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I don't understand iCloud Photo Library

Max(IT)

Max(IT)

Suspended
Dec 8, 2009
8,551
1,662
Italy
Dino F said:
I quite like the idea of iCloud Photo Library - keep the full res pic in the cloud and the smaller res pics on the phone. Makes perfect sense.
Click to expand...

Yes I'm fine with that approach.
Under Windows it's quite different: photos are stored in Onedrive AND on the phone, so if I delete a photo on the phone, it is still present on Onedrive and I have to delete it also there. A waste of time.

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evoga said:
I just have OneDrive upload any new photos and videos from my iPhone. That way it doesn't matter if you delete them from your phone as they are all still there and accessible from multiple devices.
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Yes, so if you need to delete one you have to do that twice.... what a brilliant solution :rolleyes:
 
M

MEMSMaster

macrumors member
Oct 12, 2013
42
18
lemieuxfan67 said:
How it is supposed to work is you have one photo library that is synced across all your devices. So, if you take a picture on your iPhone, it will show up on your iPad and Mac. Then, if you edit the picture on your iPad the edits will also show up on your Iphone and Mac. Right now the service works with iOS 8 devices only. Apple plans to release the Photos application for the Mac sometime early 2015. Once the application is released we are supposed to have photo synchronization between all our devices.
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So... you have the link to the clear understandable documentation from Apple that officially explains this? Something along the lines of the old Apple IIc or original Apple Mac documentation that the artist/photographer members of my family who have no ability or desire to be sysadmins but who absolutely do not want to lose any of their work can understand? I'd love to get that link. Thanks!
 
XTheLancerX

XTheLancerX

macrumors 68000
Aug 20, 2014
1,911
782
NY, USA
Wow guys. It's nothing more than making your library consistant on all your devices. I would hate how before I would take a picture and it would show up on all, but then I would want it gone and I would have to individually go through all my devices and delete them. Ain't nobody got time fo' dat.

If you liked the way it was before, just turn off iCloud Photo Library.
 
S

samiznaetekto

macrumors 65816
Dec 26, 2009
1,016
24
Just turn off iCloud completely. Done. Thanks :apple:, but I can manage my stuff myself.

The more you readily accept whatever companies are sweet-talking you into, the more you end up like this:

spider%252520fly%25255B5%25255D.jpg
 
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Slimmyhendrix

macrumors regular
Sep 14, 2014
245
27
MN
iCloud Photo Library still only shows pics from my most current phone.
Glad I saved my pics to my backup hdd and then transferred them to my laptop so I can delete my iCloud backup that's 4gig and stop getting the annoying "can't backup" "lack of storage" messages every day
 
Dino F

Dino F

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Sep 16, 2010
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....well, over the weekend, I managed to go through all my photos on both my iPhone 6 and iPad 2 and made sure that both devices were showing the same exact photos - which they are indeed now showing so at least I now know that iCloud Photo Library is indeed working properly on these devices (when I( take a photo on one device, it automatically appears on the other device in the 'All Photos' folder. Similarly, when I add photos as 'Favourites', the photo appears in the 'Favourites' folder on both devices).

HOWEVER, the website - http://www.icloud.com, is still, A COMPLETE SHAMBLES.:(:mad: It shows photos, which I have deleted COUNTLESS times and have returned(?) and in my 'Favourites' folder, there is only 1 photo despite the fact that I should have around 10. Its a complete JOKE:mad:

iCloud Photo Library works between my iPhone 6 and iPad 2 but the website just seems to show a static image of whatever photos it has chosen (I delete photos but hey just keep coming back).

I have now filed a bug report for this because it is beyond a joke now......:(
 
I

InsideTJ

macrumors regular
Mar 18, 2012
114
13
I offloaded my pics and videos yesterday to my archive (which I do every few weeks or so), so I decided to turn ICPL on to try it. It seemed to work as described.

I also downloaded Photo Transfer App. It allows you to wifi photos to/from mac to phone. I sent it a few hundred photos. They transferred fine, went to ICPL fine, but some of the dates/timestamps were off. They showed up in 'today' as opposed to the read dates of january 2014. At least this was the case on iCloud.com.

I turned it back off, deleted all photos.

I'll wait to see how this evolves before committing.
 
L

lemieuxfan67

macrumors member
Sep 26, 2012
80
23
MEMSMaster said:
So... you have the link to the clear understandable documentation from Apple that officially explains this? Something along the lines of the old Apple IIc or original Apple Mac documentation that the artist/photographer members of my family who have no ability or desire to be sysadmins but who absolutely do not want to lose any of their work can understand? I'd love to get that link. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Here is a pretty good FAQ from Apple about iCloud Photo Library:

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT6378
 
C

CausticPuppy

macrumors 68000
May 1, 2012
1,536
68
I turned on ICPL for about a week and then turned it back off. It's not ready for prime time yet. I would say it's more "alpha" than "beta."

After a week, my phone still had 400+ items remaining to upload, and that number did not change for several days. Also I wasn't able to playback videos on my phone, even videos I had just taken. They would just show up as blank gray preview icons and the Photos app locked up when trying to play them.

I turned ICPL off and was able to access my local video files again. Previously uploaded items are still on the iCloud library.

I'll stick with the current Photo Stream sharing for anything that I actually want in the cloud.
 
