Apple announced Photos last year during the WWDC. The Photos app along with iCloud Photo Library will allow you to store all of your photos in the cloud with iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, provided you upgrade your iCloud storage space to accommodate your iCloud Photo Library. Photos will end up replacing Aperture and iPhoto. You can upload your pictures to iCloud Photo Library via iCloud.com. Currently this feature is in a public beta and this how-to article will discuss how to get a head start and upload your pictures to iCloud Photo Library before Photos becomes available for the Mac to the public.
First you have to enable iCloud Photo Library by turning it on from your iOS device that is currently running iOS 8.1 or later. Open up Settings and tap on iCloud. From there tap on Photos.
Then you are going to turn on iCloud Photo Library. This will automatically upload and store your entire library in iCloud to access photos and videos from all of your devices. If you previously have photos synced from iTunes they will be removed; there will be a prompt alerting you of this. If you have several iOS devices that you want to use with iCloud Photo Library, you will need to do this on all of the devices. When the photos are uploaded into iCloud, this will only occur while connected to WiFi to avoid high data usage.
When you turn on iCloud Photo Library, you have two different options as to how the photos are handled and stored: Optimize iPhone/iPad Storage or Download and Keep Originals. If you choose the first option, Optimize iPhone/iPad Storage, this will reduce the file size of the pictures on the device and keep the full resolution version of the picture in iCloud. If you choose the second option Download and Keep Originals, this will keep the full resolution version of the picture in iCloud and locally on the device.
To get started and view the pictures from your iOS device on iCloud, go to iCloud.com and sign in with your Apple ID and password.
To see the pictures you uploaded to iCloud from your iOS device, click on Photos.
The first time using iCloud Photo Library it prepares it. This process can either be quick or can take a period of time to load.
Viewing the pictures will look identical between the iOS device and iCloud.com.
When viewing photos, you do have the option to denote that image as a Favorite by selecting the heart icon in the upper right hand corner. When you favorite the photo on either the iOS device, Photos, or iCloud.com, it will automatically be denoted as a favorite on the other devices. It creates an album for your Favorites.
Also, when you delete a photo, the deletes are synced, meaning that if you delete a photo off of your iOS device, it will delete off of iCloud.com and out of Photos. If you delete a photo off of iCloud.com, it will delete off of the iOS device and out of Photos.
Now that we viewed the pictures that were uploaded from the iOS device into iCloud, lets upload pictures from the computer into iCloud. To get started and upload the pictures from your computer into iCloud Photo Library, make sure you are still logged into iCloud.com and have Photos selected.
You can either drag and drop the photos onto iCloud.com to upload them, or press on the word Upload in grey in the upper right hand corner and select the photos you want to upload and press the word Choose in blue in the lower right hand corner.
Those pictures that I uploaded from iCloud.com now appear wirelessly on my iOS device without me having to do anything.
Photos in iCloud.com is still in beta. When I did upload the photos, at first on iCloud.com the metadata was incorrect for the photos, specifically the dates being displayed was incorrect. Going out of Photos and reopening Photos seemed to fix this issue. On the iOS device this worked seamlessly the first try.
Currently, with the beta of Photos in iCloud.com, it only supports uploading JPEG files, so you cannot upload PNGs or MOVs.
With iCloud you only get 5GB of storage space for free. Chances are you have more than 5GB of photos that you want to store in the cloud. iCloud has four different paid subscriptions for getting additional storage space. This storage space would be used for iCloud Photo Library, iCloud Drive, Mail, and backing up iOS devices associated on your account.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
im having a many issues lately with Photos on iCloud… they wont sync across devices, my 6 Plus hasnt uploaded any pictures for 3 weeks, when i try to upload through iCloud.com it will mess up with metadata… i know it’s still Beta, but i used to work like a charm before
Best to use that purple Feedback App. If it’s not reported, may not be fixed. Mine works ok now; although it took several days to upload 25GB of photos.
I’m on support call now… about to reach senior advisor level. Same issue.
the thing is i cant report anything because im not a developer so i dont have the bug reporting app
I’m on support call now… about to reach senior advisor level. Same issue.
It’s still in beta, but it’s been in beta much longer than it should have been. Unfortunately it still behaves as if it’s a beta product in that it’s still very buggy. I don’t know what Apple’s problem is in getting this service in good working order. It doesn’t seem like it’s doing anything that complicated. This product should have been functioning smoothly and out of beta a long time ago.
iCloud.com has been preparing my library for about three months.
I have had the same issue since day one. My library still isn’t prepared. I’ve called support, they couldn’t fix it, they said they would follow up with me after they spoke to the engineers. That didn’t happen so I emailed and called back the same person. Three months later my library still isn’t prepared.
Not looking real promising! A single heart as the only way to denote your favorite images? Is it possible to select just the images we want synched to the cloud? I definitely don’t want my 600,000+ images on all my devices not to mention the monthly iCloud costs such a huge library would require.
