Delete single photos in photostream

I really don't care about "design goals." You seem to be forgetting that anything that is designed should be designed to benefit users, not designers. There's no reaons that deleting an image on one device can't cause it to be deleted everywhere. iCloud is not the first such service to ever exist.

Actually this is the first of "such services" to exist, you seem to be confused.

Online storage like Amazon's Cloud Drive have been around for a long time. If you want to delete your images, if you want an online locker, if that's your idea of what benefits you as a user then I agree with you that you'll be happier with Cloud Drive, Dropbox or any of a host of other such services. iCloud isn't what you want.

Switch.

Why are you so angry?

Sheesh. Please. I am not angry. I am just not interested in Apple hagiography. Online storage is all that iCloud is. It is an attempt to advance the concept of online storage by having the updated file immediately accessible across all your devices within the programs (apps) in which they are used. Nice idea, but at present, it's a flawed attempt. It's rather stupid to keep defending the flaws as necessary when there are nine pages of customer complaints about the flaws right in front of you.

When I first started using Apple products my friends who were longtime Apple users advised me to never buy the first gen. of any Apple device. Wait till the second gen., they said. It's great to be innovative. It's very hard to think of everything, though.

To me, its almost unfathomable that it is impossible to delete single photos from photostream. Not having this elementary capability is extremely frustrating.

Yet, there are obnoxous posters here defending this idiocy of not being able to delete a photo (thats streamed too all the Apple devices I own).

In telling people to go to Amazon, its the same provincial mindset of people who say "If you don't like America (or any country), you can get out!"

You guys are looking at Apple backwards. Unlike Google, they are HARDWARE manufactuer. Google rests in a place we call the internet. Apple uses the internet as a tool to connect different devices together. Much like a coaxial cable, they use ethernet/WiFi to transmit data. The difference is that etherenet/internet is bidirectional at high speeds. Therefore you have "interactivity". With that being said, Apple has provided you with an outstanding and reliable photo transmission service without you having to do a thing.

All Day Breakfast was spot on. You are not supposed to go on a browser to view your photos "in the cloud". Apple brings "the cloud" to your device. You then go through your photo stream album on each device and you can decide which photos you like and SAVE them to your actual device. Photostream is NOT a storage service. You can then simply erase your entire photo stream and do the process again. If you are so concerned with the privacy of certain photos, then you need to take extra steps like in any other situation. You should leave the photo stream off on your device while you take the pictures. securely remove your "private photos" in a different way, delete them, and then turn photo stream on so the rest of the pictures stream to your other devices and iphoto. You shouldn't care about "blurry photos" since you just won't save those to your devices or to your pc photo library. they will be deleted when you clear out photostream.

Bottom line, If you do wish to have content pushed to your hardware instead of going "to the cloud", then this is a great service. If you want to store photos "in the cloud", then you should be using a locker type service. All Day Breakfast was not saying "get out of the country", he was simply stating that these companies have different philosophies and you should go with whichever one you share. I'm sure soon enough, there will be an update for deleting individual photos on your photo stream (mostly because apple will recognize that there are lots of anthony weiners out there who will be stupid). Until then, understand that icloud is a "hub and spoke" model. If you prefer living in the cloud you will prefer google or amazon.

Btw, if you keep all of your photos in iphoto, you can always ADD individual photos to the photosteam as well so they appear on your devices.

Can you and all day breakfast go and start your own "I'm happy with photo stream and don't want to delete single photos off it"

This thread isn't for you.

You know its well funny reading how all these Apple Fanboys are trying to justify what is a glaring omision by Apple (again) in so much as you cannot delete single photos. I like Apple, I like their products I use them a lot they allow me to work better and make more money but they are way way from perfect and most of the errors are basic stuff that they could rectify easily. Look at email for instance and the inability to collapse folders its a joke same goes for this issue with photos what should have been a great feature is now just so so. The solutions the fanboys are pointing out have me in hysterics at times .... Turn off all devices, drive home turn of your Apple TV, take your photo, turn all your devices back on LOL think I will pass on that one :-)

As I said I like Apple products, I have most of my staff using them they help us be more effective but, for the first time last week I started looking at other devices. Apple need to wake up Android is not going away and its starting to take huge market share and Android will only get better ......

