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You are here: MacNN Forums > News > Mac News > Hands On: Photos 1.0 (OS X)

Hands On: Photos 1.0 (OS X)
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Apr 9, 2015, 07:43 AM
 
Ditch iPhoto, ditch Aperture, ditch Light -- okay, no, let's not go crazy here. You should probably keep Lightroom if you have it and definitely also Photoshop or Pixelmator. Hold on to those because Apple's new Photos app does not replace them -- but it is so very good that you'll find yourself using them less. You may also find yourself taking more photos. You just won't realize that the first time you open up Photos. This free app, included in the new OS X 10.10.3, is a very bald, white, minimalist application that initially takes some time to get going.

It's possible to use it completely fresh, with no photos in it yet, but there isn't a Mac user on the planet who hasn't got an over-sized library of photographs in iPhoto, the defunct Aperture or Adobe Lightroom. Point Photos at your library, and it will gather images where it may. Very nicely, it does take in all your existing library but it does not duplicate it: our test iMac had 300Gb of photos, and not enough room if Photos had wanted to make a copy.



What Photos actually does is adopt your old library; in theory it is simply pointing at where your iPhoto or other library was but in practice it's much smarter than that. We haven't tried this, we're not recommending you go do it, but some day soon we will be brave and actually delete our old Aperture and its library. When we do that, Photos won't even blink. When we do that, Photos will have its own library complete and intact -- but until we do it, Photos is sharing that Aperture library.

This is achieved through an utterly delicious piece of OS X trickery that's similar to the idea of aliases, but takes place at a much deeper level. Google 'symbolic links' if you have a crossword kind of brain and a good mug of coffee.

Partly because we don't have a lot of space left on our iMac, and thus it's running slowly, it did take a time for Photos to load up our library for the first time. One of the few criticisms we've had of Photos, both in beta and in this final release, is probably to do with an overstretched iMac: at first we would see a lot of blank images in the library. These would only be in the kind of general overview: if you clicked on any to open them, then you got the full and proper photo. As best we can tell, this was down to a lot of Spotlight reindexing being done in the background, and once we'd scrolled around a few times, everything righted itself.

It's funny how ugly Photos looks when you have a screen full of blank white photos. There's a heart icon on every shot that you can click to mark out favorites, and we dislike it simply because it looked weirdly ugly when it was present on these white blanks.

However, it's funny and delightful how great Photos looks when you can see all your photographs. If you've used Photos on iPhone or iPad, you will recognize just about everything in the way that this works, and you'll like it too. There's a Camera Roll, a Photo Stream, and the Moments feature that seemed cool on iOS but we think we'll now actually use, which is an effective substitute for Events.

Zoom out to see thumbnails of all the photos you took this month. Zoom out further to see -- is fingernails a term? -- fingernails of the photos this year. The way you zoom out isn't as obvious as you'd expect: atop your photo library there is a Safari-like back button that takes you back through the sequence of today, this month, this year and all your shots.



By default, the only things you see in Photos are your photos: the old Aperture and iPhotos sidebar with buttons for various albums is there, but hidden. It took us ages to even notice that: the zooming in and out of Moments was so automatic and the use of four lozenge buttons at the top of the screen to go into albums and projects seemed so natural. While we did switch on the sidebar, we did then switch it back off.

Whether you use the sidebar or just click through the Moments, when you select a single image and then click the Edit button, it opens up in the new editor, and that's where you'll feel the most difference. Interestingly, where the library is shown in an iOS-style minimalist white, when you edit a photo it comes up in a rather Aperture-style black minimalism.

That's the only similarity to Aperture: Photos does not have all the tools of that old professional photography app, and when you first go to adjust a photo, you'll think it has even fewer tools than it has. It shows you very basic-looking options for cropping, rotating and what it just calls enhancing a shot. They're few enough and simple enough-looking that you'll play around with them. When you do, when you choose for instance Adjust, you get good basic options that are very clear, but you also get drop down menus. Click on any of those, and you suddenly have much, much more control.

If you want to adjust the color of a photo, for instance, the default is that Photos shows you a little filmstrip of five versions of your image with monochrome at one end, full bursting get-your-sunglasses colorful at the other. Slide a bar across them and Photos shows you the effect on your full-size image next to it. Click on the drop down menu, though, and you now get separate slider controls for saturation, contrast and so on.

