Q: Why SO many random DCIM Folders?  I want ONE!

Well, I may agree with you on that point.... But therein is the problem for Apple: what if EVERY customer, or even a moderate percentage of customers, find that Apple is , even as you say, RESTRICTIVE?  Already, according to that Wikipedia article, Android devices account for 48% of devices shipped in 2014, while iOS/OS X devices accounted for 11.04%. As a corporation, I would be quaking in fear , and finding every possible way to accomodate potential customers, instead of creating those AWESOME restrictions if which you speak.... Yes Android is looking better and better, and will most likely be my next phone, after I get my 600+ dollars worth of usage out of this Iphone I have!

When I want my data sold to anyone who can pay I'll go Android, until then not.

You say restrictive, I say secure.

You say restrictive, I say shallower learning curve for some.

You say restrictive, I say stable.

You say restrictive, I say niche product.

Restrictive is not always a negative thing.

If you want/need a truck to haul lumber... you don't buy a car, make it haul lumber and then rant about how crappy your car is at hauling lumber.

ACtually, I was referring to the use of the word RESTRICTIONS in Csound1's post.... Don't worry! You have made me a believer in Android! I believe this horse is now TRULY dead!! End of posts!

Then my work is done here.

Gregoriusmax64 wrote:

 

ACtually, I was referring to the use of the word RESTRICTIONS in Csound1's post.... Don't worry! You have made me a believer in Android! I believe this horse is now TRULY dead!! End of posts!

Don't try restricting what others can do, you will fail.

Gregoriusmax64 wrote:

 

Only Itunes wants me to dump all the pics in a huge vat of . Jpegs and sort them out later.

iTunes does nothing of the sort, it has no role in extracting photos from your device to computer ... none, zip, nada.  It does offer a way to manage the other direction, i.e. from computer to iOS device, but not the reverse.  If you think iTunes "makes" you dump pics into a folder to sort out, you are quite mistaken.

I won't regurgitate the number of times it has already been mentioned here how Windows users can easily manage their iOS photo extraction to PC ... it has nothing to do with iTunes and it certainly doesn't involve delving into the file structure of your device.  That hands-on, let-me-manage-my-files attitude goes against the grain with Apple's philosophy, if that's not to your liking then the sensible thing would be for you to move on.

Gregoriusmax64 wrote:

 

I think we understand how Itunes works, as far as syncing your phone; but it is the fact that I don't WANT to automatically dump all my photos onto my computer to a random folder in a fast download! I want certain pictures in my phone, the others I want in my specifically -created folders so I can manage them by date, or by Family photos, or by nature pictures, or by vacation trips, or by historic photos... Only Itunes wants me to dump all the pics in a huge vat of .

Clearly you do not understand how iTunes works. iTunes has nothing to do with Photo import. All iTunes does is access a Photo Library that is created by the Photos app that you are using to provide you with a high-level, simple to understand way of selecting which of your thousands of photos you want on your device. But those photos live in a Photo Library that iTunes accesses. They do not live in iTunes. And iTunes makes no decisions whatsoever as to how those photos are organized. The Photo app does that.

The basic concept, from the beginning of time, for Apple users, was to provide a high-level, user-friendly, intuitive methodology for managing things like Photos. So, instead of asking users to go into the bowels of the system to retrieve a single photo, they provide many other paths to get that photo, and then display that photo in the form of a thumbnail so you can easily see what it is you want to pick. Windows users feel the need to dig deep into the architecture of their systems to perform tasks which Apple software and file structures have geared toward a less technically-savvy user.

Obviously as things have become more complex, and the demands for features and functionality have grown, the simple intuitive way to do everything is no longer there. But, in general, most things you do in the Apple operating environment are far less painful than those you do in the Windows operating environment. I use a Windows PC all day long for my work. I'm used to Windows, and from an OS and App perspective, it works as well and as easily for my work functions as my Mac does for my personal functions.

The biggest difference I see? Physical operations. I have to reboot my PC one or more times a week for issues ranging from unresponsiveness, to just plain crashes. I reboot my Mac - maybe - once a month.

When I do have to reboot my Windows system, it is a 20-minute process. The local, initial boot-up takes 8-10 minutes alone. The remaining time is getting hooked up to the VPN and to the Bank I do Software Analysis for, so that really doesn't count.

However, on a Mac, when I reboot, my screen redisplays within 30 seconds, and my Wifi is connected and all is ready to go in under a minute.

So, just the time lost alone, in waiting for a machine to boot up, that has to be booted up at least once a week is a big negative for me.

On the other hand, I only use Word and Excel for my word processing and spreadsheet needs. I feel that as apps they are far superior to Pages and Numbers, although Pages has some nice features for one-offs and special work.

But for personal use, I wouldn't even consider using a Windows machine. If I'm going to be doing internet shopping and browsing, I feel far safer on a Mac. If I want to do creative work with my Photos I find that the Photos, iPhoto, and Aperture app provide a great starting point that is easy to use and doesn't require a PhD, and the extension apps that Photos will now allow you to use in an integrated fashion with photos allows me to do a lot of playing around and testing things with a minimum of effort.

