Is iPhoto 11 as bad as reviews suggest?

SVO stated

"User error" is a core source of the poor review ratio because...wait for it...users are not buying and studying detailed third-party manuals and a manual is not originally provided with the application in question because it is considered as...wait for it...being so user-friendly and intuitive that a user manual is unnecessary.

User error is truly a misplaced thought here in THIS forum. I take you back to Public Relations 101 in the computer business..."Go ahead, bang on the keys. You CAN'T hurt it, no matter WHAT you do". Then there is Public Relations 201 from Apple, "Go ahead, buy an Apple. It is so intuitive that all you need to do is cut the tape on the carton, remove the machine, plug it in and in 30 minutes you can solve the problems of Global War, human hunger, and all infectious diseases.

The new Apple Marketing program now has a caveat when someone wants to do all of the above things, "Do you want an APP with that?".

I bought an Apple iMac 3 1/2 years ago with the 27" screen and 1 TB of memory for a very few CORE reasons. One was of the perception of very high quality-no issues yet. Great photo rendering-No surprises yet. and ease of use. The jury is STILL out on that point.

I had an Apple Quantum/Quadra? in the 90's and it had an "ON" button on the keyboard that you pushed to turn the machine on. I can handle that. I LEARNED how to turn on MANY things in my years as a human being so the push button concept was NOT too hard for me to pick up on. So THERE I was in the Apple showroom having just brought this machine and I am doing a "One on One" with an Apple Wiz Bang. (They like to refer to themselves as Genuises-WHATEVER!) So he removes the machine from the box (mighty nice of him) and places it on the counter and proceeds to plug it in. Ain't fooled me yet.

THEN he says rather cavalierly, "go ahead and turn it on" . Of course, being an ex Apple owner I proceeded to push the upper right button on the keyboard...but nothing happened. I did it again and still no action. The GENIUS says to me "what are you doing" Me: I'm TRYING to turn it on. As God is my witness and may he strike me dead as I type, the Genius says in an EXTREMELY helpful tone, OH! the ON button is in the rear. Now THINK about that statement for a moment and you will begin to understand the bone rattling frustration that a NEW Apple owner might have when he proceeds to try to involve himself with a machine that is incomprehensibly complex just under the beautiful plastic screen.

In their zeal to make a mark on the boss as a clever designer these guys sit around on a daily basis and TRY their damnedest to make something different then it was before. But in their zeal to take it to the NeXT level of oversight does anyone REALLY ever question the need to MOVE the historical position of the ON button? Was there REALLY an hue and cry in the bowels of Apple consumers to MOVE the button to the rear of the machine.

Now, I KNOW that it is not practical to use the Bluetooth Apple keyboard to signal the machine to turn on but it COULD be done. Now THAT would be consistent with Ivey's goal of "Hidden Complexity made Simple". Now, if you think I had problems with the ON button imagine what gut gyrating episodes I went through when I accidentally pulled my eMail icon off the dock and it went into never never land with a "poof". Tell me where do I go to get my Apple Ticket punched to solve THAT problem?

Now you guys are probably laughing hysterically at this bit of minutia (is THAT being redundant?) but to ME it signals a far reaching disconnect/problem in the arena of Consumer Computing, How to differentiate one product from another. You don't see IBM and Control DATA going after THEIR customers this way. As you can see my reasons for buying an Apple (good ones, I thought) were made mostly on the lure of the siren songs put out by Apple advertising. Did I GET what I was TOLD I would get? From MY point of view? Or, is MY point of view too pedestrian consumer?

Well, Global Peace is still not with us...and world hunger and disease is still rampant. And SOMETIMES still, I forget about that button being on the rear of the machine. Old habits are HARD to break.

BTW What would it cost to get a spellchecker on this forum?