Can you have favorite tools in an application? Ours is easily the cropping and rotating one. Cropping looks the same as it does in most image editors, but as well as a simple shove it clockwise or counterclockwise tool, rotation gets a really slick and rather beautiful wheel control.

Photos is full of nice touches that don't only look good, they make it clear and obvious what you can do with your images.



What it doesn't do so well is show what you can't do. If our blank white photos experience gave us pause at first, the thing that will give us friction in the future is that there is no way to hand a photo off to Photoshop if you want to do some heavy lifting on it. You can Share an image -- curiously, the Share feature includes Add to Aperture, like that was still a thing -- but you can't open a photo in Photoshop and then have it save back to Photos when you're done.

We'll just have to take better photographs, and not rely on Photoshop to fix our mistakes so much. Or Share the photo to the desktop, drag it into Photoshop, do our work and then drag it back in as a new image. At least for now -- the preferences panel in Photos looks lonely for more controls that will undoubtedly be added later.

If getting something out of Photos into another editor isn't great, the new ability to see all your photos everywhere is excellent. It just costs you some money. If you pay up and switch on iCloud Photo Library, then every photo you have will be available to you on every Apple device you own. Our iPhone 5, with its now tiny-seeming screen and its 64GB capacity, can display every single one of the 300GB of photos we have. Just not all at once. Photos and the new iCloud Photo Library will show you any shot you want, and when necessary will chuck some other images out of your iPhone. You won't even notice: it will be just like iTunes Match, where all your music appears to be with you everywhere you go.

You will notice the money. Photos isn't pushy about trying to get you spend more with Apple, but the first time you open the application and it begins loading in your old iPhoto library, it will take a moment to tell you about the service. It tells you what the service does, plus it has a squint at your library and says for that many photos, you're going to need to buy this amount of iCloud Photo Library storage. For us, with our 300GB test, it said the nearest option was a 500Gb tier, which costs $10 per month.

If you have 5GB of photos then you're lying to yourself, that's not possible, but you get that amount of iCloud Photo Library storage for free. The next level up is 20GB for a buck a month, then 200GB for $4 (which should cover nearly everyone), 500GB for $10 and 1TB for $20 per month. Twenty dollars for 1TB of storage sounds very tempting, until you realize that's $240 a year.

You don't have to use iCloud Photo Library at all, so it'll be interesting to learn how many people opt for this. Even without it, your latest photos on your iPhone will pop back onto your Mac as they always did, so it's not essential -- but you might find it supremely handy to have every shot ever. We'd like a way to say which shots get copied back, but it is an all or nothing job at present.

Speaking of the present, we'd strongly recommend that you hold off switching on iCloud Photo Library for a week or two -- because there are likely to be umpteen millions of people using it right away. Doubtlessly it will work, but millions of anything at the same time will make this slow.

We just used the word "doubtlessly" and we mean it: Apple hasn't had the greatest cloud storage reputation in the world, but this one is well-designed, well-done and so far seems robust too. You could say the same things about the Photos app in general, and they'd be true, but they'd also be a bit clinically technical.

Photos is well done, yes, but that does not convey the pleasure you get in using it. It's simple enough that you won't expect to be delighted but then when you try something, when you edit a photo or you search for one, Photos is gorgeous. We hadn't realized how depressingly bogged-down Aperture had become until we ran Photos, and realized that this is what it's supposed to be like.

Photos 1.0 is free as part of OS X 10.10.3.

Who is Photos 1.0 for:
Everybody. Well, there will be some wailing and gnashing of teeth of this or that feature that isn't in Photos (yet), but particularly for those just coming to it, Photos is pretty good right out of the gate.

Who is Photos 1.0 not for:
Well, okay, "everybody" is pushing it. Photos is not Lightroom, or Aperture, or Photoshop, and if you need the tools in those, you need to keep those apps. You'll just wish they were as fluid as Photos.

