Apple TV (2nd Gen) screensaver photo shuffle

Sorry tigernuts that is slideshow not screensaver that we are talking about. Still does not work even with the latest update.

Well, I think random photo selection from my entire library is finally working again? Not 100% sure as some photos are repeating, but there seems to be a much deeper selection into my 28,000 photo library at any rate. I'm on ATV Software 6.0 (6646.65), ATV OS Build Version 7.0.2. Can anyone else confirm this please?

I understand people's frustration here but I do feel everyone is missing the point. Screen saver is NOT meant to be a way to show your entire photo collection! it's to protect your TV screen. You all seem to be wanting to find a way to show all your photos, or a large album on a specific topic. I think that's what "slideshow" is for, surely.

By the way, the new Mavericks OS allows you to show your screen on your ATV, so if you want to show a slideshow you can do that quite easily now.

Chingis wrote:

I understand people's frustration here but I do feel everyone is missing the point. Screen saver is NOT meant to be a way to show your entire photo collection! it's to protect your TV screen. You all seem to be wanting to find a way to show all your photos, or a large album on a specific topic. I think that's what "slideshow" is for, surely.

This is completely correct. The two terms "slideshow" and "screensaver" have pretty much become interchangeable in our vocabulary, and we expect the two settings to do the same thing. I might want the screensaver to randomly show all my photos, but it won't. If I take an extra 30 seconds to go to Computer > Photos > Slideshow, I get a great random selection of all my photos.

At least this was true as of yesterday. Things seem to be changing almost daily anymore on the Mac OS and iOS landscapes.

Chingis wrote:

By the way, the new Mavericks OS allows you to show your screen on your ATV, so if you want to show a slideshow you can do that quite easily now.

This is true IF you are running Mavericks on a Mac built since 2011. Only 2nd and 3rd Generation Mac Intel Core processors can do Airplay.

Chingis wrote:

I understand people's frustration here but I do feel everyone is missing the point. Screen saver is NOT meant to be a way to show your entire photo collection! it's to protect your TV screen. You all seem to be wanting to find a way to show all your photos, or a large album on a specific topic. I think that's what "slideshow" is for, surely.

With respect, I am not sure you do understand. The reason this thread exists is because the functionality everyone wants -- using the screensaver to view a random, and changing, sample of an entire universe of photos -- used to exist, but has been removed. So, people are not hung up on a whimsical fantasy about how we would like things to work -- we are unhappy that something we liked was changed (and without any discussion, release notes, etc.).

In addition, your view of what is a proper screen saver vs. a slideshow is not supported by the functionality in OS X. There, you can easily configure a screen saver to draw from a complete universe of photos, and it works just fine (as it used to on Apple TV). It is not necessary in OS X to run a slideshow to achieve this.

AirPlay Mirroring has been around since Mountain Lion. http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5404

Good to know, thanks.

@ chicagopjp. You hit the nail on the head with a precise view of what is wrong with "screensaver" photo streaming on ATV and user's frustration with Apple ignoring our many bug reports. It was the single best attribute of ATV and still would be if Apple hadn't crippled it.

I hope this will help some folks.

I was trying to find a way to use an iCloud photostream and randomize (shuffle) my screensaver. Finally did it by:

1. Going to the photostream via the "iCloud Photos" app on the Apple TV homescreen

2. Shuffling in the slideshow settings there (upper right)

3. Moving back a screen from there (to the list of my iCloud streams) I held down on the OK button

4. At that point you'll see the option to make that slideshow your screensaver

Thanks brianteacher, this may help some people. However, my library approaching 30k photos is never going to iCloud in it's entirety and anyway, I don't want to be using costly internet bandwidth streaming something from the cloud that I already own and could stream from my computer on my local network. Better still would be a Thunderbolt 2 connection on the next ATV so we could attach a storage drive if we chose. But with Apple's history, that's never going to happen.

@ chicagopjp. lincris. Agree with both of you! Countless times I have had people over listening to music and they gett hooked on watching the picture show. Then I know ineveitably the picutres will start repeating and then I end up explaining to everyone this short-coming of ATC. "Yeah, I know the pictures are repeating, if only Apple could...."

One would think this would not be too difficult for Apple program. After 20 minutes dump the cache and then go retrieve more pictures. Ta daa!

What other mechanism is there to get Apple's attention on this?

@SRosey. "What other mechanism is there to get Apple's attention on this?"

None it seems. I've been trying for years and there is never any change. My guess is there is no money to be made out of it for Apple so they couldn't care less what customers actually want. As much as I like Apple gear, as a company it can be very bloody minded about how it does things and this is but one example. Genuine random streaming from a complete library for screensaver used to be available and It would be simple to fix, but nuh. But please submit a bug report, who knows .........................?

Well I just submitted some feedback to Apple. Maybe if they get enough requests they will put this into their approved backlog. I know people that would buy ATV for only this feature!

http://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html