I was a huge fan of Apple photo tools, iPhoto and Aperture. As a professional photographer I used Aperture. Apple announced they were stopping development and eventually support for Aperture to concentrate on the new Photos app.I still can’t believe their giving up on such a professional tool that bought them so many new users of their larger Mac computers. Apple seems to have forgotten the immense benefit of Mac exclusive software for creating more buyers and adopters of their hardware products? I was a Microsoft user for decades UNTIL I wanted the power of an amazing photo app called Aperture. I was unable to get that app until I bought the only hardware that could run it. That was the Apple Mac. I had no reason or desire to switch to Apple until Aperture was released and we now have 7 Apple desktops and laptops in our office. One of the machines being a Mac Pro that cost nearly $7000 dollars. Our office has spent tens of thousands of dollars with Apple due to one program and one program only. APERTURE. The dismantling of Aperture is a huge mistake in my opinion.
Ok, so now that I’ve got that off my chest I want to mention I’ve been searching for a new program. I used Lightroom for 5 years and I’m not anxious to go back. To that end I’m currently looking in to a new program on the scene called Mylio. It does virtually the same things a Apple’s new Photos which syncs across all your iOS devices as well as desktops and laptops and it works across all platforms. Yes, it works with Android and Windows if that’s the route you want to go. Mylio in its current state is most definitely not going to fill Apertures shoes but it looks very promising. I’ve loaded my nearly 1 million image database and I can scroll through the entire library like no other program I’ve used. It’s rocket fast. Aperture was also fast but nothing like I’ve experienced in Mylio so far. The jury is still a long ways out but if you have an interest in knowing more you can get a short preview of what I’m looking in to here: http://naturalexposures.com/mylio/
Daniel I am also a professional photographer and I mirror your feelings about Aperture. I have decided to continue using Aperture for the time being. I am confident that it will continue to work for quite some time. At the same time I have chosen Phase One’s Capture One Pro as my future editor. It is much more complicated than Aperture but has vastly superior editing features. I’ve always used a managed library, which Capture One supports. Capture One also imports directly from Aperture, preserving metadata, ratings and most editing. I highly recommend you check it out.
Thanks Gerry. I’ve been looking at Capture one myself but I’ve not heard great things about it’s DAM capabilities. I was never all that disappointed in Apertures lack of image editing tools since I do very little to my images. What I do require is great Digital Asset Management which Aperture did really well. I’m still planning to use Aperture myself for the time being but I see the writing on the wall. I was holding out to see what Photos was going to be like. One program nobody is really considering that I’m starting to get really excited about is this new program called Mylio. It doesn’t have much for editing tools, they are very basic, but it works really well with Photoshop and integrates seamlessly with Lightroom. I have to say it’s somewhat of a Lightroom replacement so I’m thinking about using it with PS as the image editing tool. Mylio is definitely worth a look and I’m most likely going to be going the Mylio route. I’ve been watching Mylio since it’s release and they are constantly updating, adding and tweaking. They also say they are firmly committed to much more robust image ending tools. Thanks for the info. #Mylio
Not looking real promising! A single heart as the only way to denote your favorite images? Is it possible to select just the images we want synched to the cloud? I definitely don’t want my nearly 1 million images on all my devices not to mention the monthly iCloud costs such a huge library would require.
I was a huge fan of Apple photo tools, iPhoto and Aperture. As a professional photographer I used Aperture. Apple announced they were stopping development and eventually support for Aperture to concentrate on the new Photos app.I still can’t believe their giving up on such a professional tool that bought them so many new users of their larger Mac computers. Apple seems to have forgotten the immense benefit of Mac exclusive software for creating more buyers and adopters of their hardware products? I was a Microsoft user for decades UNTIL I wanted the power of an amazing photo app called Aperture. I was unable to get that app until I bought the only hardware that could run it. That was the Apple Mac. I had no reason or desire to switch to Apple until Aperture was released and we now have 7 Apple desktops and laptops in our office. One of the machines being a Mac Pro that cost nearly $7000 dollars. Our office has spent tens of thousands of dollars with Apple due to one program and one program only. APERTURE. The dismantling of Aperture is a huge mistake in my opinion.
Ok, so now that I’ve got that off my chest I want to mention I’ve been searching for a new program. I used Lightroom for 5 years and I’m not anxious to go back. To that end I’m currently looking in to a new program on the scene called Mylio. It does virtually the same things a Apple’s new Photos which syncs across all your iOS devices as well as desktops and laptops and it works across all platforms. Yes, it works with Android and Windows if that’s the route you want to go. Mylio in its current state is most definitely not going to fill Apertures shoes but it looks very promising. I’ve loaded my nearly 1 million image database and I can scroll through the entire library like no other program I’ve used. It’s rocket fast. Aperture was also fast but nothing like I’ve experienced in Mylio so far. The jury is still a long ways out but if you have an interest in knowing more you can get a short preview of what I’m looking in to here: http://naturalexposures.com/mylio/
Thank you very much for your honest, upfront insight about Apple and their new Photos application. I myself am going through gyrations as Apple continues to tighten controls in their walled-garden approach to, well, just about everything for that matter. I understand the concern and advantages of having a closed ecosystem, and perhaps it is a good thing to a degree. But Apple is going overboard quickly. I love the convenience of being able to take photos and video, via iDevices. The best camera is the one you always have with you, right?! That more often then not is the photo / video camera I carry in my shirtpocket. Namely, an iPhone 6+. But, once I shoot images or video clips, thats where the pleasantries end. I can even enjoy and appreciate the basic editing capabilities of Photos app which perhaps suffices for most people and most desired edits (i.e., crop, resize, exposure adjustments, etc.) Where I begin to run into any problem is the transport of that data…. export, import, synchronization, iCloud setup and the whole 9 yards mess.