-- William Gallagher (@WGallagher)
( Last edited by NewsPoster; Apr 9, 2015 at 09:25 AM. )
     
Kees
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Apr 9, 2015, 08:57 AM
 
Well, I certainly will not be using it until they allow My Photo Stream to only download photos to my Mac. I do not want every device polluted with every photo I ever take.
Photos I take with a real camera do not need to go into the cloud, unless I specifically create a shared album for them.
I won't be use iCloud library, but with My Photo Stream now being a mandatory two-way stream, they basically do the same thing.
I want one Mac in my house to be the repository for all my stuff. It's super easy to access my Mac from anywhere, no cloud needed for that.
And what's with this 'You can trash your pictures, but we are going to keep them for another 30 days anyway' deal? I trash pics because I want them gone. If I wanted to think about it, I'd create a temporary album.
Fortunately, I haven't migrated my library on the iMac, so I will continue to use iPhoto on it to automatically import the pics from all my devices.
I do appreciate that on my MacBook Air, Photos seems a little quicker. And with multiple users, you can now set up a system photo library to share a library from one user with all users of that Mac.
You could always do this by linking multiple users to the same iPhoto library in the shared folder, or preferably on a non-system disk, but this is easier. And I assume, since it is now a feature, it'll work on a system disk without the permission issues that ensued with iPhoto.
     
tntracy
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Apr 9, 2015, 12:48 PM
 
It is hard to believe the author of this piece just blithely writes off the fact that you cannot specify an alternate image editor (like Photoshop) in Photo's preferences like you could in iPhoto with the offhand (and silly) remark, "We'll just have to take better photographs, and not rely on Photoshop to fix our mistakes so much." I find this to be a MAJOR limitation in Photos, and am really miffed about it. Yes, you can export the image, edit it in Photoshop, then import it as a new image as the author subsequently states, but you lose the ability to "Revert To Original" neatly from within Photos. Other than handling it manually, that is, which entails keeping two versions of the photo in your Library - the original & the edited version (and yes, I realize iPhoto did the same thing in essence, but it did so "behind the scenes," and did not clutter up your visible library with both versions of the image).

I hope & trust that Apple will rectify this glaring omission in Photos with the next release!
     
SierraDragon
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Apr 9, 2015, 01:36 PM
 
As an Aperture user since v1 I strongly agree with tntracy: failure to readily round-trip to an external image editor is a HUGE WEAKNESS. Basically a fatal flaw.

The review should be revised to state how serious a flaw that is.
     
Mike Wuerthele
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Apr 9, 2015, 01:59 PM
 
Originally Posted by tntracy View Post
I hope & trust that Apple will rectify this glaring omission in Photos with the next release!
I'm willing to bet Apple will do nothing of the sort, given the direction the company is taking.

Photos isn't intended to be the be-all, end-all photo manager. They're going to leave that to other companies for pro-level features. We spoke about this at some length in the podcast, but Apple is no longer a computer company that makes mobile devices, but a mobile device company that makes computers -- Photos is excellent in its own right, but clearly, CLEARLY is aimed at the mobile aspect of the business more.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying that I like the trend.
     
Charles Martin
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Apr 9, 2015, 02:11 PM
 
I disagree with Mike, and expect round-tripping will return in a future revision. Indeed, part of the point of Photos was to create a plug-in API that could be used by others to allow exactly that to happen, as it already does in the iOS version.

But those waiting for pro-features of the sort Aperture had are going to be disappointed overall, as most of them will never arrive for Photos. But I'm not worried about that market, as there are at least two competitors in that space (Lightroom and this new beta from Affinity), and will probably be more. I liked (and still like, since it still works) Aperture a lot, but it did actually need an overhaul and apparently Apple's not willing to do that, since they are focused on mobile users.

As a long-time iPhoto user, I'm largely delighted with Photos, which makes improvements in a number of key areas and notches up the built-in editing capabilities without making me convert everything. This is Photos 1.0, I promise you that more features are coming. Whether you'll like them or not I can't say, but this is a good start for an overhaul IMHO and this time, Apple has smartened up a lot about how to handle the transition. Still a little ham-fisted with the Dock action, but as with iWork the new version doesn't overwrite, replace, or otherwise do anything to the old program, so I'm not sure why there are some complaints. If you're not liking Photos yet, and its not just a stubborn-attitude thing, wait six months and try it again. In the meantime, just use your iPhoto or Aperture as you have done.
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boydp182
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Apr 9, 2015, 03:10 PM
 
I despise the new Photos. It is a huge step back from iPhoto and I find have way more difficulty trying to organize my photos. It's just a complete mess. I hate it so bad. I love how iPhoto has events such as daughters pics and videos that I can name an event and I can put every single pic and video in this event and then I can create albums called Birthday, Xmas, etc. to copy photos out of the event and put in albums. I have over 10,000 images and videos in iPhoto and it looks like I have hardly any because its so organized.

