Q: Photos out of order in Events after iOS 8 update

mrbofus wrote:

 

I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say people have found patterns.  If you sync one event at a time, it appears to keep them in that order.  But that's it.  Otherwise, it is a random order.  If you sync the same library to two different devices, the events are ordered differently on the two devices, even though it's syncing with the same library on the same computer.

That's exactly the kind of "pattern" I'm talking about. I think it's a little more involved than one event at a time, but I don't yet have a good idea what else it may be. But, by definition, it's not random, because computers can't do random things; they're deterministic machines. It may be *effectively* random for any practical human purpose, but I think it may be possible to get a better picture of the algorithm than just that, and I plan to fool around a bit more. But not much.

Only this problem has nothing to do with certain devices. It fixes stability and performance on iPhone 4s/iPad 2, nothing else.

About the photo issue: I'll let you guess...

LOL I like optimists :-). I wish I were one.

Dear Apple. PLEASE FIX THE SORTING ORDER ISSUE ASAP ! As a professional Apple user I find it extremely annoying that after every iOS update I have to find workarounds for workflows that were perfectly fine before the update. Last year you suddenly deprived us of the option to choose different music for different event slideshows on an iPad (gray hair and lots of time wasted). And now there's this issue with sorting events. (more gray hair and time wasted) You can release whatever software update you want, but PLEASE don't throw away what was already perfect for millions of people. May I strongly advice you to check your iOS updates in real life before releasing them and not just in the secure environment of your ivory towers? Next time I will send you my invoice for all the hours spent on troubleshooting after every update. Thank you, Werner

I can confirm that the problem is not fixed in 8..1.1

I think they don't want to fix this issue. I've called the support several times and spoke three times to a senior. The last time, the senior gave me his mail address that I can send him the details about this issue. After that, I was dropped out of the line and got no call back although I gave him my call back number before. After sending the mail to him, I've got a delivery error 'no such mail address'. For me it is clear, they don't want to hear any complains, they just want to sell their stuff and doesn't care about their customers.

Today I've ordered a cheap android smartphone, just to see if this will be an alternative to the apple product. The last time I've did this was in 2006, when I bought a mac mini, just to see if this could be an alternative to microsoft.

Indeed, not solved.

Harry, I'm with you. Had the same experience with Apple seniors last year. The first call was positive & stimulating, but in the end my problem was not solved and as you say, communication stopped. I love Apple, but they are soooooo arrogant. And they almost force me to look for alternatives.... I think especially professional users suffer from the lack of support.

I think it's very healthy that people will look for alternatives to Apple products. It's not an easy thing to do, because Apple has very successfully created an entire "ecosystem" in which everything plays well. Once you try to add a non-Apple component to your life, things can get complicated. It's very funny, because Apple used to be the one crying "interoperability" when Microsoft dominated nearly every aspect of consumer technology. Now it's the other way around.

Anyway, I've frequently used non-Apple products, partly because they just did more of what I wanted, and partly to make sure I was sufficiently competent in a broad range of technologies (for professional as well as personal reasons). For example, I'm currently using a Blackberry Q10 in addition to my iPhone. And I'll be using some kind of Android device soon, too. And I might even swap my old Symbian-based Nokia phone for a Windows Mobile of some sort. But all of these have problems, too. Sometimes it's stuff like this photo-sorting problem, where something on the platform just doesn't work. Just as often, it's a problem that an app that you depend on just doesn't work well (or even exist) on a particular platform (that was a problem for me migrating from PalmOS to iOS - and try migrating *off* iOS if you want some fun).

But if more people would be driven to try non-Apple products, it will have at least two important benefits: (1) it might just persuade Apple to fix some of the nasty problems (another big one is the space consumed by "Other" on iOS devices - no solution in sight); and (2) it will help people to avoid the "religion" disease that so many people develop for Apple products, where they become blinded to the fact that Apple products and support aren't perfect, and that other companies that previously ignored customers have evolved (e.g., Microsoft).

Don't expect a solution to the photo sorting "problem" - ever. In my opinion, it's not a problem at all, but an accidental but inevitable consequence of coming architectural changes in the management of content on iOS (and Mac) devices. A word of advice: if you don't want to be pushed over the cliff that we are approaching where you will be forced to use iCloud, Apple Pay, and a whole bunch of other coming features that will lock you into Apple way beyond the price you paid for your devices, you should start seriously thinking about using products that run other platforms. There are a lot of good ones to choose from, including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook (well, they're not so hot - the phone was a dud, but still ...), etc. Even Blackberry isn't dead, yet (but they're "circling the drain", as the saying goes).

Apple is well aware of the situation. My guess is that they were aware of it in the design phases of the current Photos app, which goes back probably two years. Instead of worrying about what's broken today, you should worry about what's in the design and implementation phases today, because this is stuff that's *really* going to **** you off in another year or two. And if you don't have an exit strategy, you're just going to bend over and take it.

I seriously doubt that Apple's testing didn't find this issue.  It is being ignored, likely because the Photos app is in a state of flux and being evolved to a new version.  What's irritating is that Apple is ignoring our interim need for the app to be compatible with the previous version.  I have never liked the Event based paradigm in  the first place but I adapted to it.  Now they make a their mediocre approach unusable, maybe just for the interim.  But I'm not just keeping my fingers crossed.  I can't sit around and wait to be able to efficiently manage my extensive photo library.  I have purchased a WD MyCloud and am exporting all my Events to files on the MyCloud drive, using the Event name for the file name.  This is time consuming but I needed to do some purging anyway and this forces me to finally do it.  I will now be able to sort the files any fricking way I want to and they will be available to anyone I give access to, regardless of platform.  MyCloud is not perfect, i.e. you need a very good internet connection for remote access, but I don't have to pay any monthly storage fee.  I will keep tabs on whatever Apple comes up with in a few months, but it will have to be very good.

Just to let people know I just discovered that IOS 8 photo order issue is a problem of how to dispaly a filter to organize them.....

I just installed Dropbox app and when selecting a picture to upload to it a menu appear to select within your Photo library and to my surprise my events are shown in order!!!!!!!!!

So if Dropbox app can see them in order from within its app, it is because somewhere they are in order!!!!!

Its the same with apps like WhatsApp and Viber.  No problem finding photos in alphabetical mode.  It's only iPhoto that screws things up.  Sooo unhappy with Apple now.

Calhoste - you made a lot of sense and have frightened the pants off me too!! The ' other ' you mentioned is something that I have never had a satisfactory answer about.  Apple shops can't answer it, can't reduce / amend it in any way.  Can you or someone tell me what it might be 'cos mine is growing larger and larger by the day?  Thank you. Linda

PS apologies - my response should have been referred to Xgrep not Calhoste :-)

Virtually all third-party apps (and most of Apple's own) use some form of the iOS file picker API, which presents media objects sorted by their internal dates (not the same as the filesystem's date that the object was last written). For reasons known only to Apple, and possibly related to coming architectural changes, the Photos app does not use the on-platform file picker facilities.