iCloud Drive
On my iMac Retina, I would very much like to be able to just drop files into iCloud Drive, in a folder or sub-folder organization of my choosing, and then have them show up in Photos on my i-devices, say, to edit on the ipad with bigger screen. NOT! That is one frustration.
Videos
Video edit on an iPhone, even the larger 6+ is not impossible, but surely not desirable. I prefer to do this task on an iPad. There are times I want to shoot video (which I treat equally as important as photos) but not to do so on a 9.7″ iPad screen like some geek. But, after shooting on the iPhone, I then want to get them onto the iPad. With both devices connected to my iMac Retina at home, ideally, it would be great if I could just take video clips shot on the iPhone, drop them into iCloud Drive, and make them available on the iPad to edit in iMovie, Pinnacle Studio, etc. NOT. Unless it’s Apple’s ‘walled garden’ .mp4, .mov clip wrappers. (i.e., can not import .mkv, .avi) I am out of luck.
Without rambling on too much further in a monologue here, do you think this mylio service will be beneficial for what I want to accomplish in movement of data? And, in particular, in there is a good solution for importing and editing videos on the iPad? For now, I’ve been pretty much relying on the tried and true, Macbook Pro, which is a full-fledged computer rather then attempting to make the iPad an equivalent device.
All this importation and synchronization, etc., of current times is a consuming process in the first place but if it’s the future (present) then I must deal with it. But, I’d like to do so with the least amount of headaches. Thus, thoughts have already passed through my mind more then once to jump ship from iPhone, and go Android. I would get a state-of-the-art Android smart phone of some sort with MicroSD card support.
BTW, I also use Lightroom (LR6 soon to release) but am considering alternate solutions. One such solution I came across is from DxO. You might want to look at. DxO Optics Pro 10 for one.
http://www.dxo.com/us/photography/photo-software/dxo-opticspro
I personally have not used it but it might be one more option. Thanks for reading. I’m all ears on your suggestions and recommendations. Cheers,
Tokyojerry,
I’m not sure about your desire to edit video in Mylio on the iPad so I’m going to pass your question on to a young man at Mylio named Matt that has been a tremendous help with my questions and concerns. Lets’s see what Matt has to say.
Tokyojerry,
I missed your comment about DXO. I too have used this program and it is and excellent option for working with your RAW files. I see it as another tool to work WITH Mylio. It just doesn’t have the DAM options Mylio is offering. That’s the key to my dilemma, I need a fast and speedy way to keep track and find over 700,000 digital images. I’ve also tried Lightroom and with this many pictures it Lightroom almost comes to a halt. Lightroom has gotten better at handling larger loads but it was never as good as Aperture in that department and Aperture was a dog compared to what I’m experience with Mylio. Thanks for the suggestion.
Hi Tokyojerry – Matt from Mylio Support here. This is such a great workflow – and one that I didn’t immediately know the answer to. So I tried it myself! Here is what I did.
– Take my iPhone 6+ and shoot a video
– Opened Mylio on my iPhone 6+, the video automatically imported
– Opened Myio on my iPad – the video automatically became available on my iPad. It did take a few minutes as it is the full video file.
– Once the video had fully loaded to Mylio, I downloaded it back to the Photos app using the “save” feature*
– iMovie for the iPad was then able to see that clip and let me edit it.
– Once edited, I saved the video – which put it BACK in my photo library**, which Mylio is watching, so it automatically reimported.
– The edited version and non edited version were now on my iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
*Mylio is constantly watching your camera roll, so as soon as something is saved to it it will be reimported. So, once I “Saved imaged” the video was reimported into Mylio. I now have 2 copies in Mylio (not the end of the world as I can delete one of them from Mylio without any recourse).
** Here is now a third copy – two unedited and one edited
Nevertheless, despite having a few things to clean up this was a very easy process. I’m pretty happy it worked out the way it did, honestly!
I’m happy to answer any questions that you (or anyone) has about Mylio! Feel free to email us, too, at support@mylio.com.
Sorry for the duplicate post. I tried to edit my first post and it ended up posting the same one twice. I don’t see an edit button once you have hit the POST button. Most other Blog posts give you that option.