I find myself fumbling in Photos trying to find out where to go and how to organize. Apple keeps making decisions like this that are really turning me off towards this company.
     
boydp182
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Apr 9, 2015, 03:12 PM
 
Also, the fact they are ditching aperture for crap like this has me scratching my head. We all love Apple because of there cool and unique software such as iPhoto, iWeb, iWork, Aperture and they keep dumbing down these applications and making them bare or doing away with them altogether and not offering a suitable replacement. I just don't get it.
     
Charles Martin
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Apr 9, 2015, 04:26 PM
 
boydp182: you appear to have a fundamental misunderstanding of events that seems to be getting in the way of you understanding Photos. Nothing has changed at all regarding Events, except that they are now called Moments. Perhaps you're not seeing them that way, because you haven't hit the Back button from the usual view. Moments (Events) can be renamed whatever you like, just as with Events, because they ARE Events.

Photos lets you create albums like iPhoto. Photos supports Faces data (as you refer to with "daughter's pics." Photos gathers all the videos together in a view as well as including them as part of events -- just like iPhoto did. There's really no change at all in the areas you specifically mention, just a renaming and layout difference (and an incredibly minor one at that).

If you're having trouble with it, try the Help guide. That's what it is there for. It would probably be a good idea to remember that at one point, you didn't know your way around iPhoto, either.
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panjandrum
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Apr 9, 2015, 04:37 PM
 
@Charles. Respectfully, I think that the reason you see so many complaints from the long-time Mac user crowd (especially the power-users) is so complicated that it would take hundreds of pages to write it all up. Plus, it's mostly been said elsewhere and said well (apps losing, instead of gaining functionality, UI losing readability and consistency, software becoming harder to use rather than easier due to features being hidden (when they aren't just missing altogether). The list goes on and on. And while we often see the "it didn't delete the old version so why are you complaining?" argument is frequently brought-up, it really isn't a valid argument because unless you are willing to jump-through-tremendous-hoops Apple has very much become an "update or move to something else" company.

Take the UI elements in many new pieces of Apple software which don't support multiple-displays properly. As a power-user I haven't had a single display since, oh, the original Mac II. Really. Even when using my laptop, I nearly always have my iPad right next to it and Air Display running to provide a second screen. Thus, (and this is only one example of where Apple is going oh-so wrong) I like the old version of iWork, with floating dialogue boxes I can move between screens (i.e. I like apps which behave the way Mac apps *should* behave).

I would LOVE to stay on the old version of iWork, but it's a huge pain to try to do so, because I can't just go and download the equivalent older versions of iWork for my various iThings I also use (iPhone, iPad, etc.). If I'm willing to expend tremendous effort, then yes, I can work around this forced upgrade path, but I don't have time in my life to do so (most of my time is spent support Mac and iThing users in education and small-business environments). So I really can't just "stick with the old software", at least not for the long-haul (and you'll notice that Apple is more frequently putting up hard-coded roadblocks to using older software, even if that software might actually have still functioned fine without interference. Try to run iMovie HD in a recent version of the Mac OS, for example.)

But maybe the most frustrating thing is that I have to deal with the blowback of this from all the users I support, and trust me they are almost universally disappointed (or extremely disappointed, or downright angry) with the direction Apple software has been taking. A few short years ago, my users looked forward to nearly every Apple update with anticipation, and now that's more like "dread". They don't want to have to deal with "updated" software with fewer functions, or a UI that's hard to use, or features that are hard to find for no good reason. They liked their computers to work with them, instead of being a device they have to fight. They liked a UI where things were legible, easily distinguishable, well labeled, and intuitive and easy to use.)

