Photo sort order changed with ios 6

Here's some interesting but unexplicable (for me at least, so far) improvement. First context, to distinguish this from others' postings related to other configurations:

Laptop is Macbook Pro 17', running Mac OS X 10.8.2

iPhoto on laptop is iPhoto '11, 9.4.2

iTunes is 11.0.1

on an iPhone 4S, iOS 6.0.1

The long time problem has been that the ordering of photos in the iPhoto library are not preserved when transferred to an iDevice (iPod, iPad, iPhone) with iTunes. Several people have noted this recurring problem despite a variety of new versions of the iPhoto, iOS, OS X, iTunes software. In addition, many of us have repeatedly open trouble tickets directly with Apple, often to the "second level" of support, with no obvious fix or improvement; indeed there is no public evidence that Apple has even acknowledged this problem.

In addition, many postings have suggested this is a complex problem, and thankfully, many of you who know better have pointed out that preserving sorting order IS a simple problem, and should be addressed easily.

Here's my situation: I had replied that buying iPhoto as an app for the iPhone did NOT solve the problem with correctly interpreting the sort metadata presumably managed in a hand off from iPhoto on the laptop to iTunes on the laptop, so that my prefered order (in this case alphabetical by event name) was not preserved when viewed with the Photos app on the iPhone. Indeed that was the case.

But after installing the $4.99 iPhoto app on the iPhone, something did change. iPhoto on the iPhone does NOT present the correct order of the iPhoto events transferred by iTunes ... but Photos does?

Yes, iPhoto on the iPhone now seems to received the preserved order from iPhoto on the laptop, transferred by using iTunes to select events and synch them to the iPhone.

But only when viewed on the iPhone with Photos, NOT iPhoto.

I can't figure it out (yet), but have to say that showing people photos on my iPhone is a lot easy as I don't have to manually search through mysteriously ordered events.

My hypothesis on why this is the case is not complete ... it is as if the installation of iPhoto on the iPhone has an unintended but positive effect on the transfer or the sort metadata by iTunes to the iPhone? Why iPhoto can't use that data correctly remains a mystery?

The summary is that buying iPhoto seemed to be the key, but that iPhoto itself can not correctly display the sort order on the iPhone that Photos.

I'm new on this forum (and on Apple as well). I use the new iPad and a PC with W7; sync using iTunes. I also got frustrated be the seemingely random sort order of my photos on the iPad, but tried the following.

On my PC I opend Explorer, selected all the photos in the folder, dragged down "Organize" (left corner) and selected "Remove Properties". All photos were copied in that same directory. I erased the original ones and synced with my iPad using iTunes. Now they are on the iPad in alphabetical order.

Anyone able to repeat this "solution"?

Thanks Said606, your post about sorting by keywords rather than date worked for me. Was very frustrated that though all as in order (I sort by dates) in iPhoto, Photo in iPad did not sort them the same. When trying to show pics to friends or when to trying to find a pic in an event it was 'all over the place' with Photo.

Note that after changing sort order from date to keyword and then syncing, the new order didnt show straight away. Had to shut down iPhoto, disconnect iPad, then resync.

iPhoto 9.4.2

iPad 3

MacBook Pro Late 2012

I have my photos sorted by date in Iphoto and they appear in the correct order. However, by no means can I manage to get the same sort order on my Ipad. It's not by capture date, filename or modified date. It seems random.

Is this a bug in Iphoto, Itunes (which I use to sunch) or the Ipad OS? I really don't want to go through and change all metadata and rename files for the purpose of sorting order on the Ipad since this is no problem on other devices (web galleries for clients).

iau, I have the exact same problem.

Photo's appear to be sorted fine, then towards the end I see random photo's all out of place. Very weird.

My pics are sorted by date (creation) in iPhoto. They all appear crap in my iPhone and iPad. In my case they are definitely sorted by MODIFICATION date on the iOS devices. I modify the photos through the Camera+, which changes the modification date. It seems to me that it's a simple issue, and for me I would prefer the events and pics to be sorted by creation date (instead of name) but the problem seems recurrent with Apple: when there's an issue, you might wait forever before it gets fixed. No acknowledgment for sure. For me this issue is a pretty big one, it just makes no sense anymore to get my photos on my iOS devices.