Nothing personal, but I think this article is a bit irresponsible. Most folks have their photos currently stored in iPhoto on their computer and only have a sub-set of those photos on their iOS devices. To advise people to upload *some* photos to the cloud, (which is in BETA!), before the primary photo library on OS X is updated is just asking for problems IMO.
Your media libraries are actually DATABASES. It’s poor practice at best to try to update subsets of data in this database from multiple different locations and try to synchronize them, when an update for the entire database is what’s needed and is in fact, just around the corner.
IMO the best advice is to concentrate on getting your iPhoto library in order, deleting doubles, old photos, etc., and going through the Faces and Places interface to make sure all that data is correct. When the next version of OS X arrives, it will have the Photos update and iPhoto will be gone forever. It makes more sense to concentrate on making that import of your *entire* library goes smoothly in one shot, than to worry about the photos you have on iOS now.
I disagree. The iOS app and your Mac are maintaining their own databases. it’s not like everything is on the one system and you are attempting to migrate 50% off it, you’re syncing two different databases and some analysis will be done on the server to determine whether a photo is a copy of something already there prior to merging online, and from that determine if a new entry needs to be created in the DB or not.
The iOS beta has been available to anyone since last year, where for most people (non developers) the OS X beta only became available two months back (public beta) or is still not available. As such, one should assume Apple themselves are supporting migration of iOS devices prior to the OS X library. Also there’s been nothing to suggest that your entire library should all be locally sync’d to a central datastore before uploading anyway, if anything that defeats some of the point in the new Photos services.
When this goes live it’s very likely people will enable one device before another. There’ll also be people out there that have half a dozen iOS devices to sync who aren’t using iPhoto (or even a Mac) for photo management, so one way or another those libraries (which may still have cross over files) need to be consolidated.
The only potentially irresponsible move is encouraging the use of beta software. That said, it’s been available for about six or so months now in one form or another,so it’s not like it hasn’t gone through the paces yet.
I commented a problem and found, when one goes up many photos to iCloud, climbed 35000 photos in the iPhone one previsualizacion Photo is saved, occupying less space, the problem is that having 35000 photos on my iphone when one wants attach a photo in a message or accessed from any application to the photos, this takes too long to open, so it becomes very tedious waiting
Anyone knows if there’s a way of acivating this but not downloading your entire photo library to your phone? I mean… I have more than 40GBs of photos and the idea of having my entire library in my iPhone seems ridiculous. Even if they are “optimized” for the device.
You have to have 2 libraries. Load Photos, and let it create one. Add everything you want to sync to this one. Close it, and open photos again (holding shift or option I believe, one will prompt you to make a new library). This one won’t sync, you only get to sync one. Add the rest of your stuff to that.
Personally, I think on the Photos app they should just add a ‘do not sync’ button.
Reblogged this on Independent Reviews, Rants, Raves And Tech Questions Answered.
I am just puzzled by what is going on in Apple today. Don’t these guys use their own services? Don’t they use their iPhones, iPads and iCloud? How is it possible that all these things have so many shortcomings? I just don’t understand it. I am less satisfied with my iPhone 6 today than I was when I still had the 3GS (running whatever software it had – iOS 3, 4, etc). Everything worked perfectly and nothing annoyed me. Oh I miss those days. Don’t get me wrong, the iPhone 6 is an amazing piece of work, but there are things that annoy me. Nothing annoyed me back in the 3GS days. :)
I have been waiting for the iCloud Photos app since the launch of the iCloud. I was somewhat happy to learn that they were finally taking steps towards this, but it’s still an horrible experience. It’s slow, the UI stinks and I have very little control over things.
I am not a big fan of having my photos in multiple places. I want to have one central photo library, not four or five. I don’t want some of my photos on iCloud, some on OneDrive, some on Flickr, some on Instagram, etc. I want them all in ONE place. It’s less hassle, less worry, and finding photos is a whole lot easier. But apparently Apple doesn’t want my old photos on iCloud. You know, the ones I took back in 2003 with my old Olympus digital camera. In fact, they are not really fond of the ones I will take later today with my Canon SLR either. They only want photos taken with an i-device.
Why do I think so? Because I can’t choose which photos will be downloaded to my iPhone or iPad. So obviously I can’t be uploading 100 GB worth of photos to iCloud. Even if I had the 128GB iPhone and all of them would barely fit in there, what’s the point of it? I’d have no room for podcasts or books, and my Photos app would be useless (and probably super-slow). I can’t have folders inside folders, so I’d have something like 350 folders in there. And tens of thousands of photos inside the ”All Photos” folder. What a mess! Yeah, they have those Moments and Collections and what not, but not all of my photos have geotags in them. And I bet some might even have wrong dates (it’s fixable, yet very time consuming) because who paid attention to those things 10 years ago, right?! :)
But the main point is that I don’t want to have all my photos stored on my iPhone. I only want some of them.