And as much as I would like to say that Apple's slowly getting back on the right track, that's not the feedback I'm hearing from my clients. What I hear, day-in and day-out, year after year now, are complaints. So this isn't just a matter of "getting used to what is new", it's a matter of "we are used to the new stuff, and we still don't like it.") I certainly hope Apple finally gets back on track; back to making software that works well for novice users (which it currently does not, the vast majority of users I work with never figure out the multi-touch features properly, and are many times even confused by such basic tasks as scrolling due to the default "missing and/or hard to see scrollbars" issue in the recent versions of the Mac OS) and for power users (which it currently does not due to the dumbing-down of the software and the removal of basic power-user functions such as proper multiple-display support within discrete applications).
( Last edited by Mike Wuerthele; Apr 9, 2015 at 05:38 PM. Reason: Paragraphs for easier reading on the homepage.)
     
Mike Wuerthele
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Apr 9, 2015, 05:37 PM
 
Originally Posted by panjandrum View Post
I certainly hope Apple finally gets back on track; back to making software that works well for novice users (which it currently does not, the vast majority of users I work with never figure out the multi-touch features properly, and are many times even confused by such basic tasks as scrolling due to the default "missing and/or hard to see scrollbars" issue in the recent versions of the Mac OS) and for power users (which it currently does not due to the dumbing-down of the software and the removal of basic power-user functions such as proper multiple-display support within discrete applications).
It is on track -- its own. Trackpad changes are more similar to mobile multitouch. Software conventions are more similar to mobile conventions. There aren't multiple displays on mobile.

The way I see it, we have a few options as users. We stick with Apple, or we don't.

If you can think of anything to say to Cupertino that'll make a difference, I'm all ears.
     
Ham Sandwich
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Apr 9, 2015, 06:36 PM
 
I was never expecting Photos to replace Aperture, or even carry half of the power editing features of a pro editor. That's what Photoshop/GIMP are for.

Photos works for me, since it's a (much) faster version of iPhoto with the ability to pan in/out real quick as on the iOS. I don't particularly care for iCloud Photo Library, at least not yet. I still prefer the reliability and speed of a direct connection and I have only one iOS-device.
     
Stuke
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Apr 9, 2015, 07:00 PM
 
Photos is everything I thought it would be...junk save for a 12 year old's desire to share photos from their mobile device to their desktop computer. Face it...Apple has abandoned professionals in photography...hang on to Aperture as long as you can! Next up in 1-2 years...bye bye FCP or Logic...one will certainly fall as the precedent is now set. Unless Apple makes a professional statement (and Cook has been known to do this) about messing up with the killing of Aperture so iPhoto and Aperture can become Photos, start looking elsewhere while you guard your Aperture installation. There is no way this version 1.0 Photos will every grow into an Aperture replacement. Sorry, I'm biased, I know...but that is how important Aperture was to us who 'care' about our photography and photos. iCloud Photo Library...give me a break!
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Marook
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Apr 10, 2015, 09:38 AM
 
Photos... another App from Apple that tells me my IQ is way below 70, and I can't handle the world around me.. gee.. give me a break!
Have you tried using Faces?? Boy, it SUCKS!
Find a photo in your PhotoStream, get info and click the + to add a face.. nothing.. click-click.. nothing.. AAHhhhhh, you hav to IMPORT the photo to your Library first.. But, it already there in the App?!?!?!?!?
Photos just don't tell you..
Just like so many other 'minor' issues around the OS and Apps now a days.. Quality Control at Apple has gone WAY down over they last few year...
And yeah, iOS 7+8 still have a shitty GUI, as does OS X now.. smart-before-function.. sadly...
Marook
At least - it's a reply...
     
panjandrum
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Apr 11, 2015, 12:15 AM
 
@Marook. You know, your comment about the IQ is funny. I was just up talking with the owner of a local Mac store, who is having all of the same problems I am with long-time clients (they absolutely *hate* what Apple's been doing in terms of their UI post Snow Leopard and post IOS 6 (of course they don't use this term, they just say "software", since most users don't even understand the difference between the underlying software and the UI to it). Like me, he has to deal with dissatisfied customers day in and day out, and he is an authorized reseller, whereas I am just an independent consultant. Regardless, we were talking and came up with a new Apple slogan. "Apple, computers for morons, by morons." But the sad, sad, sad thing is that just a few short years ago, neither of us would have had anything bad to say about Apple, the Mac OS, or the iOS (well, except for the 7.5 era of course). Both of us feel that three things have helped Apple somehow ignore the destruction of their wonderful UIs, those being the extreme fanboyism that seem to afflict the youthful, extremely good advertising campaigns, and the fact that Microsoft borked it up even worse than Apple with their absolutely disastrous Windows 8 (try to find the shutdown command, hahahahahaha! Talk about morons... The had it nailed with Win7, absolutely nailed.) And while I was not sold never sold on the brilliance of Steve Jobs alone before his decline, I am sold on it now! I have the dismal feeling that, with the loss of Jobs, Apple has quite literally lost their mind.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Apr 11, 2015, 08:00 AM
 
