iPad photo sort order changed with iOS 5

Hey all...I came across this thread searching for this issue, as I have had this on my iphone 3GS since I went to iOS 5 the first time. I've been back and forth with different versions of iOS and iTunes versions and every combination in between.... Nothing fixes it. I've tried everything short of renaming files. I'm not going to do that.. Worked fine in iOS 4.2.1-4.3.3 and iTunes 10.3. Well, I'm back on 4.2.1 again with iTunes 10.3 and won't budge again until Apple addresses this issue. This is total crap. I guess we had to give up some RAM and storage for features that did work, for all these extra features that aren't worth it... I'd rather have a phone on an older OS working correctly, for which I paid a great deal of money, than one on the latest and greatest, that isn't so great....I'm just hoping Apple fixes this soon... I was hoping that the 10.6.1 issue would have fixed it. The release notes said something about picture syncing, so I jumped right on it...Didn't help....

Actually, I had been in another thread back on 3/28 and forgot...Anyway, here is a copy/paste of my update in that other thread on the iphone side...

It IS iTunes fault!... I've been up on 5.x and back down to 4.3.3 and 4.2.1 and back and forth and back and forth...many times trying to figure this out... It workes fine on 4.3.3 and 4.2.1. 5.x and iTunes 10.5+ doesn't. I went down to 4.2.1 running iTunes 10.6. Problem is still there! Puts pics back on phone out of order! Went back to iTunes 10.3 to go with my 4.2.1. Works just fine! 4.2.1 is best on 3GS! Long live 4.2.1!

Hi everyone!

I have found this workaround to work for me:

I have added a Folder Action to my Photos folder, that deletes the iPod photo cache folder that is located in iPhoto library. When the cache is erased and recreated (that does not take a long time), the photos seem to be correctly sorted in my iPhone and iPad.

So just to recap:

1) I paste some new files in my Photos folder

2) Folder action runs and executes this command:

rm -R ~/"Pictures/iPhoto Library/iPod Photo Cache"

3) iPod Photo Cache is erased

4) I import my photos in iPhoto

5) I sync my devices with iTunes

It seems to be working so far.

If you have any additional questions regarding this, or maybe you want to get the .workflow file directly, you can send me an email: peteris.rucis@gmail.com

Thanks!

Well, I don't use iPhoto, so I don't think this would apply. I've manually un-synced my pics from device, manually deleted cache, then re-synced pics making iTunes recreate the cache MANY times. Yes, it does take forever, and NO, for me, it does not fix it...Apple needs to fix this in iTunes! I've heard smatterings of iTunes 11....I'm hoping they get this fixed first, cuz I think it's going to be a while before 11....

Hi!

Yes, I totally agree that this annoying bug should be fixed and as soon as possible.

Regarding my workaround - this might help some other people who are using iPhoto to import events to iDevices.

Thanks!

I literally jus installed the new software on my iPod Touch, an all my photos in all my albums r all out of order, this has gotta b the most annoyin part of the software

Apple, take note of the huge amount of complaints an go bk 2 the original sort order a.s.a.p...please!! :-S

Yeah...This affects more than just iPad I think....I believe it's an iTunes issue....went back to iTunes 10.3 and iOS 4.2.1 on my 3GS again... All correct again...I'm staying here! I also submitted feedback to Apple...IF they fix it, I MIGHT go up again....

Hi all,

I bought my wife an iPad 3, and got her iPad 1. I was not particularly interested in it, but thought it could be good for photos. Then I decided it would be awesome for photos!

Until i discovered that i could not get them in proper order. I tried removing exif data, renaming photos 1, 2, etc, but nothing worked.

When putting these photos onto a website, they showed in the same messed up order they did on the iPad, but fortunately this time i saw the reason. What number comes after 1? I would have thought 2, but if you're apple, the answer is 10. and so on to 19, then comes 2.

Renaming aa, ab, etc worked, and now my photos are in order.

This probably won't help those with 1000's of photos, but may be of use to some out there.