And I’d really like to be able to organize these things more. Folders inside folders. Better tags or something. I don’t know. And definitely a more advanced ”Search” option. Maybe they could build some kind of a face/shape recognition thingy into the app, so if I search ”my brother”, I will get all the photos where my brother is on. This could possibly work with other things, such as cars, food or home.
Sadly, I don’t own a Mac. I don’t know what the Photos app will look like on the Mac, but the iCloud experience stinks. I can’t even make folders on iCloud. Basically you can only view, upload and download photos. No editing or anything. But I’m hopeful that the Mac app is more advanced. You know, that you can actually change the metadata or something. Sometimes I’ve uploaded an old photo to iCloud Photos, and then discovered that the metadata was missing or wrong. Since I have no way of editing it on iCloud or my iOS devices, I must delete the photo and upload it again (with correct metadata). Oh bs.
I would also like to share an entire album without going into PhotoStream. I’d like videos on iCloud Photos. And I’d like it to be fast and user-friendly. :)
One program that everyone seems to be missing is this new piece of software called Mylio. I wanted to comment under Tuvatech who had a long list of things that he’s disappointed in with Photos. One thing he mentioned was wanting a single repository for all his images. Mylio is that answer. It’s cloud based but you only have to upload the images you want and they can be “old images” as Tuvatech referred to. The ones in the Cloud sync seamlessly across all your devices. Image editing tools aren’t quite up to scratch yet but I’ve been in contact with the Mylio support crew and they are making some big and amazing promises. This software is a sleeper based on what I’m already seeing. I plan to use Mylio for DAM and Photoshop or Pixelmator for image editing. They are worth a look at http://www.mylio.com
FYI, you can upload 100gb worth of photos to iCloud. The ones that are on your device are basically screenshots until you decide to download them.
@Daniel J. Cox: Thanks, I’ll check it out. I’ve been looking for a good photo client for years.
@Darth J: You could, but can you imagine the mess on your iPhone? Would you really want to have 18,000 photos (or screenshots of them) in your ‘All Photos’ folder? Can you imagine how slow it would be? And hundreds and hundreds of separate folders (remember, no folders inside folders allowed). You would never find anything from there. And the sorting is horrible. I don’t know what’s going on, but the photos were NOT organized by ”date taken.” I have about 300-400 photos on iCloud Photos right now and re-arranging them (so they would be in a correct order) on my iPhone (you can’t do it via iCloud) was a nightmare. I would literally kill myself if I had to do this for 18,000 photos or something.
And what if you do want to look at some random photo for whatever reason? You know, show my friends that there was a pink rabbit on the roof of my car or something. This photo now gets downloaded and it is on my iPhone. As far as I know, I can’t delete it. After some time I might have hundreds of photos like that downloaded to the phone. They all take up space and it quickly just turns into a nightmare.
Plus I forgot to add in my original comment that there are different types of photos that I have on my library. There are ”classical” photos that I have taken, but there are also photos that I have saved from Facebook, Twitter or some website. There are photos of newspaper articles, meme-quotes or what not. Last week I saw an awesome 4K TV for sale, and I took a photo of its price tag. I have many screenshots from my laptop or iPhone. They may have .jpg or .png at the end, but they are not technically ”photos.” I wouldn’t want to have them in the same folder as the photos I took with my wife when we went down to the Bahamas. So iCloud Photos desperately needs more organizing options. :)
I cannot but agree. I just want on my iPhone what I need and want. I want my last x events, or my last x months worth of photos, organised in folders/events/whatever. And I want to add folders of specific “photos” (screenshots, prices, memes, or what I generically call “various” pics) to the lot. Like I can do now with Aperture/iPhotos + iTunes in 10.10.2 and cannot do in 10.10.3 – iTunes shows only a lone “Pictures” folder….
And no, I don’t want a System library and another library on my Mac, moving stuff around as it gets older….
And not, I will not buy extra storage to keep 90GB/18k photos in a Cloud, uploaded at a speed of 6Mbps.
Apple – what are you thinking????
Tuvatech,
I agree with all your frustrated dislikes of what Photos is offering. I feel your pain. That’s why I’m trying Mylio, a program I thought was a kind of knock off of Photos with a funny little name. Wow, I could not have been more wrong. I’m still just testing this program but it is way, way more comprehensive and customizable than Photos. It has the similar cloud based idea but you don’t have to have ANYTHING on the cloud you don’t want. You can have JUST the folders/pictures you choose to showcase on your iPad or iPhone. AND you DO NOT have to make an entire Library commitment to the cloud. And get this, Mylio actually supports X-Rite Color Management ON YOUR IPAD for goodness sake.Photoshop or Lightroom doesn’t even have this ability. here’s a video showing you how: https://vimeo.com/123988894
When I first heard of Mylio I thought it was just another program for those who had no interest in power computing. That’s not the case. If you know the history of the lead developer and CEO of Mylio, you come to realize this is going to be the sleeper program nobody dreamed of. David Vaskovitch was one of the head Mucky Mucks of software design at Microsoft for many years. He left, as many MS employees have done, and decided to do something on his own. What’s important to this story is, David LOVES photography and he’s in charge of making sure ideas are implemented in the Mylio software. Like color calibrating an iPad for goodness sake. That’s the kind of commitment we’re going to see over time. I don’t see Mylio trying to compete with Lightroom as editing software but I do see it competing on the DAM side with basic to moderate tools for adjusting your pictures. Mylio I believe is going to be the answer for making the DAM (Digital Asset Management AKA Keeping track of your precious memories) simple and efficient but leaving the heavy lifting for digital editing to the likes of Photoshop, Pixelmator or DXO for creative changes or tweaking.