I'm having the same issue. My photos now seem to be sequenced by modification date on my ipad/iphone (different than iphoto sort by original date). So if I crop a photo or change it in an way, this photo will no longer be in sequence and will show up last.

I tryed several solutions posted already on this thread ie clear ipad cache. Nothing works because Apple Support senior tech told me its functioning as designed. She then told me that the only way it might change is if others provide feedback (www.apple.com/feedback). She said that they don't bother monitoring their own discussion boards but do review their feedback. I was on the phone with support for over 1 hour.

Incredible to hear them saying it's the way it should work. Sorting by modified date makes absolutely no sense, and iPhoto and the iOS photo apps differ anyway. This is just total BS. Nobody'on the top anymore to tell those guys downstairs what should really be done. It's the end of the End User Focus at Apple!

I know it crazy. Try using AirPlay on your tv doing a vacation slideshow of your trip? Photos are all out of order (becasue you just redeye modify a photo post trip and now it shows up last). Its clearly a bug that no one at Apple wants to admit. Why would sorting on iPhoto be different then on an iPad/iPhone? Make no sense.

I'm afraid it's not going to be better as time goes on unfortunately. Since this year, I kept having trouble with Apple. I got an iPhone 5 in the beginning of December and I had to change it 3 times already. The new one I have also suck, battery goes out in half a day :/

I've successfully changed the modified date of some pics in the terminal, and cleaned the ipod cache of the photo library. I thought the resync would work but it didn't. So I guess I'm just gonna capitulate! Crap.

A simple and quick solution that finally worked for me:

1. I go inside an event I want to sort correctly

2. Cmd+a to select all the files

3. Rotate 4 times

4. Close iPhoto, library will get updated

5. Sync to iPad/iPhone (might need to remove event first from device)

It works well for me. The Cmd+a AND Rotate makes modification to all the files, so they all get updated. I was a bit afraid that the pics would still be messy having the same modification dates, but I guess it then falls back on the name of the files, or the creation dates, so it works well for me. I just did that in a couple of events with the issue and they all work. So the bug still *****, but there's an easy and quick solution for now if you really need the sort.

The idea came to me because each time I made a modif, the pic would show up at last in the event so I thought that if I modify all of them, then they should pile up at the end. And I didn't want to remove and add the pics back the library because I use a lot the keywords functionality.

Cheers!

Message was edited by: godbout

I am confused, as I cannot fund a 'Rotate' location? Please specify. I am so hoping to get my photos into a date order and would be thrilled if you have figured out how to do so. Thank you!

Laurie, a quicker method rather than rotating all your images and keep them sorted by date is in iPhoto just drag one of the photos to another spot in your album, let go, then move it back. Then resyc with your iPhone. Your album will still be sorted in the right order but is now techically sorted "manually".

lauriew wrote:

I am confused, as I cannot fund a 'Rotate' location? Please specify. I am so hoping to get my photos into a date order and would be thrilled if you have figured out how to do so. Thank you!

You're using iPhoto right? When you select a photo, you can rotate using Cmd+R. In the menu it's under 'Photos'. You can select several photos and rotate them all together.

Jeremy Bohn wrote:

Laurie, a quicker method rather than rotating all your images and keep them sorted by date is in iPhoto just drag one of the photos to another spot in your album, let go, then move it back. Then resyc with your iPhone. Your album will still be sorted in the right order but is now techically sorted "manually".

If you're just using the albums this method is alright, but if you use the events it doesn't work as you can't order manually the photos in an event. If you rotate just the event though, the albums will still be wrong. So it's possible to rotate event by event, and then to manually sort album by album. Or it was faster, for me, to just select all the pictures of my library (~7000) and to rotate them 4 times. It took about 5 minutes to complete the process. Now all the pics on the iPad, albums and events, are correctly ordered. There still gonna be a problem though as soon as I edit an old picture, so it's really just a short term temporarly solution. We need to wait for an Apple fix, if they care doing so.

PS: if you have any videos in your library, you can't select all to rotate. So you need to make a smart album with the citeria 'Photo is not Movie'. Then you have the list of all the pics. Just rotate.

Message was edited by: godbout