Darrow...for the Prosecution

well you clearly have far too much time on your hands = since you have 0 - zero - zed - assistance points let me suggest that you first read the TOU and figure out that this is strictly a user to user forum and is not a way to make suggestions to Apple and once you get your head around that you actually spend some time HELPING other users with their problems - it is really easy to write long, meaningless posts about nothing but if you would spend that time assisting others it would improve things

as to spell checking - No one could agree more that me - for what ever reason Apple made a (very poor IMHO) decision to use JIVE which it totally incompatible with much Apple software and most Apple products to power this forum - I have posted numerous complaints to the forum manages about this - you can see where that has gotten me

So once you help enough people to get a number of points (like 8000 or so) you too can post to the Apple forum managers - quit wasting time ******** and get to work helping so you can join the secret forums only available to people who actually help others

LN

BTW What would it cost to get a spellchecker on this forum?

Less than it would cost to get you to use it Counselor:

... RANTING IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS or full of !!!!!! - not worth my time to read.

Case in point.

Except using Safari on iPads and iPhones - no spell check there 😟

LN

No power switch either. Perfect for DubleDeuce.

😝

ROTFL

"...and figure out that this is strictly a user to user forum and is not a way to make suggestions to Apple... "

I can ASSURE you that the SUGGESTIONS were NOT for Apple's benifit. They were a COMMENT on a theme started by SVO. You (those pushing for points validation) are so far out of the realm of being able to understand the real PROBLEM because you are like the kid in class with his hand up all the time STRAINING to be picked so that he can give the right answer.

The REAL problem is, as SVO pointed out, the lack of a manual complicated by an overwhelming complexity of a user routine. I WOULD like to discuss it with you but the air in this room is SOOO rarified as to preclude ANY relationship other than master and peon.

But even WITH a manual I am not too sure many of the issues that crop up here can be solved. I tried diligently to probe the HELP file on the computer for a lost icon on the dock. Never was able to locate a solution. The people that built the iPhone should consult with the guys who put the HELP files together on the Mac, BUT, then again, THIS is not the forum for such nonsense.

As to my "having too much time on my hands" that would be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. WHO has 45K + points? Seems like a lot of time spent on this site "helping others". You must have FAR more time then I do.

And one last point, when you see my posts from now on (and I WILL try to limit them to the utmost) save YOURSELF some time and past them over. Even if your comments were to be helpful to me, I would not feel compelled to respond positively

And thank you Mr. Galt for the tip. BTW, I now have the iMac hooked to a Clapper switch. Works great.😝

Darrow...for the Prosecution

Have A great Life

LN

Prouss, this is a thread from ****. Looks like Apple trolls have come back to haunt the company halls. I knew when Jobs left this world, Apple would descend again into its anarchic days before he came back and salvaged the sinking ship.

I didn't upgrade to this version of iPhoto and I don't plan to, ever. The "help" you get from these point padders is enough to dissuade me to think Apple has any future. The ones browbeating here, in this thread, the trolls, probably are the very ones that managed iPhoto's "development" and descent into doom. It seems that they are the tacit cheerleading team for it, without much enthusiasm, I must say.

This is the new world order we can look forward to: Incompetence, papering over problems and little, if any, productivity, let alone support. Have a nice day, Mr. Prouss, and stay away from Apple post Jobs or else you will pay for this growing decay...

CamelMac

You seem to misunderstand what a troll is, how these forums work, and have a slim grasp of history. Your post is a pretty good example of why I say that online reviews have to be take carefully.

The people who post responses here are users just like you - well perhaps not quite like you as they sometimes actually offer assistance. Remember they can't "pad points" the only person who can award points is the person who created the thread in question. Only. They are under no obligation to do so. That some do means that person actually got some help with whatever issue they had.

This version of iPhoto was released before Steve Jobs died. So that sort of blows your point about "Apple post Jobs", now doesn't it? No one who posts regularly here has any connection with Apple at all, just folks who come on board to help other users, if they can.

And as you whine and stamp your foot like a three year old about "Incompetence, papering over problems and little, if any, productivity, let alone support" without actually providing an example of the problem you apparently are having then how on earth can you expect help. Now that's what I call a useless post. Gets no one anywhere.

Larry HN's comment is pretty snotty- apparently I'm not allowed to comment or help until I have 8000 points. I don't know about you all but I have a business to run and a couple of kids to get to school and sports and a certain number of hours to train on my bike. My limited free time indicates NOTHING about my level of knowledge of iPhoto or anything else for that matter.