This program really deserves a look, especially for those of us who were hoping beyond hope that Photos might be able to replace Aperture. Unfortunately, we’re all finding this was a pipe dream. Speaking of Aperture, Mylio is about to release an Aperture to Mylio migration tool. When that happens I’ll be jumping in with both feet and will stop back to let anyone interested know how it’s going.
One final thought about Photos and Apple’s decision to leave all serious shooters hanging. Even if Photos does morph in to some sort of more powerful program, I’m no longer interested in putting all my eggs in Apple’s basket. I bought in to the Mac eco system specifically due to Aperture. I’ve been a so called Apple “Fan Boy” ever since but with the demise of Aperture I’ve matured you might say. I’m no longer “drinking the cool-aid” when it comes to believing in Apple’s software. I still feel their operating system and hardware are the best on this Planet but hanging serious photographers out to dry as they did with Aperture has changed my feelings about their software drastically. I’m betting on the dark horses that have that fire in their gut for a smaller audience like the professional photography crowd and I’m becoming more and more convinced Mylio is one of those dark horses.
Take a look at Mylio for yourself at this web address: http://mylio.com. They really do deserve a look.
http://mylio.com/product/pricing/
I don’t see how this pricing is any different or better than iCloud Photo Library. If I have to spend 50$ (or 50€?) to be able to choose which folders or photos go in the Cloud, then I can simply try to find a way to have second “system library” that never is bigger than 3-4GB and use that to sync everything for free withing the 5GB limit of the *free* iCloud storage.
Or am I missing something here?
@Daniel J. Cox
Thanks, I’ll definitely check it out. Although I don’t have a Mac (wish I could afford it though), I too become an Apple ”Fan Boy.” I moved all the documents to iCloud (which meant that editing them became a nightmare), but I really wanted to be in the eco-system. I’m still hoping to get myself a Mac one day.
Right now I’m storing my photos on Microsoft’s OneDrive. It’s not exactly a good piece of software, but at least it allows me to access all my photos from my iOS devices. I have been waiting for years for Apple to figure out the Photos thing, but I’m beginning to lose patience. So I too am slowly starting to look towards other software again.
Maybe it’s just me, but ever since Jobs passed away, Apple hasn’t been the same. They seemed to be a bit lost. Almost afraid to do something because they just might screw up. iCloud has such potential, but they are not doing anything with it. They should have everything up there, including Apple Maps (which they should improve – I mean they have the money for it). And they should really work to compete with OneDrive, Google Drive, etc for storage. Because as long as people store their files on iCloud, it only makes sense to own Apple products.
They used to be a top-notch software company, but now they are losing ground. I’m no longer using Apple Calendar (Fantastical is so much better) or Apple Mail (Gmail’s design beats Apple by a mile). Reminders app stinks, so does Podcasts and iBooks. It’s all rubbish these days.
Apple needs to be bold and revolutionary. Speaking of iCloud, they should drop the ”5GB for free” thing and replace it with something that would destroy their competition. They should give a user the same amount of storage that he or she has on whatever device the person just bought. In other words, if I purchase a 128GB iPhone 6, then Apple will give me 128GB of storage on iCloud. And this is for me to keep. If I re-sell the phone, then I get to keep the storage but the next guy doesn’t (because the storage has already be redeemed – that guy can rent it if he needs it). And let’s assume that now I will buy a 512GB MacBook. Again, Apple should add 512GB of storage to my iCloud (now I would have 128 + 512 GB). The price of a 1GB storage is meaningless. And as time goes on, the cheaper it will get. I remember when 100MB was a lot of space, but now it’s nothing. So in a few years it wouldn’t cost Apple a lot to service all this storage they gave out in the past. Just as it wouldn’t cost anything to still offer someone 100MB of storage. If you follow. :)
Of course they need to improve their upload/download speeds (the site is DEAD SLOW right now), but this could ultimately give one a chance to backup his or her entire MacBook to the cloud. Goodbye Time Capsule or what not. You don’t have to do it, but you could. Now this would be a bold move from Apple.
MEGA offers 50GB for free. I think you can upload 1TB of free photos to Flickr, and Apple can’t afford to give us more than 5GB for free? C’mon Apple!
