Q: Delete single photos in photostream

Sorry, but I totally disagree.  It's a nonsense to use such an argument as you do in 2) particularly.  If that argument held any water, then we wouldn't have the ability to delete emails, documents, etc.etc.

No, the security of the users device in terms of how others access the data has nothing whatsoever to do with the discussion at hand.  It is also the responsibility of the user to ensure that any photos on the stream that he or she wants to keep are saved to his/her iPhoto library or Camera Roll.  PS should be regarded as a temporary conduit.

In simple terms, I see PS working like an IMAP mail account where any action on one device is reflected in the PS 'server'.

Seriously???

There should be a delete button, it's as simple as that. If you take a crap / embarrassing / incriminating photo you should be able to delete it when you want, without going thermonuclear on your PhotoStream… How it's implemented, well that's a different discussion. The guys at Apple are pretty smart, I'm sure they could figure it out.

The lack of a delete button is counterintuitive; I put it there why can't I delete it?

As for your 2 points:

1) It's been dealt with in IMAP and it's been dealt with in Dropbox, I'm sure it can be dealt with in PhotoStream.

2) As for accidental / malicious deletion of photos and never seeing them again, maybe it could just remove the photo from PhotoStream and leave it on the 'Camera Roll' of the device that took the photo… And, deleteing of photos in PhotoStream should not remove them from Albums you have added them to in iPhoto from PhotoStream.

The lack of a delete button is JAW DROPPING...

While we're at it, why not put back the 'Save As' feature in Lion…

'Save As' still exists, they just renamed it 'Duplicate'.

But again, asking a 'delete button' is not asking much. It's a basic feature. I've read many stupid comments about the fact that a stream has to stay a stream.

But to these people I wish good luck with a stream containing:

1. duplicates when photo taken using HDR
2. duplicates because one is blurry, and the second one is crap and the thirs one is not good
3. hundreds of pictures taken by their friends when they were drunk the other night. Their wifes and children will appreciate the fun.

I've never seen a sharing system where the user does not have a full control of his actions and privacy.

The comparaison with IMAP doesn't make sense. IMAP is private. You need a password to access the content. And you can delete single element.

Photo Stream is public and you can't delete a single element.

What a loss of time to have to delete everything just because ONE photo has to be deleted.

To make comparaisons:

• What if we have to delete the whole iTunes Library just because we want to delete one song?
• What if we have to delete a photo album on FaceBook when one photo has to be removed?
• What if we have to delete one folder because we have to delete one file?

Apple needs to fix that.

Privacy, security and efficency are not silly aspects of a system, they're mandatory.

iBeb wrote:

 

'Save As' still exists, they just renamed it 'Duplicate'.

Not the same, but there are many threads on that subject already.

The comparaison with IMAP doesn't make sense. IMAP is private. You need a password to access the content. And you can delete single element.

Photo Stream is public and you can't delete a single element.

No, Photostream is not public, it's is private in the same way your mail account is.  Both need a password to be provided.  Anyway, what we were saying is that it should work in the same way as an IMAP account, i.e. each device mirrors the server, so that a delete is a delete on the server and is reflected on all devices.

Sorry, I'm new to this game.

Ref deleting photos from Photo Stream, why not copy the ones you want to keep to Camera Roll and then reset Photo stream at iCloud.com which deletes all the others?

'Save As' does not still exist...

With 'Save As' you click it, enter the name the file is to be saved as and you're done.

With 'Duplicate' you click duplicate and then you go and click save and then you enter the name of the file you would like to save as, then you close the document you duplicated that was left open after you hit duplicate.

See the difference?

So, you are suggesting saving to camera roll on your iPads, iPhones, as well as saving certain photos on your Mac library, and MacBook?  Then deleting all photos from the stream via iCloud.com.

And this is easier and better than being able to delete individual photos in what way?

Lets's not get this thread off topic. There are many threads on the topic of Autosave.  This is about Photostream.

Sorry,  couldn't help my self... Appologies.

