Delete single photos in photostream

You can't. It's all or nothing. Clearly Apple developers don't live in the real world. They'd only have to use the product themselves just once to realise it doesn't make sense the way it currently works. The best solution? Disable it completely.

I agree with everyone who is saying that it is ridiculous not to have countrol over which photos appear and don't appear in the stream. i went through the WHOLE 2 hours of updating this software and the os5 on my phone just to have this photo stream function only to find out that it's not useful.

APPLE>>>> c'mon! you gotta fix this one ASAP.

how did you not create it with this function?!

I took a picture of my weiner, and now I can't get it off! One day when my girlfriend's mom was looking through my iPad, she saw Big Ben! Come on Apple, help me delete the picture of my weiner!

Just adding my voice here that I would like individual photo control on photostream. I turned it off for now.

oh well... just make good pictures... 😀 <sarcasm>

for everyone making pictures of their private parts photostream surely is a no-go. ..

😁

I have two embarrassing photos in my photostream that were originally uploaded to iPhoto - and then promptly sent to the trash folder (and the trash folder immediately cleared). And yet they are still showing up in the photostream! That's just ridiculous. Photostream is off now and won't be coming back on unless this is fixed.

I understand people wanting more control, and on some level I agree. The ability to delete a single photo within the stream would be nice, but it would be a luxury, not a necessity. Asking for this feature shows more a lack of understanding of what Photo Steam really is, and is meant to be, than it does a mistake in the programming. The misconception is that Photo Stream is a presentation tool for displaying finished albums of photos, that are shared with family and friends. Wrong! Photo Stream is merely a transfer method of getting your photos between devices. It's the pipe, not the presentation! Thats it, nothing else.

Consider Photo Stream to be the equivalent of importing all your images, both good and bad, from your digital camera into iPhoto. If you show someone the raw import in iPhoto, there is going to be a ton of crap in there. That is why you cull through all of those images, deleting the bad ones and keeping the good ones, often saving them in specific albums or events. It is those selected images, and the albums and events that you created that you show your family and friends, not the raw feed or import. Why think of, or treat, Photo Stream any differently than the raw, untethered import feature that it was developed to be? That makes no sense to me. Simply save the good photos that you want out of the stream (i.e. the raw import) to the camera roll on the device you want, organize them into albums if you wish, since iOS5 allows the creation of albums, and share those, just like you do with iPhoto. Oh, and don't worry about the rest or your blurry, crappy images that you took. Apple will kick your trash photos to the curb in 30 days.

Just like in iPhoto, if you do not want to sync your images, don't tether your phone and export/import your images. The same holds true for Photo Stream. If you do not want to sync your images, don't turn on Photo Stream and export/import your images.

Once you understand that Photo Stream merely replaces the cord tethering your iPhone to iPhoto, it really is an easy concept to grasp! The fact that it replaces that cord and wirelessly syncs with all of your devices, saving you the trouble of importing your images to iPhoto and then tethering and syncing all of your devices individually is a very, very big bonus!

I'd like individual photo control of Photo Stream as well.

You seem very sure of yourself that photo stream isn't for presentation. Please explain then why it is built into Apple TV. There is nothing else you can do with photo stream and apple tv other than present your photos. The second generation Apple TV is a streaming device only. Quote from apple's own site: "You can even view your Photo Stream album on your Apple TV. So you can show off your shots to friends and family from whichever device you’re using at the time." Sounds like a presentation tool to me. I think someone at Apple didn't get the memo that it wasn't a presentation tool that you "show off" with friends and family.

Quoted from http://www.apple.com/icloud/features/photo-stream.html

Using your arguments then Apple themselves don't understand what the point of Photostream is. If they did, and it was as you describe, then the stream would not be accessible on an AppleTV. More to the point you wouldn't be able to use it as a screensaver on that device. Who in their right mind would want screenshots from their iOS device, blurry or just crappy photos as a screensaver?

By the time you tether your phone with a cable you have already had the chance to purge the worst photos and you choose which to import. Yes, you can leave the stream switched off until you've purged the duff ones but unless you still tether with a cable first any sceenshots you might want to keep will still end up on the stream which would make their way onto the AppleTV.

None of the above takes account of someone else being able to take a photo from the lock screen even with a passcode lock. These go into the camera roll and as soon as you're on a wifi network are likely to be streamed to your family TV before you get home. This is not possible by tethering. Unfiltered uploading to the stream is a bad idea. I would have implemented it like a photo album. You select your photos and choose "Add to Photostream"

Just my thoughts on it.

FormZ, I do get what you are saying about using Photo Stream as a virtual pipe to get from your camera to your Photo app. It is a temporary place for pictures after all, considering that only your last 1,000 photos are kept there and the time is limited.

I may turn it back on with that in mind...

However -- the fact that Photo Stream appears alongside the Camera Roll in iOS I think provides a potential opportunity for one last bit of file management before you send the pictures to your slide show or photo editing app. Consider that a part of the transfer process often ends up choosing which pictures you want even without Photo Stream (as in when you connect your camera to your computer). You could just transfer them all, then choose later, but sometimes that is too much work, and you end up transfering a bunch of crap(!)

I think it would be great to be able to "pre-screen" the pictures while I am away from the computer, and immediately delete the pictures I don't want right away, as I go along, so I will have that much less to do when I am ready to fire up my computer and work on the photos I captured.