Tuvatech,
You have some very interesting ideas in this post. Regarding Apple loosing their way since Jobs died, I have to disagree. Part of the reason Apple killed Aperture is due to the less than positive response it received upon it’s original release. It was a gorgeous program but it was a mess and Jobs was still in full control at that point. As I think I’ve already mentioned, I switched to Mac for Aperture. However, when I got the program up and running it was so full of bugs it was almost useless. I actually moved over to Lightroom even though I switched my entire ecosystem over to Mac. Along with the many bugs, Aperture also required that you allow it to ingest and hold all your photos within the program as opposed to the “Referenced” library option it has today. Pros were just not comfortable with Aperture sucking all their photos in to it and holding on to them. I think that was THE biggest mistake Apple made with Aperture. I have no idea what professional photographers/photographer Apple was consulting for their Aperture ideas, maybe nobody, but whoever they were they did not see the backlash that forcing photographers to use a “Managed” library would create. Aperture never recovered in the mind of serious enthusiast and professional photographers. Six months later Adobe released Lightroom, which DID NOT require a managed library, and that was the death nell for Aperture. Unfortunately that all happened with Steve still at the helm.
The great thing about this new Mylio program is the fact that Mylio is ALL THEY DO. And the guy who’s in full control is not doing anything other than directing software coders and SHOOTING PICTURES. AND he’s reaching out to some of the worlds best photographers like Joe McNally, Mathew Jordan Smith, Scott Kelby, Tamara Lackey and Chase Jarvis. All great people to help Mylio understand what we all need as serious shooters. You can see more in this video https://vimeo.com/119791769
Obviously you can tell Im excited about this program. This could be the best thing that’s happened to DAM software since Aperture was introduced. But better yet, this looks like it’s going to go way beyond Aperture.
@Daniel J. Cox, I loved your ‘mini’ dissertation to Tuvatech. And, Amen about Apple and it’s software trends. I just made a long post to you (above) on that matter. I also am no longer one of them so-called, ‘fan boys’s of the Apple club. And, I do concur with you that the operating system as well as the hardware are some of the finest on the planet. But, beyond that, I jump ship for the most part. Just like Apple is always flexing with matters of modus operandi in their business practices, one must also be flexible in adopting to the changing times.
Thanks to your introduction, I am looking into Mylio myself. Where Apple drops the ball, here along comes David Vaskovitch to fill the vacuum with a niche opportunity and need. I think it’s great. Far better then Apple’s thus far crapping implementation of iDrive. I am monitoring and very much watching increased development at Mylio. And if the basic editing tools are there which can give me all that Photos does already, that will be an added plus alpha factor, Why would one even need Photos.app then?! I will be a happy camper. So far I am testing out Mylio’s free account. After I get myself a bit more coniditioned to this DAM (digital assets management) system, I will look into upgrading my account. I also hope they take video (and maybe even audio) needs into consideration as they further progress their infrastructure. I know that they seem to be focused primarily on photos aspect of DAM. But, the digital era of multimedia is an AVI-factor…… A-udio, V-ideo, I-mages. Let me explain. I like photographs too, but I also treat video equally important. Photographs are like 1D compared to 3D video. You look at a photo, people go uh-huh for a few seconds, and then it goes into the ‘electronic shoebox’ or ‘filing cabinet’ until it’s viewed again (if ever). I call video 3D because it has additional dimensions to only imagery, you also have the added dimensions of sound, and motion, accompanying that imagery. Thus, I regard video as 3 dimensional. Ten years later, one can go back to a vacation or event of today, and reminisce, re-experience that event with total immersion… the sounds, and motions along with that imagery. (i.e., Martin Luther King’s famous speech, or JFK’s inaugural) So, it’s my own take on why I want to see importance given to video support as much as photographic support. And, considering it’s a given that cameras, smartphones and all sorts of recording equipment record all 3 dimensions of AVI, services’ infrastructures I think also need to support importation and synchronization of the A-V-I factor. Collectively AVI is the sum total and recordation of the human experience, not only flat, one dimensional images.
Tokyojerry,
Mylio actually does have editing tools that are presently fairly basic but they seem to be at least as good as the new Photos. And based on the amazing support staff the current tools are just the start. Also, yes, Mylio currently accepts video files as well. Not sure about just audio. I too am producing many more video projects. Video is without a doubt the future. All aspects of multimedia are essential and I think Mylio knows this. I couldn’t have written a better description of why all aspects of the Multimedia experience is necessary. You gave a superb description that I think everybody should be able to understand and appreciate.
My iCloud Photo Library (on iCloud.com) has been “preparing” for about 3 weeks now.
i uploaded RAW files, i can see it on all my devices
This does not help my cause. It’s for people who subscribe to Apple’s most expensive cloud storage plan and even then it will not suffice because the average person accumulates a lot of photos more now than before. Regardless, weather you subscribe to the highest value plan or not. this is a problematic way to manage your photos with little to no recourse if you do it wrong. There are lot of issues that are not supported within the iCloud/photo app platform. I am a photo enthusiast and have been trying to utilize Apple’s iPhoto, aperture and the like for years. There are reasons they are doing away with those apps and this is no better. Apple should stick to hardware and let the pros develop software. Finally, there are other options out there to manage your gorgeous iPhone photos and I suggest you research those immediately.