I meant to say:

private for IMAP because you don't grant access to friends and family to read your emails.

public for PS because once you've set up your apple TV, iPad, iPhone and iPhoto, everyone can access it.

My point was that you can't compare something meant to be personal (emails) with something per se meant to be public (or at least, shared).

For 'Duplicate', I didn't know. I was not using 'Save As', but I understand the difference and wow people can be lost with such a feature change.

Can Photo Stream be improved?  Yes, I believe so.

Can Photo Stream be made near-perfect?  I don't think it can if you want to keep it simple.

I've read the conceptual comparisons to IMAP in this thread but I don't think they hold too well.  Photo libraries are not like mail accounts.  People often choose to have different sets of photos on different devices but almost always want to have a mail account that is uniform regardless of the device from which it's accessed.  Therefore, being able to delete a single photo from Photo Stream would be benefiical but having that action replicate across photo libraries could really have some disasterous consequences.

What I've found to work pretty well so far is to set up iPhoto on my Mac to turn off automatic upload and import of Photo Stream pictures.  That way I have control over what goes in and out of Photo Stream on the Mac side.  There's no analogous feature for the iPhone yet (that I know of) but maybe Apple will do something about it.

Not sure why Apple touts the integration of AppleTV and Photo Stream.  To me, their missions are different enough that it just doesn't make a lot of sense to view Photo Stream through AppleTV.

Sorry, but again, I disagree.  Once set up on your iOS devices, anyone can access your emails unless you delete the account each time. In a similar way, iCloud (and Photostream) is setup in the exact same way, i.e. once you input your password, anyone who uses your iPad can acess it unless you delete the account every time.

James Merwin wrote:

I've read the conceptual comparisons to IMAP in this thread but I don't think they hold too well.  Photo libraries are not like mail accounts.  People often choose to have different sets of photos on different devices but almost always want to have a mail account that is uniform regardless of the device from which it's accessed.  Therefore, being able to delete a single photo from Photo Stream would be benefiical but having that action replicate across photo libraries could really have some disasterous consequences.

Photostream is NOT a photo library - and that is precisely the point.  It is a temporary (1 month or 1000 photos) conduit to give the user time to save the required photos to his/her photo library whether that is in iPhoto on a Mac or Camera Roll on iOS devices.

True, true.

But I know for instance that my nephews never read my emails when they use my iPad (first of all because one is too young and second because they know it's not their business), and I also can trust family and friends.

When I share my iPad with family and friends, they launch games or pictures.

Once again, the delete buton is required because I take hundreds of picture on my iPhone that are not meant to be shared. I'm using my phone to take anything in picture: to remember something, because I witnessed something, because ...

• You are shopping, you need an advise, you take a picture and MMS it. Wow, nice picture on your big screen TV!!!
• You witness an accident, you take a picture for insurance companies or for officials, great for the kids on your iPad!!!
• You take a picture of a big lego truck and you MMS it to your wife and ask her if it's a good idea for Christmas. Boum, your kid sees it on the iPad.

I love the idea that you can easily share new pictures with no setup and no need to create an album and so on. But not to have the ability to delete one single file is an issue. Imagine you have already 998 pictures on it, and you want to delete one...

And to those who think it's complicated, it's not. Photos on the stream are first a copy of the original. So if you save your original (or just keep it) on your phone, if you delete a file from the stream, it won't impact your original.

It should be as easy as adding/deleting contacts on your address book: what you do on one device is updated all accross your devices. They can do it with contacts, events on your calendars, apps, documents, but not with photos???

@keki36 Your fix worked great for me. You can delete the entire Photostream, but only by deleting it from every device and from the iCloud web site.

It does make sense, and if you think of Photostream as a simple way of syncing photos between systems the whole deleting individual photos issue becomes moot. You don't want your AppleTV displaying your Photostream; you want it displaying an album you manage by copying selected photos from Photostream and elsewhere.

--Andy "you can pound nails with a screwdriver too..."