That's funny. I find Faces WAY improved over iPhoto.
     
panjandrum
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Apr 11, 2015, 10:53 AM
 
@Spheric. Well, one difference may be that, from decades of working with "normal people", I've come to have a very different perspective in terms of UI. It's one of the reasons that, even back in the Atari ST/TT/Falcon and Amiga days (both of which I personally preferred to Macs or PCs of the era), I would often recommend Mac systems; because the worked very, very well for non-technically literate. For example, I mentioned above that most of my clients never figure out the multi-touch gestures, because they don't. Doesn't matter if they are smart or not-so-smart, young or old, the vast majority don't figure them out, don't use them, and after years of use still find them confusing. Why? Because they aren't intuitive on a trackpad they way the are on iOS, and the UI lacks the elements which it needs to direct people towards understanding. Instead, what they do is accidentally activate feature, have no idea how they've done so, and get totally confused. Alternately, they fail to find features, such as the two-finger scrolling. Day in and day out I see students, young students who are GREAT at quickly learning technology, do all kids of weird things, like use arrow keys to scroll through the Applications folder, because they can't figure out how to scroll. These are issues we never, ever, saw prior to Apple borking-up the scroll-bars. Now, me, personally? I LOVE multi-touch features and use them all the time. I know them all, and know how to turn the ones I don't like on and off or change how the function. But that describes, maybe, 10% of the users I work with. And they won't ever learn it, because it's unintuitive. And that's just one example, the list is simply huge. Photos, for example, hid certain feature so well that I gave up and googled it? (The Sharpen features, for example). Why? Because they hid it behind a very small, text-only ADD "button" positioned at the top-right of the list of adjustments. Why? Why not just have a button (something that actually looks like a freaking BUTTON!) positioned BELOW the listed adjustments/filters/whatevers? The button could say "Add Effect" or "Add Adjustment". Then *bam* it would work right away. But somebody at Apple no longer understands basic UI usability concepts. And, because I look at software & the UI primarily from the viewpoint of my clients, not through my own eyes, I find it extremely frustrating. See, they don't want confusing features. They don't want hidden features. They don't want missing features. What they want is what Apple historically made, but don't seem to understand any longer; a computer with a UI that the average non-technical person can use almost immediately. With features they use, displayed and available and understandable. Do this; make a new user account and just add a few dozen photos to both iPhoto and Photos, leaving their display completely default. In which one can you immediately begin to understand how to organize Photos? In which one are your controls immediately obvious? In which one do you see the edit tools? It's a night-and-day difference, with the "wonderful" new Photos app showing you absolutely nothing but a thumbnail view of your photos and a tiny handful of things you can do with them (share, create album etc.). Even those feature are unlabeled, so if you want to know what the buttons do you have to "hover" over and icon. Which of these pieces of software has a better UI? Which one will be usable, almost immediately, by "everyman"? It's no contest. The UI for Photos was clearly designed by someone who either didn't understand, even slightly, how "everyman" wants software to look and work, or who understands it and just doesn't care.
     
panjandrum
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Apr 11, 2015, 10:54 AM
 
And wow is that full of typos. Sorry, I've got to start typing slower...
     
Stuke
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Apr 11, 2015, 11:59 AM
 
I think we all agree...post Steve Jobs, Quality at Apple has dropped to all-time lows. The richest company in the world can't keep professional software applications along side dumb-downed OSX/iOS versions for the selfie crowd? Impossible, even if you look past the business results and customer loyalty. Truly sad because their products are quickly becoming consumer/commodity junk.
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Spheric Harlot
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Apr 11, 2015, 02:44 PM
 
It's bullshit that quality has dropped since Steve left the helm. Anybody who believes this hasn't been around for long enough. The 90s were WAY more terrible. OS X 10.0 - 10.2 were painful.
Logic Pro is better than it ever has been (well, at least in the past fifteen years).

