Cannot sync Aperture 3.3 to iPhone without launching iPhoto 9.3 first because Aperture doesn't correctly generate previews for smart albums

Question

Cannot sync Aperture 3.3 to iPhone without launching iPhoto 9.3 first because Aperture doesn't correctly generate previews for smart albums

I finally upgraded from iPhoto 9.3 to Aperture 3.3, and on the whole, I completely love Aperture 3.3, it was everything iPhoto isn't: iPhoto was bloated and incredibly slow even with a mere 70,000 photos; whereas Aperture loads in seconds and scrolls like butter. The shared library between iPhoto 9.3 and Aperture 3.3 made it possible for me to switch; as I can still go back to iPhoto whenever I want to.

I want to sync my photo library, with smart albums, to my iPhone, but it never works properly after quitting Aperture. I suspect it is a problem with getting Aperture 3.3 to generate correct previews from the library to share with iPhone.

I sync a few smart albums with my iPhone.

Problem: If I sync my iPhone with iTunes after making edits with Aperture, my iPhone deletes all of the photos.

Workaround: Load Aperture -> Quit Aperture -> Load iPhoto -> Quit iPhoto (to generate previews) --> Load iTunes --> sync phone.

It appears that Aperture 3.3 does not generate previews for iPhoto generated smart albums: looking on the Photos 'tab' on iTunes, it appears that if previews have been generated by Aperture, it removes all my smart albums. The only way is to launch iPhoto to force the previews to be generated correctly first.

By the way I have 'always generate previews' enabled on Aperture so that's not the problem.

Also I have rebuilt my Aperture Library from scratch so that's not a problem either.

iTunes, however, does 'see' the library as an iPhoto library rather than an Aperture library – on the Photos tab, if I switch to Aperture, it says no libraries found.

Has anyone experienced the same problem?

MacBook Pro running OS X Lion 10.7.4 with all updates; latest iTunes, latest iPhoto, latest Aperture.

MacBook Pro

Posted on Jun 18, 2012 12:16 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 20, 2012 1:24 PM in response to mintchocicecream

This is what I've discovered so far.

Quit Aperture (and automatically generate previews) --> launch iTunes: iPhoto Albums show up in iTunes but smart albums all missing

If I proceeded to sync my iPhone with iTunes, it will delete all my photos off my phone because nothing is synced!

Quit Aperture (and automatically generate previews) --> launch iPhoto --> quit iPhoto --> launch iTunes: Smart albums correctly show up, and correctly 'ticked' to indicate it will sync.

I suspect this is a limitation of using a supposedly 'unified' iPhoto Library in Aperture, but it isn't listed in the "Using the Unified Photo Library" guide at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5043?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US.

Effectively though, it appears to me to be a data loss bug in the current implementation of Aperture / iTunes Library sharing.

I've tried to import my iPhoto Library to a new Aperture Library to no avail.

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Answer 2

Jun 20, 2012 3:54 PM in response to mintchocicecream

I can't speak specifically to iPhoto.

But I know that smart albums work fine with previews in Aperture. But that could be because all my Aperture albums have previews, and thus items in smart albums have already had previews generated for them in other albums.

Do you have Aperture set to share previews with iWork and iLife or whatever the settign is? That's necessary.

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Answer 3

Jun 20, 2012 6:13 PM in response to William Lloyd

The bug is specific to using unified iPhoto libraries in Aperture, and specific to sharing on iTunes.

Yes the setting for previews to always generated and shared with iWork and iLife is generated; and those work fine, too.

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Answer 4

Jun 22, 2012 11:07 AM in response to mintchocicecream

Test functionality in a new user to isolate the issue. I had my library do something similar and in a new user it worked just as it should.

I Generated Previews in my Apeture Library. Photos > hold Option key and select Generate Previews.

Took a long while. But that worked for me in my situation. I'm using up to date Aperture 3.3 and iPhoto 9.3

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