Posts which are made to primarily attack other posters don't belong here, IMHO. If nothing else, they clutter up the thread which makes it harder to find helpful answers in a growing haystack.

Would it be useful for Apple to incorporate the deleting of single photos from Photo Stream? Of course it would.

Until that comes, here is my workaround:

1) In iPhoto, turn off automatic upload and download of photos

2) Import any photos I want on my computer from Photo Stream by selecting them

3) In reverse, select photos from iPhoto that I want propogated to my iPhone and add them to Photo Stream

4) Move any photos I want to save on my iPhone from Photo Stream to the Camera Roll

Is it a perfect solution? No as you don't have upload control on an iPhone like you do on a Mac with iPhoto. However, it works reasonably well until Apple adds single photo deletion from Photo Stream which I suspect will happen at some point.

Hi James

I agree personal attacks on other people should not be allowed and should be deleted you will find my post a generalisation of a group of people that seek to defend a bad feature which in a way is what your doing:

1) In iPhoto, turn off automatic upload and download of photos

2) Import any photos I want on my computer from Photo Stream by selecting them

3) In reverse, select photos from iPhoto that I want propagated to my iPhone and add them to Photo Stream

4) Move any photos I want to save on my iPhone from Photo Stream to the Camera Roll

Why on earth would anyone want to go to all that trouble to move some photos around ? lets say in the morning you work from home and you have another computer at work and you have a laptop plus your ipad and iphone plus Apple TV are you seriously suggesting you go to every single device and turn it off have it delete everything and turn it on again. Now in the afternoon im working in the office or on the road and am faced with the same situation...... Crazy

Nope its simple in its present state it will prove useful for a few people the vast majority will find it unuseable. It matters not how superior Apple devotees present themselves the feauture is badly designed.

Apple should pay attention to the plight of Nokia .............

In the meantime will stick to using the USB stick or dropbox until they fix it ... Still love Apple products though

It's really unfortunate. What all of you are describing is not how emerging tech is evolving. The "web" is going away. With faster speeds and faster forms of data transmission, you will no longer need a browser to go onto the web. This is akin to telephone operators 100 years ago. You would pick up the phone, an operator would answer, and they would direct your call. With better technology and increased connectivity, you were eventually able to dial directly to an individuals device. You guys are hanging on for dear life of the past and what you are comfortable with. Even google, amazon, and Facebook who have made a living of the web understand that the middle man will soon be obsolete. That's why they have started the transition to become ip telecom companies. They will live on your devices and will provide content, video chat, email, phone calls, social networking, shopping etc. all from apps or OSs. Why do you think google launched android? It is NOT an attempt to go after apple but an attempt to ensure that they can exist and prosper in the future middleman less world. Otherwise they would be slaves to apple who will control all connected hardware. I own a tech company and see the trends well in advance of consumers. I would imagine that All Day is an engineer, programmer, or other tech insider because he clearly gets it. People relentlessly made fun of the iPad when it first came out and a year later it changed the world. You would be best served to adapt to emerging technology but then again, early adopters are rare. Just use a web based locker service until you realize that the functionality of photo stream is the future of the web. Photo stream is a device to device sync service. You shouldn't synce until you are happy with the photos on your roll. Therefore TURN OFF photo stream until you are ready to sync. Like I mentioned in my earlier post, they will introduce single delete in the near future but not because of fixing an "error" but because of idiots who upload embarrassing photos. In a year or two, you will not remember these arguments you are making because you will finally see what is happening in the tech world. Browsers will be obsolete and it will all be about devices and apps. I am not a fanboy. I am just knowledgeable on the topic and trying to help. You have two choices. 1. Incorrectly use photo stream and hate it. 2. Accept that you are really looking for an online locker and there are plenty of good ones. Or 3. Wait until apple develops training wheels functionality for photostream until you catch up.

Chap, I'm not defending the lack of this feature in Photo Stream, If you think I am, please explain. However, I'm offering how I deal with this state of affairs and if that can be of any use to anyone else then all the better.