Yes, Photos is a step down from Aperture, but it's a 1.0 of a new architecture. As always, get the basics right first, then go advanced.

I *DO* agree that Apple has taken a new direction in UI, opting for elegance over discoverability in some cases. There are a number of basic functions that now require a context-click, with no corresponding menu item.
Having myself worked in "ordinary user" support for a decade, I watch this with a wary eye.

But I do think that they're consciously engineering a shift where "ordinary" users will increasingly be on iOS, while OS X is increasingly targeted towards "advanced" users.
     
panjandrum
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Apr 11, 2015, 03:06 PM
 
Well, I've been doing (almost all Apple-specific) support since the Mac II era, and other than the 7.5 era (pre-Jobs return), I've never seen anything like the decline in software quality (both feature-removal and UI-borking) that I currently see, so I have been around long enough, and I don't just believe it, I know it. Why? Because it's not just me. If it was just me, I would say "oh, I'm getting old and just don't like change." But it's very-nearly every single user I work with. And it's very-nearly every single user the local Mac store works with... It's continuous and it isn't good, and for the most part I agree with them, even though I wish I didn't. And I've got to say, I really don't understand how Apple is removing "pro" (power-user) features in their software and simultaneously making it harder to use, but they are somehow managing it. I wasn't a huge Jobs fan. I had doubts when he took the helm. But I was proven wrong. I had doubts about OS X, but I was proven wrong. I had hope that Apple would continue their trend of excellence, but I was proven wrong. (But yes, 10.0 - 10.2 were painful in quite a few ways, especially if you didn't have a relatively fast machine. I was lucky to have a very fast dual process or G4 tower during that time, so I had excellent performance, but I definitely understand your point.) I by no means wish to indicate that everything Jobs did was perfect; we did slowly see interface inconsistancies creep-in during his time, but compared to everything we've seen after? Well, I guess he did understand one thing; the single most absolutely critical element in good computer design is the interface with the human-being sitting on the other side of the screen. Unfortunately I don't see that understand from Apple currently. Keeping my fingers crossed that it will return though!
     
Spheric Harlot
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Apr 11, 2015, 09:02 PM
 
10.0 didn't even have a DVD player.
     
pigmode
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Apr 12, 2015, 02:57 PM
 
Apparently iPhoto looks to be absent after a Yosemite clean install.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Apr 12, 2015, 03:24 PM
 
It hasn't (if ever) been part of an OS install for a very long time.

iLife (iTunes excluded) was always bundled with new Macs, but never with OS X. If you had iPhoto previously, it should show up in the App Store under your purchases for you to download.
     
pigmode
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Apr 12, 2015, 07:23 PM
 
Makes sense, this was the first time I've needed to install OS X. Amazing considering my experiences with OS 8-9.
     
panjandrum
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Apr 13, 2015, 08:54 PM
 
Amusing iChat (errrrr, "Messages Chat") I just had with my sister:

Sis: Oh - and how in the world do I fix my iPhoto! I have been organizing for the past 6 months and this update changed the order of everything.

me: You have probably accidentally switched to 'Photos' instead of iPhoto... Just switch back to iPhoto. Look in your Applications folder. Apple is pushing this new "Photos" app because it is more like Photos on the iPad etc. iPhoto is still there. Switch back to that and use it instead. Eventually though, iPhoto will go away I expect.

sis: They need to stop messing with stuff! It's like someone came into my photo box and tossed them all over the floor.

Just reminded me once again how people really, really, don't like overhauls (or elimination) of the software they've come to understand.