So, you have to determine what it is you are needing to use your computers and devices for, and then decide which platform meets those needs in the best way. If you feel that one platform meets the needs better for certain hardware, but the other platform is far more usable for other hardware or applications, then you are going to simply have to deal with the fact that they are two entirely separate platforms, and instead of complaining about that fact, and trying to lay blame on arrogance, or a lack of customer concern, realize that you are the one who is choosing to work with two entirely different platforms, and you are just going to have to find the best way to make the bridges between the two of them the most efficient possible.

Understand, that there is a world of customers out there who LOVE the way that their Apple products work, and for me, having to sacrifice the distinctly Apple experience to accommodate Windows cross-platform users, is simply not something that I want to do.

I work with cross-platform applications all day long at work, It is a challenge to figure out how to make each one work smoothly with the other without sacrificing too much on either side of the equation. But bottom line, since they are disparate systems, designed to deliver an experience to different types of users, but at the same time play nicely with each other, we all sit down and figure out how to make the best of both worlds.

Apple is not going to bow to any pressure from the PC world, and Apple users don't want them to - and vice-versa, BTW.

So, that's the reality - it's not going to change, so you now get the opportunity to find the best, most creative, productive solution for your situation.

Best of luck,

GB

Wow... what a long, entertaining, and revealing discussion.

I think users "Lawrence Finch" and "Csound1" are either Apple Support personnel, or maybe AI chatbots trained to replicate the personality of the late Steve Jobs:

- "It's not a bug, it's a feature"

- "You are using it wrong"

- "When I want my data sold to anyone who can pay I'll go Android, until then not".

I definitely agree that the best solution would have been to add a wrapper to the "new and improved iOS photos database with hundreds of random folders" which presents the traditional single-folder DCIM structure, including any picture edits, to PC users.

Why hasn't that happened yet?

Because Apple wants you to have the best possible experience with their products and services - and poor compatibility with competitors' products is just an extension of that thought. It just makes business sense.

For example, I was also surprised to discover how "iCloud photo library" will delete your full resolution photos locally, and replace your local copies with lower resolution ones. That sounds like a great idea, until you find out the hard way that there is almost no way for PC users to download the *entire* iCloud photo library (and not just one or two selected photos) back to a local storage medium.

At least Google Photos lets you to download a gigantic ZIP archive with all your original photos and videos. I did that once. It was very reassuring to see that The Cloud not only absorbs content generously, it can also give it back on equally generous terms.

But not so with iCloud, at least not yet. With iCloud, you apparently have to click on each photo separately to get your originals back onto a PC. This is basically not possible if you have thousands of photos in your iCloud. As a result, the majority of photo-happy iOS users will have their photo originals stuck in the iCloud forever... and they'll need to keep paying forever, unless they want to risk losing those originals.

Or am I mistaken? Is there an easy, convenient way to get a copy of the entire iCloud photo archive downloaded to my PC?

Sheryl34 wrote:

 

 

Or am I mistaken? Is there an easy, convenient way to get a copy of the entire iCloud photo archive downloaded to my PC?

Import photos and videos from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to your computer - Apple Support

Alternative, if you have turned on iCloud photos. Log in to https://icloud.com. Click Photos. Click on the first photo. Scroll to the last and shift-click on it to select all. Click the download button. You will have to click the SAVE button for each photo, but other than that you will download them all.

Yes, thank you. Can you clarify this some more?

Let's say I have a 16GB old iPhone that I want to retire and replace with a newer one. It has around 5GB of locally stored photos, which is approximately 1000 photos.

And let's say I have 30GB of photos in my iCloud photo library, or around 6000 photos.

When I browse the DCIM folder structure, I find only 1000 photos that I can download to my PC. So using Windows Explorer on the DCIM folders won't let me download the remaining 5000 photos which only reside in my iCloud.

Are you saying that if I use an import tool - like camera and scanner wizard, or one of the other options mentioned in this thread - I will actually be able to download all 6000 photos?

Again, a wrapper which would present a single DCIM folder with all 6000 photos (local and cloud combined) would make this more intuitive for most PC users.

Thanks!

Well, thanks for the tip of shift-clicking first to last photo in iCloud.com - however, you will probably agree that clicking "save" 6000 times in a row is not realistically possible.

If I want to download 6000 photos from iCloud, which method can I use that doesn't need 6000 clicks?

Sheryl34 wrote:

 

Well, thanks for the tip of shift-clicking first to last photo in iCloud.com - however, you will probably agree that clicking "save" 6000 times in a row is not realistically possible.

 

If I want to download 6000 photos from iCloud, which method can I use that doesn't need 6000 clicks?

The easiest way is to find a friend with a Mac, log in to your iCloud account from the Mac (have your friend create a new user ID for you), then open the Photos app. Select all of the photos, go to the File menu and choose Export. Save them to a thumb drive (or to a free dropbox account that you set up) and copy them to your PC.

Or skip the Mac; install Dropbox on your phone and save the photos to your dropbox account.

Another alternative is to install Google Photos on your phone. It will automatically copy all photos from your phone to your Google Photos space. You can then download them from there (or just leave them there).

Yet another is to install the upthere.com app on your phone. It will also vacuum up all of your photos into your free storage space at upthere.com.

There are several other ways to do this, but these are a start. The first one has the advantage that it will seamlessly save any edits you have made to photos on your phone.

How about Apple's iCloud for Windows software?  Doesn't that link one's iCloud Photo Library to the PC?  I seem to remember My Photo Stream automatically syncing full resolution photos to my PC (use a Mac now).