Q: Delete single photos in photostream

Here's a great analogy.  think of photostream like an actual stream of water.  Let's say you have physical photos as you take them floating down the stream past you.  You must grab the photos that you want to keep out of the stream and then insert them into an album or a book or put them on your fridge.  The photos that you do not grab will just continue to run down the stream until they are destroyed.  Photostream is not an album and it's not an album program.  You are not supposed to show your photostream to people.  You are supposed to save the photos you want to your ipad from the photostream and then show people your albums that store locally on your device.  Same with your iphone or your mac.  The advantage of photostream over dropbox is that you can have completely different photos on your different devices without having to email or sync.  You just grab them from the photostream.  If you want to complain about a feature, you should be complaining about the ability to display photostream as a screensaver on your apple TV.  That is really stupid.  However, it's not as easy to grab photos from your photostream to put into albums on your apple TV and therefore turning your photostream into a screensaver was temporary workaround (although a poor one). 

We already know Apple have seen the error of their ways as in the next release they have a delete from photo stream option which clearly shows they messed up. It's tiring repeating the numer of issues presented in this thread that show how poorly thought through PS was before being launched.  Another poster today pointed out they just "wanted" to be different when there was no need ... If they didn't think drop box was a great app why did they try to buy them?

I will be sticking with iPhone and iPad for now as they still provide a useful service for me but I have given up on MacBook air it's going on eBay sick of being forced to do things Apples way when sometimes its just plainly wrong

Good thread though

Tunderhill:

You first need to get out of the habit of lying, especially lying about easily verifable facts such as who said what on an archived discussion.  I did not bash several people.  I have been critical of you, but of only you.  I have been critical of Apple's design of photostream, but so have quite a large number of people here, and I have also been very complimentary about other facets of their product.  I would say probably 20+ contributors here have been critical of you, however.  The usual term is "fanboy" -- which makes sense given that you resort to insult and get defensive when people criticize an incompletely conceived product. 

I and many other people here -get- the intent of iCloud and Photostream.  If you were capable of reading and understanding those with whom you disagree you would understand that.  The basic idea is good.  However,   Dropbox is a sync program too, since it performs file management simultaneously on multiple devices.  The difference between the two is that Dropbox works in a folder system and Photostream works directly in the application.  That's pretty much it.  The reasons for the overwhelming number of complaints about Photostream is that people want to manage their files in the application and not have the application perform functions, automatically, that they do not want it to perform.     

JJR:

The problem here is that this is a help forum.  That means that most people here are looking for help.  You clearly do not understand the functionality of Photostream.  It's probably a little too advanced of a concept for you because it utilizes a philosophy that has yet to make it to mainstream consumers.  Although it is coming, i assure you.  We are a sponsor of CES this week.  How about you?  Do you work in tech?  Do you know anything about the tech industry?  I am not a fanboy.  I am an insider.  I love a dropbox.  I actually use it quite often.  However, if you think that making a comparison between dropbox and photostream shows that you know what you are talking about, it is in fact quite the opposite.  Unfortunately just because a majority of people don't understand something, doesn't make it right.  All you are doing is perpetuating the misinformed individuals who don't know what photostream is for who really should learn what it is for.  I get what you want.  You want apple's products to do what you want and not what they want.  That's not the way consumer electronics work.  There are choices out there.  You don't try to make apple change a product to function differently because you don't understand the underlying principal.  You find a product that shares your perspective.  You have found it in dropbox so i'm really not sure why you feel the need to fight about a topic which you are not qualified to discuss.  If you had teams of engineers and you had a global tech company and you worked with all of the executives at the major companies and knew them personally, then you could lecture to me.  I am at least 2 years ahead of you in terms of the future of tech and the pipeline of products under development.  Photostream is a baby step towards an overall tech revolution that will occur within the next few years.  It is very clear to me because i know.  It is also clear to me that you just don't get it.  That's fine.  That's why they have genius bars for people like you.  I would recommend you take some basic classes and learn how to get the most out of your products.  Otherwise i suggest you stop giving fuel to the individuals who, like you, don't understand photostream, and would benefit from understanding the philosophy which will better prepare them for future products.  You are the guy who says the iPad is a stupid idea until the applications for the iPad become clear.  Just be quiet and let the adults speak.  You are practically a senior citizen.  Start by learning how a cell phone works.  Then work your way up to engineering.

I thought super-geniuses knew how to make paragraphs.

Tunderhill, you pontificate about your advanced knowledge and never once address any specific details, so I question how much you really know, and you are generally unhelpful as your only response to criticism of Apple products is that we somehow don't get it. 

The one thing that you don't get is that consumers drive trends too, not just have them dictated to them by engineers.  If we don't like what engineers put out, then yes, we will buy other products.  Hanging on to a model that no one likes because it's "right" -- or accepting a greatly reduced market share -- is not somewhere Apple or any other computer company is willing to go.

It's not hard to see where things are going. The Chromebook is a good example of one direction.  We'll see.   

Ha... egad, I thought I was mean.

I don't have an issue with anyone else's comments on this board.  In fact i think a lot of great points and lot of great answers have been posted.  The one exception is you, which is why i keep stepping into this conversation.  You don't recognize the harm you are doing by chiming in as an "educated" tech user while giving advice that only hurts the understanding for others.  I don't care who insults me.  I don't care about making points.  I don't have any points to make that haven't been made by knowledgable people already.  What i can't stand aside for is an uneducated simpleton who feels the need to "educate" the rest of the uneducated.  What qualifies you to speak as if you know what you are talking about?  I would love to hear what you do for a living and why people should listen to you as you so clearly believe they should.  You tell me that you understand the functionality of phtoostream and then you proceed to compare it to dropbox???  What? 

Again, Tunderhill, you really shouldn't make claims that are easy to disprove simply by reading the thread.  That's a very oblivious thing to do.  You have responded negatively to several users on the forum.  I can easily scroll up and copy and paste responses with time/date stamps.  You're reminding me of a recent Dilbert.

I'm writing as a user, that's it.  I haven't claimed expertise (something else easy to verify).  I care about the specific functions that I want to perform and am willing to consider different models for performing them.  Yes, Dropbox and Photostream are very different in design. I don't care about that -- just about the functions I want to perform and what models allow me to do them the most efficiently and with the most control on my end. 

That's hilarious.  I'm going to put that on the wall.

this has just turned into a pointless argument between the two of us.  In the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter.  I hope you have a wonderful 2012.  I wish you the best and i hope you get your photostream update sooner rather than later.  Cheers.

Since when this discussion forum becomes a place for fighting? That's not helpful, at all. Members here are supposed to contribute and help each other. We all love Apple products, but there is sometimes we don't satisfy with something, some design to be specific in this case. For me, I hope Apple could change it for consumers because they are who use the products. Am I right or am I not right? Peace.

Thunderhill, sir,

Thank you for the clarification.  This is what we need to know.  But unfortunately, that's not what the Apple marketing department portrayed to the users.  And I can see now why they don't.  This is a baby step into the next many few years!  So, the salesman is really pushing a product that is not exactly what it appears to be: here, your Einstein, (at 1 year old). 

There is no right or wrong, only lessons to be learned.

I don't know if you actually work for Apple, but I wish you don't get into trouble with their marketing department by being up front, brave, and honest with us dummies.

Again, thank you very much.

Fellows, Get a life and do something useful to yourselves!

I can't believe you guys spent all this time replying to each other about a very useless matter!!
Apple has got a problem..

Apple is intending to fix it in the next iOS release..

Apple is not GOD, so it's not perfect!

End of story! So deal with it!