So I still think it would be a really good idea to have individual photo control in Photo Stream.

If anyone else agrees (or disagrees for that matter), I suggest providing feedback to Apple:

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

b3brett, I did not say that "it can not be used for presentation", I said "the misconception is that Photo Stream is a presentation tool". Those are two distinctly different statements, with the pivotal word being "is". You can use many things for many purposes other than their primary purpose. The question is can you figure out what that primary purpose is without getting hung up, lost or confused about what secondary purposes there may be? I have seen barstools made out of tire rims in Miami Beach, but that does not mean that tire rims were developed to make barstools. Yes, you CAN use them for such, but it would be a "misconception" to think that was their primary purpose. If Photo Stream's primary purpose was presentation rather than a conduit stream to download images, they would have called it something like Photo Presenter, or iPresenter, not "Photo Stream". It is primarily a pipe, even if they built it so that pipe has other secondary purposes.

I do not have an Apple TV, so please correct me if I am wrong here, but I thought that you could stream photos from an album other than Photo Stream on the Apple TV. Are you saying that Photo Stream is your only option for viewing photos on Apple TV, and that it will not allow you to display any of your other photo albums? If that is what you are saying, and it is the case, then yes, someone at Apple did not get the memo and should have either left Photo Stream off of that device, or added the ability to switch to a different album- say, one that has been compiled using photos worthy of "showing off your shots to friends and family".

Apple is a not company that will prevent you from showing off your poor photos. They leave that option up to you, so yes, "You can even view your Photo Steam album on your Apple TV. So you can show off your shots". The question is not if you CAN show off all your blurry photos, but WHY would you? Apple said "You can view your Photo Stream", but they never state that this is it's primary purpose, or guarantee that anyone would be impressed with what you were showing them.

Using your line of thinking, I think someone at Apple definitely did not get the memo about iPhoto, since you can use it's import pipe to do the same thing. You are free to import all of your photos from your camera, the good, the bad and the ugly, and post all of them to the web. Since you're fond of quoting Apple's own website, I am sure you are aware that the iPhoto section states "Share your photos with the world" and "The easiest way to share your photos is to share them online." The part I think you are missing is that Apple is making the assumption here that you, the user, would exercise some common sense and select the best photos, create an album, and then share those with family and friends, rather than subject friends and family to an album or stream of ugly photos. However, they do leave that option open to you, if you so choose to use it.

Quoted from http://www.apple.com/why-mac/better-software/#iphoto

Formz ;

i'm so glad that you explained it the way that you did, because now i understand it's purpose. as a wireless tether, it functions perfectly, and for that reason, now i understand its design. now i dig it. so if i'm shooting shots at a wedding, it can wirelessly upload to my stream and into my iphoto, then later i can go in and take the photos i want out and keep them permanently, and get rid of the rest. actually quite a cool concept. just wasn't explained like that, nor did it come across like that in much of the marketing promos that i saw, so i think that perhaps your explination of it is better than any i've seen.

thanks for the clarification!

now i can say, it's a great addition!

Hey HappyTrucker,

So you are stating that the Apple TV ONLY lets you use the Photo Stream album as the screensaver, and that you, the user cannot select a different album as your screen saver! If that statement is correct, then yes, Apple themselves do not understand the point of Photo Stream. However, if the Apple TV does allow you to choose a different album as a screensaver, then Apple gets it, but you do not understand the point of Photo Stream. I do not have an Apple TV, so I will let those who do have an Apple TV decide who gets the point of Photo Stream, the Apple developers who created it, or HappyTrucker! This one seems like a safe bet to me, and I know where money is, but then again, maybe I am a bit of a gambling man!

Again, I am not saying that more controls, including the option to delete individual photos from the stream, are not something that should be desired and/or included in future updates. I clearly stated in my first two sentences that on some level, I agree (and agree whole heartedly I might add)- yes, that would be nice, and certainly would be a welcomed addition to Photo Stream. The purpose of my post was not to state that such a feature set was not needed or wanted, but that it was beyond the scope of the original programming objectives that the developers where faced with. I stated that such options would be a luxury, not a necessity, because the service/feature is living up to, and functioning perfectly, for what it was intended to do, in spite of users not understanding that purpose and wanting more out of it.

I have been using Apple products for many, many years, and my gut tells me that vast majority of users will not be disappointed (there are always a few who you can never please), and that many of these additional features will be rolled into the product during the course of the next few updates. You can sit back, figure out how to use Photo Stream in it's current iteration, and enjoy the fact that you do not have to tether your iPhone or iPad to all of your various computers in order to transfer photos- or, you can turn Photo Stream off and wait until all of the options you want are rolled in. I for one will use the product now, figure out how it fits into my personal and/or business workflow, and relish in the fact that my images are on my various devices without having to drag out a cord and sync every time I take a photo. Thank You Apple!!!!

I would not say that unfiltered uploading to a personal, password protected stream is a bad idea. What is a bad idea is taking inappropriate photos and not having the forethought to figure out how the feature works and setup the preferences on various your devises properly. Now that is a bad idea!

If we are talking about unfiltered uploading to a public stream, I would agree, that is a bad idea. However, that is not what we are talking about, and that is not how Apple has this setup. Your Photo Stream is just that- Your Photo Stream.