I love my ipad now 🙂

Then what happens when you want to change the order of just one or two photos? You go through renaming all 10,000 photos again? Why not just spring for a decent photo management app like Photo Shack or Photos Pro?

well, i have a couple of the 3rd party photo apps (Foliobook and PhotoMgrPro) and NONE of them are as seamless/fluid/sleek as the built-in Photo app. My problem with this whole thing is that the user definable sort orders worked in iOS4 like a charm, but it's not working the way it should in the current iOS.

I just purchased an iPad 3 primarily for managing photos. I am now thinking about returning it.

I have IOS 5.1.1. I spent hours ordering my photos within albums on my PC, renaming them so they are in alphabetical order, then syncing to the iPad. The regular photo app seems to work fine. But I want captions, so I use iPhoto. It does NOT display them in the same order!!! I can't figure out what it is using and I can't be bothered spending a lot more time figuring it out. If Apple cannot get such a mind-blowingly simple soution as providing users the option of how they want the photos ordered, then I really don't want to trust my images to that company. I now see why a tech-support friend of mine will use only PC's and will have absolutely nothing to do with Apple!

So sad - it is really a beautiful screen and the pics look great.

Guys,

do NOT bother with the stock Photos. It's really a substandard app, particularly if you want to transfer several hundred / thousand pics to your iPad.

Go for something better. There are a lot of third-party apps with custom (also EXIF date-based) sorting capabilities. Of them, I prefer Photo Manager Pro the most. Get it (or any other, capable third-party image viewer) and forget Photos. The latter doesn't really deserve anything else, it's that bad - no wonder this forum alone is full of threads complaining about its problems and bugs. (Sorry Apple...)

There's an excellent roundup of current image viewers at http://www.iphonelife.com/blog/87/all-one-photo-viewer-roundup-70-price-drop-bes t-image-viewer . It has a dedicated section on sorting with an example screenshot ("2.1.3 Sorting").

Forget about the Photos App. You will never get it right; it just doesn't work. And from what I've read from other People, iPhoto has its own little bugs. After fighting with this issue form months (and waiting HOURS trying to order photos), I went with Photo Manager Pro which is an excelent app. You can do everything you can't with Apple's sofware: order pictures in the order you want, any order; copy, paste, transfer... you name it, it does it.

There is another way to have pictures ordered as like, and this solution saves a lot of space on your device, because the pictures are actually NOT in your device's memory: SkyDrive. Upload your photos to SkyDrive, order them as you like, get the SkyDrive App, and display your photos directly from the cloud. Granted, the resolution is not super, but if you use your iPad just to show pictures to your friends or to dispaly stuff that you sell, it works great. Also, you can forget about sync'ing photos, having to do it for every device you have, etc. As long as the pictures are in order in your SkyDrive folder, they will appear in that order on any of your devices (and any computer).

If you don't want to rely on Internet connectivity to view your own photos, and don't want to have to re-save all of your photos in a separate app, then the way to go is to get Photo Shack or Photos Pro. Both are excellent photo managers that run entirely off of your existing iOS Photos Library. You won't need to "sync" these apps separately or duplicate any of your photos. Photos Pro has more extensive organizing and sorting capabilties. I started out with Photo Shack, but now have Photos Pro. I am very happy with the added functionality.

Apple has fixed this issue!! The iTunes 10.6.3 update has FINALLY fixed this issue!! They even state this fix in the notes, along with a couple others I've heard about. I've been on 10.3 with 4.2.1 mostly this whole time. As previously stated, I've had this problem on my 3GS since iOS 5 and 10.5 came out. Photos out of order on 3GS after update to iTunes 10.5 and iOS 5... I downloaded and updated to 10.6.3 and did a DFU restore to 5.1.1 stock, and setup as a new phone(not from backup of course), then put everything back on. SUCCESS!! My pics are now in their proper chronological order again without messing with any photo cache, exif data or renames etc!! YAY Apple!! Only took you 8 months to fix it, but thank you!! (I'm sure they're not reading this but oh well)... Hopefully other folks will grab this and get back to normal again! You may have to unsync photos from device, delete the photo cache, and sync pics back again. Try it first without doing that. Please Like if this helps!! Thanks all!