I for one am not not Happy with iCloud photos, I think most users are going to be confused by the interface. I really believe it requires a complete rewrite.
I have a 90GB library. I want on my iPhone only the last x most recent events on it. Not all of them. I don’t care to carry around in my iPhone 18k photos. Not to mention that with a 6Mbps uplink speed (like with most DSL connections or cable connections optmised for downlink) it would take *FOREVER* to upload the entire library as Apple hints I should if I enabled iCloud Photo Library. And no, I don’t want 2 libraries, one of which is the smaller “system library”. How about “sync” last x most recent events?
And no, I am not buying extra storage to upload 90GB worth of photos – when I am only interested in having maybe the last 1-2GB (if at all) on my iPhone.
I agree with most comments – what are they thinking? that we want GBs of photos on our phones at all times? And what about Photostream? that was a good idea they could have built upon – will that disappear? that could have been the new Photo Roll.
Last but not least, I have installed yesterday 10.10.3 and iTunes does not allow to sync with my Photos library like I used to do with Aperture/iPhoto. Those 2 options are also not available anymore – only a generic “Pictures” directory is available.
How am I going to sync the last x most recent events now on my iPhone????
PS: Photos compared to Aperture is way faster and uses far far less RAM.
Hmm, I simply don’t want my photos in the cloud where US gov agencies will snoop through them.
Among other things – I agree.
Is the iCloud Photo Library encrpyted?
Somebody has to have considered the idea in general that we have one thread of pictures from when we got our first digital camera (or started scanning them in) right up to today. That is what we as a user would want to be able to save in the cloud as a set. The theory of everything.
Johndpatton, that’s exactly the concept behind Mylio. It find all your pictures no mater where they are located and makes copy so f them. Not in the cloud however but across devices.
Thanks for all your information, advice, and inspirations in the thread here. Aside from myself, I think your feedback has influenced a number of people. Perhaps you might consider doing some joint venture with mylio with these issues in mind.
I loath that they’ve changed this. I worked so well moving photos with a chosen sync and now I have no clue. Plus I’ve had to pay for more storage in order to ‘share’ all my photos between devices. More money for Apple. More frustration for the customer.
Like many, I’m having some issues with the iCloud library. Everything I read says that my entire library will be uploaded to the cloud, yet only a small portion has thus far. My full library is close to 50,000 images, and only 5,300 have been uploaded, with seemingly no options available (or any indication of what’s there or not) for pushing the remaining photos. Any ideas?
Bryon,
I’m having the same problem with my ~20,000 photos. Did you ever get it sorted?
Unfortunately not.
This article has made me wise. I could not store my photos (taken from my camera Canon 400) which is old. I thought that the camera was at fault, but now I see that storage limits is the problem. The photos could be viewed by me from a USB port, but when I wanted to add them, it just did not work.
I have been looking for a new camera since as I need to do videos for my books (I am an author and publisher) and I wanted to get a video of my newest title, but that didn’t happen because of aforementioned problem.
Thank you so much for this valuable information. I give you five stars.
Im having trouble syncing my photos from my iphone 5. So i have more than 300 photos and no more than 20 videos on my phone and when i tried to turn on my icloud it says i only have 15 photos stored in my icloud. what should I do? And i cant open icloud either.
If you want to upload photos into iCloud photo library from your iPhone, you can just go to “Settings > iCloud > Photos > iCloud Photo Library” to turn on your iCloud Photo Library. So that it can sync your photos from your iPhone to iCloud Photo Library.
http://download.cnet.com/FonePaw-iPhone-Data-Recovery/3000-18551_4-76201237.html
However, if you want to download photos from iCloud, you can use FonePaw iPhone Data Recovery to make it in only 3 steps.
Im new to the whole iCloud and Apple software. Ive been trying to upload my photos to the cloud for 2 days now and I still have no photos in my library. Does anyone know how long the process is supposed to take?
I can not turn on the ” iCloud photo library ” . I’ve got an error which is : you must be logged in to iCloud to enable iCloud photo library ”
but I’m really logged in on it !!!!
please tell me what to do
I had 900 pictures and it’s only uploaded 25 pictures… where the rest of it go and i looked back to my iphone and it’s gone not even there… I need them back so how do i get it back???
reading this article today and reading comments, I think now may be all of you have no complaints, i signed up for iCould photo library for my 16k pics & 200 videos, it took around a week to upload and now everything is working like a charm, this feels blessing now, if I take pic from my iPhone i can organize it in any album and can create one, and same happens on my iMac, MBP & iPad, i don’t have to look for anything, I hope everyone else is having same experience, I’m very happy with this system and I hope it will always work like this, and yes I’m still backing up my pics in two drives, its better to be safe than sorry.
My phone completely backs up but it does not show on icloud.
could someone tell me what the issue is and how to solve?
thank you so much