Most important, I haven't turned off Photo Stream on any device which is what I gather you think I implied when you wrote -- "are you seriously suggesting you go to every single device and turn it off have it delete everything and turn it on again."

I have Photo Stream always turned on but the automatic import and export options are turned off on the OS X devices. Consequently, Photo Stream is never deleted and reloaded as some have experienced.

Moving on beyond my original point and post.... I understand the problem that others have raised when a single photo is deleted from Photo Stream.

1) Does it delete the photo from all devices on that iCloud account?

2) Does it delete the photo from none of the devices on that iCloud acount?

3) Does anyone with access to that iCloud account have the ability to delete the photo?

Problem with #1 is what if you don't want it deleted from all of the devices on that account?

Problem with #2 is that you haven't really achieved much if anything.

Problem with #3 is that a photo could get deleted by a kid playing Angry Birds on your iPad.

I think the most comprehensive way for Apple to deal with the issue and avoid the problems is by Apple allowing greater control of what goes into Photo Stream in the first place. That control exists on OS X devices but not on iOS devices. I can envision an option in iOS where a dialogue box appears (potentially after each photo is taken) asking if you want that photo entered into Photo Stream. If you say "no" all it does is go into the Camera Roll. iOS would then have to have tags for each photo indicating whether that photo belongs in Photo Stream or not. Just one idea.

"Look at me, look at me...

(actually read what I have to say)

Start by understanding one thing:

Photo Stream is an album"

Thank you, Captain Sarcasm, for your marginally helpful (though incredibly condescending) remarks.

Question:

Since it is supposedly an ALBUM, why does it not act like an ALBUM in and grant the ability to decide what should should be kept in it and what should be subsequently removed from it?????

iPhoto has the ability to create ALBUMs, does it not? The user has the ability to to both add AND DELETE albums from said albums, yes?

So then why does this ALBUM not act like an ALBUM????

Marginal limitation my @$$.

It's a one-way storage unit that, without considerable pre-planning and forethought, will fill up with unwanted contents rather quickly, thereby necessitating the user to buy more storage if they decide to stick with it.

I'm getting a refund.

Hi James...

After re reading I see your point You are not as some are trying to say PS is a truly useable product as it is what you are saying is "listen heres a way to work around it as it is" I accept that, and I also agree with your description of what the solution should look like at the end of yourt email

Thanks :-)

TOTALLY agree there Thunderhill things are certainly changing

For me the solution to this minor PS irriation is I leave it on as I don't let anyone use my kit or if its some other file type I use dropbox

This discussion has nothing to do with the future of the internet (no, it's not going to go away, though more and more services will move to direct traffic as described), nothing directly to do with "design principles," nothing to do with a guiding philosophy, nothing to do with "viewing your pictures in the cloud." We just want to be able to delete a single photo from photostream without having to turn off photostream on all devices, sign in to iCloud, and then delete everything there, and then turn everything back on. Seriously -- common sense, people?

Yes, at present, the workaround is to keep photos from being added automatically to your photostream.

Photostream and iCloud in general needs to be able to mirror any laptop environment in the way files are found and organized and then reproduce it on the iPad and iPhone, even if it's only accessible via individual app. Apple is consistently behind in providing this capability, but does provide it eventually with future updates: think about folders for apps, the way photos can be organized in iPhoto by faces, events, etc. An extension of this design lag would be in the way text documents are organized in Work on iCloud. We should be able to group documents somehow -- if not in standard folders, then classified by "projects" or something like that. What they have now is awkward and inefficient.

I would suggest that these current limitations actually seem to violate Apple's design principles and philosophy, which seems to be focused on simplicity, flexibility, elegance, and being user-friendly via intuitive interfaces. These principles are the reason I like Apple products. I like Apple products for the same reasons I like certain kinds of cars, watches, shoes, and pens. But you need to understand that of the four, only elegance is handed down by designers. The other three are determined by users. As a result, it's rather counterproductive to tell users that they're wrong, when the design is supposed to be carried out with them in mind.