iPad photo sort order changed with iOS 5

I found this discussion by Google search. I must say I originally have bought the iPAD (2) as photo displaying device. First shock was to find out that it was not possible in the photo app to make one's own custom order by simply rearranging pics in albums by touch screen operation. What? "Custom sort" is a feature of even the most basic photo management programs.

Then I slowly got used to the time stamp (photo taken on....) order. WIth iOS 5 everything seems messed up now.

I mean this is the lamest software fail I have come across in a long time. Does anybody at Apple think about what they do? I read that there are people here who have thousands of photos ordered since the iPAD came out.

Now not only do they give a choice of how to order the photos, they also change the way the crap software "itunes" syncs them automatically and without any user option.

This is beyond useless, beyond useless. Apple needs to finally give the user a "custom sort" option. Let them quickly sort photos as you can sort the aps on the iPAD desktop. Easy with your finger.

Until then, the photo app is the user- unfriendliest piece of software I know.

User friendly? Hardly! Sorry, but this is so frustrating...

Bernie

Thanks for the hint.

I "solved" (worked around) the issue by changing the file's modification date using the exiftool before syncing:

exiftool -r "-DateTimeOriginal>FileModifyDate" .

Update: Does not work reliably. Argh.

Best,

Jonas

PS: See https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3384736?answerId=16366688022#16366688022 as well.

same here with local files (mac OSX).

thanks apple for making me buy a 3rd party app to be able to use my ipad for the use that i purchased it for in the first place. Displaying images and showing clients my work.

i had to buy Photo Manager Pro (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photo-manager-pro/id393858562?mt=8) which allows custom sorting and everything else that IOS4 had built in.

feh.

The text that follows is from another discussion and I'm pasting it here because it seemed to do the trick for some people. Any comments?

Original post by "954G":

After trying everything here, nothing worked for me.

So after looking at the support article here http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4221?viewlocale=en_US

When you sync photos from your computer to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, the photos may be sorted on your device in a different order from how they are sorted on your computer. Your device will look for the following EXIF tags within your pictures: 1 Capture Date 2 Date Time Digitized 3 Date Time Original 4 Last Modified

I looked into my Fastone Image Viewer software and found you can

1. order your pics in the folder

2. batch rename and it will rename and number them in the oder you made the files

3. delete all jpeg EXIF data (batch)

4. add/change photo time stamp exif (batch)

So this is how I did it (in Vista64)

Get a copy of Fastone image viewer, its free.

In pictures, make folder "for Ipad", then you can set up all the sub folders you want (I did this with copys of the original folders for safety and later reference) Delete the ipod photo cache, if its in the folder and/or the folder above it

In Fastone, navigate to the folder, i'll use "my pets" for example

1 Arrage the photos in the order you want (I could pre arrange them in the windows folder also)

2 Then select all, right click, tools, remove jpeg meta data, check the box, hit apply.

3 Next, select all, right click, tools, change timestamp, in the drop down box select (EXIF Timestamp date time photo taken), then select specify date time, use what ever date you want, hit apply.

4 Next, select the first photo in the line up, then select all, right click, tools, batch rename

You will see the files in the original sort order the computer used on the left, on the right you will see them in the order you placed them in. Then select Use Filename Template, Where it says Template enter the name you want for all of them, lets say, mypets#####, this will rename and number them in the order you set up. mypets00001, mypets00002 ......... You can click the preview icon next to the rename button to see what your results are going to be. So click Rename,

Then click Yes (this way it will rename the files and leave them in the folder)

DONE!!!!

Open Itunes, select the folders you want and sync.

After organizing the pics, its just a couple of mins to apply the changes to all the folders. And when I add new photos to a folder, just drop them were you want, and repeat.

now it is my turn:

Follow-up: 197969530

Dear (sethach),

Recently you posted a petition in Apple Support Communities. We are including a copy of your message at the end of this email for your reference. We understand the desire to share experiences in your topic, "Re: iPad photo sort order changed with iOS 5" but because these posts are not allowed on our forums, we have removed it.

These forums are intended for technical questions that can be answered by the community. We want everyone to be able to contribute to our forums and have their issues addressed. We feel that we have a very strong community and that it is an excellent resource for users to get assistance. I encourage you to continue using the Apple Support Communities while abiding by our terms of use. The Apple Support Communities Use Agreement, which also includes helpful information about using Apple Support Communities, is located at https://discussions.apple.com/static/apple/tutorial/tou.html

If you would like to share your experiences with Apple directly, you can submit feedback here: http://www.apple.com/feedback . As part of submitting feedback, please read the Unsolicited Idea Submission Policy linked to the feedback page.

Best Regards,

Apple Support Communities Staff

There aren't any posts because there isn't much more to say... We're in Apple's hands with this one. I got a reply from PC Magazine telling me...

"This is what Apple has been doing for years—quickly making previous models obsolete so that you have to buy the new one—and it’s part of their secret to success. That said, there are gazillion Photo Apps that work perfectly well on the original iPad. Even Apple singled out Snapseed as the best iPad app of 2011. It’s actually more powerful than iPhoto, though with a less-glitzy interface. You should also check out the very impressive Adobe Photoshop Touch, which can also do a lot more photo manipulation than the new iPhoto."

Now, considering the problems you are experiencing with iPhoto... I don´t know where that leaves us...

By the way, there is a page on THIS SITE explaining the sort order:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4221?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US. They specifically state that the photos are ordered according to EXIF data (date taken, date time digitized, date time original, last modified). So... ??