Morac

Morac

macrumors 68020
Dec 30, 2009
2,182
622
For those interested, Amazon added unlimited cloud photos for Amazon Prime members. That $99 a year and now includes unlimited cloud photos, Amazon prime videos, Amazon prime music and free 2-day shipping on purchases. That's a much better deal than iCloud Photo Library.
 
Zetaprime

Zetaprime

macrumors 65816
Dec 4, 2011
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Ohio, US
Morac said:
For those interested, Amazon added unlimited cloud photos for Amazon Prime members. That $99 a year and now includes unlimited cloud photos, Amazon prime videos, Amazon prime music and free 2-day shipping on purchases. That's a much better deal than iCloud Photo Library.
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Not to mention that Amazon's been doing it long enough to have gotten most of the bugs out of their system.
 
s2mikey

s2mikey

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Sep 23, 2013
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Upstate, NY
Morac said:
For those interested, Amazon added unlimited cloud photos for Amazon Prime members. That $99 a year and now includes unlimited cloud photos, Amazon prime videos, Amazon prime music and free 2-day shipping on purchases. That's a much better deal than iCloud Photo Library.
Click to expand...

That sounds good. I have prime already too. I assume there is a way to get the images from your apple devices to this amazon cloud though, right?
 
Zetaprime

Zetaprime

macrumors 65816
Dec 4, 2011
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Ohio, US
I don't understand iCloud Photo Library

s2mikey said:
That sounds good. I have prime already too. I assume there is a way to get the images from your apple devices to this amazon cloud though, right?
Click to expand...


There's an app for that. Amazon Cloud Drive. As a matter of fact I just used it to upload the photos from my iPad. Sent them all in less than 5 minutes. Works way better than ICPL.
 
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Morac

Morac

macrumors 68020
Dec 30, 2009
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Found that Amazon's unlimited photos, applies only to photos and not videos. Videos are limited to the free 5 GB of storage, unless you buy more. Still a good deal, but not as good as I thought.
 
s2mikey

s2mikey

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Sep 23, 2013
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Upstate, NY
Morac said:
Amazon Cloud Drive Photos by AMZN Mobile LLC
https://appsto.re/us/tGhdL.i
Click to expand...

InsideTJ said:
I'm trying this out now. 1TB free with Prime membership!

I'm uploading some from the web interface now. it seems to work fine.
Click to expand...

Zetaprime said:
There's an app for that. Amazon Cloud Drive. As a matter of fact I just used it to upload the photos from my iPad. Sent them all in less than 5 minutes. Works way better than ICPL.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the replies here, folks. I'll give it a shot! :D
 
B

bgro

macrumors 65816
Jul 6, 2010
1,122
667
South Florida
So I took a bunch of pics on my iPhone. Totaled 1.1GB (pics and video). I enabled iCloud Photo Library and choose to "Optimze Storage". Turned on the same settings on my iPad which currently had 0 pictures on it.

On my iPad, once IPL updated, my total device photo storage was showing 220MB. This makes sense to me as it was the "Optimized Storage" that was reducing the size of the pics.

however on my iPhone, total storage was still showing 1.1GB. So the pics didn't optimize on my iPHone.

Anyone know why this is? Is this the intended behavior? Doesn't really make sense if so..
 
Morac

Morac

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Dec 30, 2009
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I'm pretty sure it's working "as designed" and the description is wrong.

Optimized seems to only be when syncing photos from iCloud Photo Library. If the photos were taken on said device, they aren't optimized (which would entail deleting the local photo and downloading the optimized version).

I believe the same thing happens when you actually view a photo on a device set to optimized. It downloads a full size copy of the photo and stores it.

Overall I'm not really sure what the point of "optimized" mode is, since there's no way to delete the full sized version off the phone without also removing it from iCloud Photo Library, so there's no way to free up space.
 
Zetaprime

Zetaprime

macrumors 65816
Dec 4, 2011
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Ohio, US
Morac said:
I'm pretty sure it's working "as designed" and the description is wrong.

Optimized seems to only be when syncing photos from iCloud Photo Library. If the photos were taken on said device, they aren't optimized (which would entail deleting the local photo and downloading the optimized version).

I believe the same thing happens when you actually view a photo on a device set to optimized. It downloads a full size copy of the photo and stores it.

Overall I'm not really sure what the point of "optimized" mode is, since there's no way to delete the full sized version off the phone without also removing it from iCloud Photo Library, so there's no way to free up space.
Click to expand...


I'm using Amazon now. I don't think I'll be bothering with ICPL ever again. And Amazon doesn't mess with the photos on your devices in any way. They just get uploaded full size and that's it.
 
B

bgro

macrumors 65816
Jul 6, 2010
1,122
667
South Florida
Morac said:
I'm pretty sure it's working "as designed" and the description is wrong.

Optimized seems to only be when syncing photos from iCloud Photo Library. If the photos were taken on said device, they aren't optimized (which would entail deleting the local photo and downloading the optimized version).

I believe the same thing happens when you actually view a photo on a device set to optimized. It downloads a full size copy of the photo and stores it.

Overall I'm not really sure what the point of "optimized" mode is, since there's no way to delete the full sized version off the phone without also removing it from iCloud Photo Library, so there's no way to free up space.
Click to expand...

I think you're right. Not really what I thought it was. Oh well, at least I understand it now. Thanks.
 
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