And yes pigmode, you will need to use Migration Assistant to migrate iPhoto back from a different machine if you install Yosemite. The updates to iPhoto no longer show up in the App Store, even if you don't do a clean install. The old fixes for iPhoto updates no longer function, so the only way to get a fully updated iPhoto now appears to be copying it from a machine where it is already installed... This is because Apple knows what's best for you, much much better than you know it yourself!
     
pigmode
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Apr 14, 2015, 10:19 AM
 
Originally Posted by panjandrum View Post
And yes pigmode, you will need to use Migration Assistant to migrate iPhoto back from a different machine if you install Yosemite. The updates to iPhoto no longer show up in the App Store, even if you don't do a clean install. The old fixes for iPhoto updates no longer function, so the only way to get a fully updated iPhoto now appears to be copying it from a machine where it is already installed... This is because Apple knows what's best for you, much much better than you know it yourself!

panjandrum, I was just about to post the absence of iPhoto on App Store. Read a news headline about it a few days ago, but not knowing its significance I didn't pay attention. Thanks for the fix.
     
pharmacopoeia
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Apr 14, 2015, 03:45 PM
 
I've been using macs since the early 80's and iPhoto since it was introduced. I have used photoshop in the past (late 90's) but never Aperture or any other pro level photo editor as I really don't need one. My iPhoto library has 55,000 photos and 2,500 events, not that big from what I hear. I have recently tried Photos and decided to switch back to iPhoto. I like events; every time I add some photos they are organized into events. I've tried using the new moments but when i create a moment with new pics I can't even give the moment a title. It defaults to a location and day the pics were taken. When I click on the title it pulls up a map of where the pics were taken. Whatever. I don't have time for this, iPhoto works fine for me, Photos is outta my dock for now. I'll probably try it again later as Apple is likely to make the next OS incompatible with iPhoto if they stick to their typical pattern.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Apr 14, 2015, 04:23 PM
 
Originally Posted by pharmacopoeia View Post
I'll probably try it again later as Apple is likely to make the next OS incompatible with iPhoto if they stick to their typical pattern.
Really? What typical pattern is this?

Logic Pro 8 is from 2007 and still works on Yosemite, as does Logic Pro 9.
iDVD hasn't been updated in four years, and that still works.
iWeb is SIX YEARS OLD and still works fine in Yosemite.
I think they broke iMovie HD at some point, but that wasn't until years and years after it was replaced.
     
panjandrum
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Apr 14, 2015, 09:11 PM
 
Just coming back to beat a dead-horse here, but to report that I've spend practically all day now with clients and all evening with family members "fixing" Apple's latest update. I have heard not one single bit of positive feedback. To say that the feedback I'm getting has been "negative" regarding "Photos" doesn't even come close to describing some of the things I've heard. A couple of the more memorable comments, verbatim: was "Whoever came up with the sorting in this thing had their head up their *ss", and "So Steve jobs dies and apple loses it. Is that the lesson here?" It's really, really sad...
     
zemble
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Apr 16, 2015, 07:22 PM
 
I agree that Photos looks pretty cool. I agree that the simple editing tools are also quite neat -- I'm a long time Aperture user, but it was an app that was getting dated pretty quickly.

I'm more concerned about the sharing. The first thing Photos does is check your library size and then, assuming it's bigger than a measly 5GB, asks you to buy more storage.

What happens if I do? How do I control that -- as others say, I don't necessary want access to everything on all devices and to add in all the photos from my family's iCloud accounts. What happens in a years time when I decide not to renew that storage bill? I assume all my photos disappear.

As with many things Apple's done recently, Photos currently seems to be a cool looking app, but with a hamfisted and very commercially orientated hidden agenda. Storage is cheaper, more flexible and easier to use elsewhere – at worst Flickr gives 1TB free -- so I'm really not sure Photos is a road I'd want to go down. I'll be checking for Lightroom discounts for the timebeing.
     
pigmode
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Apr 16, 2015, 08:38 PM
 
Did anyone have 10.10.3 supplemental update erase iPhoto?
     
Doc HM
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Apr 17, 2015, 06:54 AM
 
Despite coming as part of the 10.10.3 update Apple seem to have overlooked the save to er... iPhoto option in mail. It's still there and invoking it results in, well very little since Photos updates your iPhoto library. Maybe 10.10.4 will update mail properly.

That's an oops.
This space for Hire! Reasonable rates. Reach an audience of literally dozens!
     
Mike Wuerthele
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Apr 17, 2015, 09:09 AM
 
Originally Posted by pigmode View Post
Did anyone have 10.10.3 supplemental update erase iPhoto?
Not here.
     
pigmode
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Apr 17, 2015, 10:09 PM
 
Thanks.
     
   
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