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WannaGoMac

macrumors 68030
Feb 11, 2007
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or go back to how we did things before iCloud…plug the phone into your PC to download the photos.

Sandisk also makes a nice lightning/usb thumb drive along with a companion app that makes it dead easy to pull photos off an iPhone And load onto the thumb drive.
Unfortunately, that doesn't get the photos to my other devices easily and without manual effort.

Ive been doing this for years. But again, they offered the 'sync feature' free (and at the cost of upgrading your hardware to get that feature)-now quietly taking it away. its a crappy way to treat your users.

No argument from me, i loved photo stream. Google just did the same by canceling everyone who had free Google for Domains account services. Unfortunately, companies dont stand by their word anymore...
 

5883662

Cancelled
Jan 20, 2010
232
178
OH MY GOD is that why photo stream is not working anymore?! I was going mad about it as I couldn't figure out why it suddenly stopped.
 

WannaGoMac

macrumors 68030
Feb 11, 2007
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OH MY GOD is that why photo stream is not working anymore?! I was going mad about it as I couldn't figure out why it suddenly stopped.
Yep, looks like Apple killed Photo Stream without even an acknowledgement. Pay up for iCloud or no photos between your devices.
 
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toke lahti

macrumors 68040
Apr 23, 2007
3,285
507
Helsinki, Finland
If you can, please file a bug report with apple...maybe they'll fix it.

This is not a bug.
There's the official "supported formats" and HEIF isn't there:

This is done on purpose.

Seems to be that Apple should have own categoty "bring back pulled features" in their Feedback form...

I'm quite ?:mad: about this...
Especially for Apple for hiding this new "UN-feature"...
 
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WannaGoMac

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Feb 11, 2007
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This is not a bug.
There's the official "supported formats" and HEIF isn't there:

This is done on purpose.

Seems to be that Apple should have own categoty "bring back pulled features" in their Feedback form...
Correct. Until 15.4 heif photos did move into the photo stream (probably as JPEGs). Guess that’s once way to increase iCloud subscribers
 
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toke lahti

macrumors 68040
Apr 23, 2007
3,285
507
Helsinki, Finland
Would this last Apple's "un-feature" be worth of a news article?

"The backwards technology" is funny here, you have to downgrade from HEIF to JPG, if you want to keep using the same service that used to work (ish) with HEIFs.

In short time I have noticed that Time Machine has been taken away from Apple Mail and invitations from Apple Mail does not automatically move to Apple Calendar in Monterey.
These just keeps coming...
 

WannaGoMac

macrumors 68030
Feb 11, 2007
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That's what I thought. This guy has been so off with every comment in this thread.
Actually I double checked. The HEIF photo was previously sent into the Photo Stream as a JPEG (I checked the photos in My Photo Stream that are still loading to this day because the images were taken before I installed iOS 15.4).

So while HEIF was never supported in the photo stream, it used to work by the iPhone sending HEIF photos as a JPEG just fine

So it is a bug...that wont ever be fixed.
 

toke lahti

macrumors 68040
Apr 23, 2007
3,285
507
Helsinki, Finland
Actually I double checked. The HEIF photo was previously sent into the Photo Stream as a JPEG (I checked the photos in My Photo Stream that are still loading to this day because the images were taken before I installed iOS 15.4).

So while HEIF was never supported in the photo stream, it used to work by the iPhone sending HEIF photos as a JPEG just fine

So it is a bug...that wont ever be fixed.
IIRC, when HEIF was introduced, it was explaned, that if you had older devices (like I have old iphone, ipad AND mac) in your Photo Stream "group", the photo was converted to compatible format for those old devices.
I might also remember wrong and conversion could have been done, even without any need for it.

There might, of course, been a bug in that conversion and that might be the excuse to remove that feature now for good.

This seems to have been work in progress:

Btw, I checked my Photo Stream from my mini2018 running Monterey and suddenly there are new photos from my iP11, which are HEIF. And a lot of older photos from my ipadAir4thG, which are also HEIF.
I'm not sure if these got there after I synced these devices in Finder yesterday.
The whole Photo Stream album has no chronoligal order now, maybe it's time for another rebuild of Photos archive...
 
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kkclstuff

macrumors 6502
Apr 18, 2015
272
173
NYC
I just don't understand the new  mentality; forcing users down the 'subscription' shoot is not an encouragement to join. And to alienate the user base after offering great basic functionality is just wrong.

apple use to give us the power to do it 'your way', not its 'their way or the hyway'


and for those who will say, just join, or is it really a big deal... maybe not the face of it, but in the big scheme of things It is.
 

osplo

macrumors 6502
Nov 1, 2008
346
186
Just discover the workaround here. Thank you guys. Shame on Apple for removing existing functionality.
 

5883662

Cancelled
Jan 20, 2010
232
178
For what it’s worth my photo stream has been working again. No idea why but I’m glad it is. I’ll enable heif again and see if that works too.
 

WannaGoMac

macrumors 68030
Feb 11, 2007
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For what it’s worth my photo stream has been working again. No idea why but I’m glad it is. I’ll enable heif again and see if that works too.
It wasnt broken if using jpeg, its heif images that broke. Its the titie of this thread.
 

Vanteer

macrumors newbie
Apr 7, 2003
6
1
I am also not a happy camper. :mad:. Have opened a bug report, the more reports the better. Let's hope Apple did not intentionally remove the auto convert from heif to jpg. I can see some point of not updating Photo Stream to deal with heif files, but no reason I can see to drop the auto conversion in the phone, as it was already there and working. Except of course to force us all to pay for iCloud storage........

I know there are some workarounds, but it was super convent to take heif files on my phone, and quickly see them on my iPad or my Mac mini. I still download (backup) the full res heif files, but only every month or so.......
 
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WannaGoMac

macrumors 68030
Feb 11, 2007
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Upgraded to iOS 15.4 and now photo stream isn't working with HEIF but will work when the camera is switched to "Most Compatible" so if you are having this issue that is a work around until apple fixes this.
See above. Its fixed!
 

kkclstuff

macrumors 6502
Apr 18, 2015
272
173
NYC
hmmm not fixed for me. if i take several photos (most compatible) my photo stream only moves 1 of the photos to my mac. Moreover, in different moments it’s not always the first or last photo?!?. seems so random as several weeks back it was working again , now random. very confusing.
 

WannaGoMac

macrumors 68030
Feb 11, 2007
2,728
3,998
hmmm not fixed for me. if i take several photos (most compatible) my photo stream only moves 1 of the photos to my mac. Moreover, in different moments it’s not always the first or last photo?!?. seems so random as several weeks back it was working again , now random. very confusing.

I use the HEIF setting. After I updated my iPhone and iPad, new photos started to appear in the photo stream. It's strange that "most compatible" isn't working for you as setting camera to use "Most Compatible" was the fix to HEIF photos not going into Photo Stream.
 

kkclstuff

macrumors 6502
Apr 18, 2015
272
173
NYC
exactly, AND its not all broken or fixed, I can take 4 identical pics in a series and only ONE will show up... so its like it IS working , but will not upload ALL the photos. very strange.
 
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