly borrows its printing options, editing UI, and a very noticeable speed increase when dealing with RAW photos from Aperture, but users of Apple's high-end photography manager are not likely to think much of the application's simplified look and consumer-oriented feature set, at least at first.

Photos is much more aimed as a speedy improvement to iPhoto, and once users get used to the new interface, they are likely to appreciate both the more-logical cloud integration and editing options, as well as the improved organization and controls. At the time of the First Look article, we noted a number of "missing" features such as flagging, geotagging editing, star ratings, and social sharing options. The latter set of sharing features has since been re-added, giving hope that most of the other features present in iPhoto but not in Photos will eventually be restored.

The beta copy of Photos does not replace either iPhoto or Aperture on existing systems, and both of the older programs have been updated to run on Yosemite and for the foreseeable future, but neither will receive any additional updates. Aperture users will likely hold on as long as they can until a replacement program -- such as Adobe's Lightroom or the currently-in-beta Affinity Photo -- comes along with more professional-level features to cater to that audience. While Photos includes a plug-in API that could see photo software makers bringing new features into it, the program is squarely aimed at typical consumers and photo hobbyists who may dabble in RAW, rather than dedicated professionals.

Photos also features optional integration with the iCloud Photo Library, which allows users to share some or all of their photo library to the cloud for private backup and cloud access purposes. This is implicitly a paid service, since nearly all users would have to buy additional storage in order to use the feature over the free 5GB provided by Apple. Pricing starts at $1 a month for 20GB, or $4 per month for 200GB.

Apple strongly cautions public testers to install OS X 10.10.3 -- which is still in beta, and has known issues -- on a separate machine or partition, versus using it in a production environment. Backups of the current 10.10.2 system are also strongly encouraged.

I'm on the public beta. I never got a link.

Well I still don't see where I'm supposed to go to download it, in the Updates section or a link in an email, so I'll just ask my question:


Does Photos finally put the correct date on the video when I add it to my library? Say that I take a video on February 20, and I use Quicktime to convert the video, on March 5, which then goes into my iPhoto library. Well when it's time to add this video to my library, iPhoto says that the date of the video is "March 5," but the date of recording is supposed to say "February 20" - and this is the date that I want on my iPod so that when I go to show people, this video was for this occasion that took place on February 20 (not March 5). So, does Photos fix this?

[Spheric Harlot]

How is Photos/iPhoto supposed to know when a film was originally recorded, if it only has the Quicktime file's creation date to go by?

That's what the "Adjust Date and Time…" command in the "Photos" menu in iPhoto is for.

Works fine for videos, too — just tested it. Been there for years.

Why does Apple not provide a way to preserve this information, from file to photo library? I think that Apple should have taken that caveat into consideration by now (2015). That they didn't is yet another list of several dozen things concerning management/organization that Apple could have taken into account. Am I seriously expected to do the whole "Adjust Date and Time" for every manually-converted video (lots) in my library, and then forbid I lose my libraries and have to rebuild them, I have to do it again?

[Spheric Harlot]

Uh, okay. Couple points:

If you lose your data, you will lose work associated with it. Yes. Not sure what to tell you.

Apple is bound by the laws of physics and the mechanics of file creation. Sure, it'd be nice if they could add a "Date recorded" metadata field to QuickTime formats and automatically populate it with the creation date of the original file. I don't think that would be desirable in most instances.

But honestly: the function exists, and it's right where you need it in iPhoto; you just never bothered to look around for it.

Yes, you are expected to do this yourself if you want it to happen. Just once for each file.
If you're batch-converting hundreds of files, perhaps AppleScript could provide a solution to grab the creation date from the original before converting?

In the meantime, are the rest of the one million Yosemite beta users getting a link to download Photos? Because I still haven't received it.

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

But honestly: the function exists, and it's right where you need it in iPhoto; you just never bothered to look around for it.

Yes, you are expected to do this yourself if you want it to happen. Just once for each file.

So I just did that for my entire photo library in iPhoto, put in the dates by hand, and re-synced up my iPod Touch.

Well on my iPod when I view the photos it gives the correct date (which I specified), but when I view videos from that event it shows the wrong date even though I tell it the date created. How do I fix this?

Also, how do I can all of my events on iOS to appear in chronological order like in iPhoto?