@ ChristofBaer:

Do you mean Photo-Sort for iPad by ROmain Henry? I could not find "Photo Sort Pro" in iTunes. And "Photo- sort" does not get very good ratings, users complain about lots of issues.

http://itunes.apple.com/app/photo-sort-for-ipad-organize/id369610590?mt=8

Not that 1,99 bucks is the problem, but I have already tried loads of apps that do not work as I would like them to....

Thanks

Bernie

To me it seems that the ordering is only broken in album/folders that were imported. If you create any new album on your device, sorting is as with iOS 4 (by date/time)

This gives an easy way (workaround) to have photos be sorted the old way with iOS5:

• Import all your photos via iTunes. They will be in wrong order in the imported folders/album(s).
• Create a new album
• Copy all photos into the new album. (You end up with two albums with the same content. As the pictures are linked only into the second album, this should not use any extra space)
• The new album contains photos in the right order.

Never use the old album, just irgnore it. Once Appple fixes the stupid bug, you may remove the album you manually created.

Best,

Jonas

I did some additional testing using my Apple TV (1st generation) and my Windows 7 computer, and this is what I found.

(This likely applies to iPad/iPod/iPhone too).

• Apple TV displays photos in order of their "Date Created" file attribute.
• If the "Date Created" file attribute of all photos in an album is identical, then Apple TV displays the photos in alphabetical order.

This I what I do to make sure that Apple TV displays photos in the order I want them to be in:

• First, I arrange photos in the order I want them to be in. For this, I use Google Picasa, but one could also use FastStone Image Viewer, or any similar tool.
• Then, I bulk rename all the photos, so that their file names are in alphabetical order. I do this from within Picasa, but there are many other freeware file rename tools one could use for this.
• Next, I bulk change the "Date Created" file attribute of the photo files, so that they all have an identical one. For this, I use BatchTouch, freeware available for Windows and Mac.
• Finally, I open iTunes, and sync the photos to my Apple TV.

Note: if they photos were already synced to your Apple TV before you perform the steps above, you may need to this beforehand:

• Open iTunes on your PC, and make sure that the correct photo folder is selected for syncing to your device.
• Using Windows Explorer, navigate to this folder.
• Within it, locate a subfolder called “iPod Photo Cache” ("iPad Photo Cache for iPad syncing) and delete it.

My photoso are all out of order in my 5.0 iPad. Ater some experiments I coclude that the order of appearance is by file modification date (at least when the potos are uploaded from Windows). Try changing a picture (for example rotating it) and resynch, you will probably see the changed photo placed at the end.

Brgds, Marc

I got around the problem by changing the Windows Last Modification Date. To be more precise I did the following:

1. Select all photos in the Windows Explorer.

2 Right click and choose the Properties option.

3. Select the Details tab.

4. Add a bogus title to the photos

5. Click Accept.

As you can see, the Windows Last Modification Date has been updated and you have not changed ta single pixel of the photo.

Now remove the iTunes Photo Cache folder, change the photo synch folder in iTunes to an empty directory And synch. This will remove Ll synched photos from your iDevice. Now restore the photo synch folder in iTunes and resynch. If all goes well, all photos are now in alphabetical order of file name or by Date Photo Taken EXIF Property (dont't konw exactly on what iTunes falls back when the Last Modified Date is the same).

What I would like to know is, why photos were correctly sorted by EXIF properties in iOS 4 and iTunes 10.4, but by file modification date in iOS 5 and iTunes 10.5. I dont even know who is to blame: iOS or iTunes.

Brgds, Marc

I have almost 18 000 photos on my iPad and the were sorted in "date taken" order within each folder. This was perfect for me. Now, they appear to be sorted in the alphabetical names that I have given each photo (describing the location of the shot or the subject). This is disastrous. The photos are so far out of order viewing photos on the iPad is useless. At the very least, I need the sort that was in place ("date taken" and/or chronological order) from IOS 4. Better yet, please give me the ability to choose a rudimentary selection of sorts.

Please give me the old way back, indeed. I can't view photos that are in alpha order!

yes, this is pretty much making my ipad useless for presenting images to clients (which is one of the main reasons i bought an ipad in the first place). I have over 5,000 images on my ipad sorted by subject/theme and/or date under IOS4, now i have 5k random images in folders in random order that makes no sense. if i re-arrange them on the ipad itself, it's awesome until i sync and then it falls back into the useless seemingly random order. I can't sort them in iphoto, i can't sort them in itunes and i can't sort them in the ipad itself. i can't specifiy even to do reverse chronological order.

how did this seem like a good idea at the time?!?

how difficult is it to revert back to IOS4?

I have exactly the same problem with iOS5, photos app and synchronization seem to be pretty much broken. However, I sometimes get the correct sort order (by date/time the photo was taken) if I only sync certain albums. But the common case is by file modification date which is completely useless.

Even worse: each time I synchronize or delete photos (via USB from a Windows PC) the free memory decreases while memory allocated to 'other' increases. This can only be fixed by completely restoring iOS but even then not all photos are synced, some albums stay empty.

Reverting to iOS4 seems to be very difficult. I can't believe nobody noticed these glitches during beta testing. I mean it took them really long and if I take other issues into account (iPad 1 performance issues,...) this release is a big disappointment.

Please fix photos sync and sort order ASAP. A lot of people are using an iPad primarily for displaying photos and now they can't even revert to the old version that actually supported this.

Whoever is using photos and hasn't updated to iOS5 yet: DON'T.