Wait, you can’t DELETE photos from the iOS photostream?

Then they won’t be happy with me: weird night shots, 80% of which are unusable.   Pattern experiments with colour and texture.   Angle and lighting fiddling.

No T’s n A’s unfortunately.

That’s a good point and a very useful strategy.  I think Photostream is a “fail” in its current form though.   Lots of potential but I have a nagging feeling that the lack of functionality is some sort of apple strat to see what might be monetized.   ie fling the app out and check how it’s used and what the complaints are.   Plan marketing tactics accordingly.

On second thought, nah.   Never ascribe conspiracy to a situation where simple stupidity provides a sufficient and complete explanation.

Agreed

Yeah, It’s pretty…wait MAJORLY stupid that you cannot delete certain photos you don’t want out of photostream. STUPID STUPID STUPID, no other word for it. I’ve taken some photos I can do without seeing ever again.

Alas that’s hardly useful

I’ve been through exactly the same expreriences as the author. Apple really fail this time and i’m wish i could sell my iPhone for Samsung Galaxy Note

Yeah it’s almost useful

I really fucking hope this is sarcasm. I really do.

I don’t get it, Ewan. It’s the exact solution to the problem that threw you into a fit of rage and made you blast a load of poorly researched blogging all over your screen. 

And the solution existed before you wrote the post.

You’re clearly aware of this, but you’re unable to acknowledge that your entire blog post was pointless. What would have been more logical is if you would have done a minute of research, found the answer to the problem that you instead chose to wail about. Hell, you could have even posted the solution on your blog for others who might have had the same quandary. Like me – which is how I found this blog, this post, this thread, and ultimately found the answer, from others who bothered to do the research that you did not. (And again, your flippant response to those who did the research is really just pathetic.)

One more thing: Why don’t you POST THE SOLUTION on your Twitter feed and whatever other social media streams these idiots below are for some unknown reason paying attention to? People are still spreading this blog post around, people are still saying, for instance: “Seems odd for @apple not to realize that people will want to be able to delete photos from their photo stream in #iOS5″ …Seems to me that what’s odd is that you haven’t followed up with the answer to the problem that you didn’t bother to figure out on your own before writing this ridiculous post – that’s what people actually want to know.

Explain, clearly, why selective pruning of images on iCloud’s photostream would be useful, when all the iCloud photostream is is a mechanism to sync photos between devices. 

But, first, let’s consider a couple facts here:

1) All of the photos on the iCloud photostream, at any given moment, are ostensibly synced to the connected devices. In other words, those photos are already ON those devices. 

2) You can’t view photos on iCloud like an online photo gallery, as its only function is to sync photos between devices.

3) This iCloud photostream storage isn’t accessible to anyone except the owner of the account – and more accurately, the owner of the devices the account is associated with.

4) Selectively pruning images from that iCloud storage of photos won’t change the photos that are already synced to those attached devices.

Now, considering those facts, explain to me why an “individual delete” function would have any bearing, any relevance or usefulness whatsoever, were it added to the iCloud photostream. Because all of those images are at any moment already synced between devices, as the photostream is intended to function, pruning out images on the photostream would have no functional usefulness.

What I would suggest is that Apple could include more control over what is UPLOADED to the photostream – for instance, an “HDR On/Off”-esque option in Camera to enable adding the image to photostream or not. But plucking images one by one out of photostream is irrelevant once the photos are uploaded, because by that point they’re already synced between devices, at which point you need to delete those images, locally, on an individual basis, as per how the photo syncing of the iCloud photostream is intended to function.

Another viewpoint of mine is that you’re unable to take into consideration a logical answer to a problem you didn’t bother to research before blasting all over the web about it and actually creating more confusion than was necessary. Just another example of why technology blogs like this are worthless.

Re-read the title of your blog post and decide if you were completely off the mark – while I assume you think too highly of yourself to admit you were wrong, you should really post a followup so people who stumble upon this blog (like 99% of the people who posted here) can see the solution to the problem you said had no solution. Your “UPDATE” at the end of your post is where that followup should appear.

