Q: In the New Photos, why can't I split and merge events?

Does Lightroom play well with Photos?

No. You should pick one and use it exclusively.

With the introduction of the 99¢ app External Editors For Photos any 3rd party image editor of our choice can be used within Photos. This user tip describes it more fully: External Editors in Photos Are Here.  So if it's editing capability you're concerned about and you have a favorite 3rd party editor like Photoshop, you can use it with Photol

LarryHN, thanks for your response.

Alas, Image Capture, which while a better import system than iPhoto (or Photos - I haven't upgraded my os to that point yet) still isn't a file manager. And if there is a way to manage content on the iPhone using finder these days, please tell me about it because I haven't seen it. Perhaps this is also something in the newer OS? I don't know. I dread the "improvements" that await - I don't want Apple making my life "simpler." I can do that. I want more capability and every possible choice and wish to make it for myself. Apple is, in my opinion, falsely making itself look all sleek and futuristic by taking reasonable choices away from users and keeping to itself capabilities that could be better provided by other applications. As for Preview, I'm not sure what you're suggesting I do with that. I'm aware of it's abilities, which are great for a quick and dirty manipulation, but prefer more capable tools for real image work.

You can get images onto your iOS devices with iTunes from the Finder, just like you always could.

Image Capture isn't a file manager, the Finder is. IC is just an interface with cameras and scanners and offers files to the Finder or some other apps.

You have all the choices you need and want, your mistake is to think that only the obvious one is available.

Lightroom CC or local?  Does Lightroom play well with Photos?

Makes no difference, both ultimately are local, just different licensing,

I am probably using Photos for more than its intended(I am a pat rack and have a few dozen gigs of it).

The number of gigs is irrelevant. We don't have an official statement from Apple but the last two Photo Managers were good for 1,000,000 items in any one library.

Do the tags/gps etc. meta data translate over to Photos in Lightroom?

There is no direct route from Photos to Lightroom, though there is one from iPhoto and Aperture. Perhaps in time someone will develop an importer. Right now yu would need to export to the Finder and then import to LR. The problem there is you would need to choose between the original and versions that contain any added material - edits, added metadata etc.

You requested

then the ability to select groups of photos, using the classic selection tools (shift-click and shift+ctrl) to delete them from the phone and/or the app after moving them into my own file system and using other, better applications to otherwise manipulate them. I don't want an editor from this app. I don't want themes, or dancing elves - just an import and file management application as this was when it started life.

Image capture is the solution to everything but file management including deleting from the iPhone

the finder is the solution to file management

Those are the exact specific jobs each program does

Sorry I confused you by including Preview - most people want to view their photos once they have imported them and organized them and I made the incorrect assumption that you would like to view them - preview is a viewer and includes basic editing

So my revised answer is

Image Capture and the finder

You are welcome

LN

LarryHN,

You're misunderstanding something - I know all this. I am thankful to you for pitching in and trying to help but you must not have read what I'm looking for. My frustration is that there is no direct, simple, affordable solution to the one simple freaking problem of batch-deleting selected photos only from the iPhone, at least not that I can find. I don't want to spend half a day deleting photos individually. I don't do cloud, and I am selective about what I'm willing to pay for. Apple and all these other companies just think we're here to suck money out of. I'm so sick of it. Finder does not have this capability, unless there's a setting I'm missing - the phones don't show up in finder when I plug 'em into the usb port.

Anyway, all I'm looking for is what we had and which Apple took away, which is the ability to access and directly manage files (not just photos) on my iPhones, using my Mac. It's really irritating.

Terrence, how do you use Finder to manage files on the iPhone? And what do you mean by "with iTunes from the Finder"?

As for the rest of it, you replied to me but were quoting and responding to someone else.

B

Does Lightroom play well with Photos?

Both Lightroom and Photos are image databases. If you use both to manage your photos you will create redundancy.

It is o.k. to use a digital asset management system  in combination with  external editors, but to use two database system will make matters complicated.

If you have images in folders on your Mac you can sync them - that is add or remove them - with your iOS device via iTunes.

??? Please tell me how? What OS/iTunes versions are you on? I see no photo management in iTunes at all. I'm in 10.8.5 with iTunes 12.3.2.35. I see no photo management available via iTunes at all.

See this support document.  Sync photos to your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch in iTunes - Apple Support

You will see the photo sync options in iTunes after you connect your iPhone to USB and select it in iTnes.

Again thanks for trying to help, léonie, but I disike sync via iTunes so very much. It's too easy to lose things and get scrambled between phones. It's about the least elegant or intuitive interface I've ever seen. Apple laying another egg. Oy!

What I want is the old time treatment of my iPhone like it was just another hard drive - but Apple apparently does not want to give control of our own data to us. I have no interest in cloud storage or managing my phones that way . . . it's very frustrating.

I was hoping folks here would know of a simple, inexpensive app that would do this one thing - which is to show me all the files on my iphone, as a directory structure, viewable either as a list or as thumbnails, and let me select single or multiple items and delete the selected items in one fell swoop.

What I want is the old time treatment of my iPhone like it was just another hard drive - but Apple apparently does not want to give control of our own data to us. I have no interest in cloud storage or managing my phones that way . . . it's very frustrating.

That is exactly how it is.  The first iPods behaved like just an external drive and we could drop documents there and access the device from the Finder. But this has been stopped for security reasons, when the iPhone has been introduced. The file system on iOS devices is hidden from the user, and only trusted applications can access it and in a limited way.

The reason is, that the devices can be used to make purchases from stores, and the personal data and the purchased content needs to be protected, and it should not be possible to install software that is not from trusted developers.

What I want is the old time treatment of my iPhone like it was just another hard drive - but Apple apparently does not want to give control of our own data to us. I have no interest in cloud storage or managing my phones that way . . . it's very frustrating.

You have complete control of your data. Access to the file system is not necessary for that. You get to decide what data goes on your phone, what comes off, just in different ways than the one you expect. Having access the the file system is not the same as having control of your data.

I have written a number of times but get no response from the APPLE TEAM! I read other complaints the same as mine. PLEASE bring back the ability to split the new 'MOMENTS' NOW!!!!!!!

Surely it's about what we want???? Not just changing a program because they can.

Come on APPLE do the right thing and give us what features we want!