As DD understood, my comment was an expression of my frustration that Apple products are (increasingly in my view) failing to deliver on their core incremental value proposition over alternatives. iPhoto still can't share a library. Time Machine still can't delete back-ups from an old computer. The brand new Time Capsule still can't serve media. (But hey, it's a different shape! Cool!) These are pretty obvious functionalities with big value adds.

"Get iMovie to import all common video formats easily? That sounds hard and BOR-RING!. Instead let's make the iMac pointlessly thin so the disc drive doesn't fit! You know, like supermodels so hot they don't need to carry money or I.D. And then let's move that card reader where it can't be seen or reached because that was just lame practical. Skinny jeans with the zipper in the back. Dope. Now the case is too tight for user upgrades so...they either buy the Apple upgrade special high colonic or find the whole machine obsolete years premature. Did you feel that? I think the stock price just jumped! Work done here. Vespa for a Trappist?"

My cynicism has come in part because I've politely asked three Apple employees to explain the design changes in the current iMac and all very nicely declined.

iPhoto can share a Library.

Not sure about the TM back ups.

It's a back up device not a NAS. The clue might well be in the name.

Define 'common video formats' because there really is no such thing. Although there are millions of files out there ending in .avi or whatever, that means very little. avi is not like .txt, .doc or .jpeg. Video files are containers for media streams encoded and decoded by Codecs and guess what: pretty much every camera maker uses their own variant of the Codecs, and changes them from camera model to camera model all the time.

So while the JPEG format is managed by an independent consortium of interested parties (the Joint Pictures Experts Group) there is no such body for movie formats. So pretty much, movie codecs are analagous to camera raw formats that have to added on a camera by camera basis.

I have no idea who the Apple employees you asked about the design changes were but were they part of the design team?

Hey I have an idea -- STOP purchasing products you hate - really not a difficult concept - buy what you like and don't buy what you don't like

And posting your personal desires in a user to user forum that is not used by any product producer is even less productive than pruchasing products you don't like

No need to wish you good wishes

LN

SorryTerence, iPhoto cannot share a library reliably. This is a myth. Please prove me wrong and provide a link to a specific configuration for this that has worked over time for more than a single user. I will be forever grateful.

Yes, the TC is not a NAS, that is my point. It would not be a huge engineering feat to get it to function as a NAS as well.

How about 1080p AVCHD, as an example? You make a good point about the heterogeneous nature of video formats. Yet Adobe products seem to have greater capacity to read various formats than Apple products. I use both. I would bet that Adobe has a tiny fraction of the budget to devote to such development. Apple does less with far greater resources.

So only members of the product design team should be able to explain why valuable functionality was removed in a newer version of the product? You set the bar pretty low.

MAYBE SVO, we (us Level 1 peons) could band together here on this forum drive up each others points until we arrive at that magic level of 8000.

You further stated

So only members of the product design team should be able to explain why valuable functionality was removed in a newer version of the product? You set the bar pretty low.

It is almost like a religious cult, an inner sanctum, as to how things get done at Apple. One thing is for sure, the technology to DO something long ago surpassed the popular imagination to actually DO IT. I use a computer for 3 basic things, communications, CAD/CAM production, and self education. My iPhone 5 is an excellant tool in the right hands, but other than a telephone and calendar devise, to me it is an intrusion into my life. I DON'T need to know every little bump and grind that goes on in other peoples lives. Photos on my iPhone are for business references only.

My iMac photo gallery is currently at 8GB. If I want to share photos with someone I do it THERE when things quite down at night, NOT when I am in the middle of a workday. I am HAPPY with the iPhone giving me excellant quality and dependability in the areas that I need an iPhone for. For THAT dependability I am quite happy with the product choice.

We can ALL find admiration in the multitude of featurs to be had on the modern computer or phone but when the complexity involved in the management of thise features (whether we use those features or not) gets in the way of the use and enjoyment of those features, WE, as a consume, purchased the phone for, someone needs to get a grip on the development team at Aplple.

Gotta go, I have far too little time on my hands to take care of MY business.

Darrow...for the Prosecution