Agreed, you CAN DELETE photos from your photostream. Furthermore, there is no effective use for selectively deleting photos from the photostream, since they sync to the attached devices as soon as they hit iCloud. By selectively deleting photos from the photostream, you’d have zero impact on the photos already synced to your devices – selective deletion has to happen on that level once the images are synced. This is why the only deletion option that has any value in this situation is deleting all. Which, again, also has no impact on the devices that images already synced to. 

As I said in another response you evidently didn’t approve: The option that WOULD make sense is for Apple to implement an addition to Camera (similar to the HDR on/off option) that would allow you to turn the photostream sync on and off shot by shot. If you want everything uploaded, just leave it on. Don’t want your photos synced to your other devices, turn it off with a single touch. But selectively pruning them once they’re on iCloud will have no bearing on anything.

I agree – once Apple makes updates that undermine even my argument, I’m sure I’ll see the logic in the changes, in which case throwing my own argument out the window. 

But I think what we can safely expect is that Apple will give far more transparency to what is in the iCloud storage for all data (photostream included, control over selective devices – another great feature that could be added, so certain content can be limited to certain devices, or even a step further, that content up-synced to iCloud from device A can only be sync’d as a rule to device B and C, but not device D, and so on. 

For now, though, looking at the last (pre “Update”) part of your original blog post, I think that’s a scare that everyone had – in fact, when I was wondering, wait, where the hell are my images going now and how do I control it, I was very dismayed that I didn’t have the control to simply stop it in its tracks. That’s why the full-delete of the photostream storage is important to inform people of, and I should add that Apple didn’t make it easy. The iCloud interface should have had, from the get go, a Photostream icon or even simply a “delete photostream content” button, instead of something hidden under “Advanced” (which we, you, me, and most others on this thread, didn’t navigate through til much later on after the panic hit and diffused through the internets). 

Anyway, I think we’re both on the same page with this, and apologies for it getting a little heated – I’m aware of your logic on this, and I think the same vice versa.

Cheers, and Happy Halloween!

While I generally love Apple. My love is NOT unconditional or blind. I like the innovations proposed by Apple, but I think they should still listen to user feedback from actual experience using the innovations. I agree that, while not intended to be used that way, iCloud and PhotoStream should allow at least the following abilities:

1) Select individually which photos should be sent (or NOT) to iCloud via PhotoStream.
2) Allow for individual photos to be deleted selectively from PhotoStream/iCloud and/or from individual devices.

I don’t care about the debate between streaming vs storage, this is what I would have expected to be available intuitively. To me this new “innovation” was more about facilitating the transfer of photos from the device that captured them (mostly iPhone4) and other devices on which we want the photos to be available (without the whole USB cable and iTunes sync circus). At to some extent, it becomes about storage (if only as an exchange/transfer platform).

My 2 cents…

Right.  A way that somebody had to point out to him, one which I couldn’t see either.  I’m no idiot.  Ewan’s no idiot.  The fact that photostream is more of a documentation of every single picture you’ve taken instead of something useful, like, say, a collection of your favorite shots you can sync between your devices, is pretty damn lame. 

So, this is literally a stream, of which you’ll have to fish out the images you care about on each and every other device which is connected before it runs out of the stream?  This doesn’t sound convenient.  It sounds super freaking confusing, tiresome, and painful.  I really do hate to say it but I must repeat Ewan’s sentiment: for the digital era wherein Apple has pioneered the mantra of ‘it just works’, this really is bullocks.

Now that has to be a joke.  So, because Apple botched (which I’ll easily concede at this point) a feature that is NEW to the OS, one which you can DISABLE at any time you please, you want to switch to a phone that snorts battery like a coke fiend, responds to touch like a catatonic grand-dad, and has more plastic than Heidi Montag?  Not to mention it sucks as a poor imitation of the iPhone?  

What is that, a stylus included in the box?Srsly?

And, again, you actually can delete photos, as this original blog post was in error. Simply go to your profile name, click Advanced, and, well, delete. 

Ewan, again, you should really update your blog post so new readers can see, immediately, that in fact you CAN DELETE photos, contrary to the title of the post. 

Nope – totally reasonable expectations.  I found this article by googling, “how do I delete photos from this stupid fucking photo stream on my mac?”  Thanks for supplying me with the answer.

Read the sodding post properly. I want to delete individual photos. Thank you.

That’s what you keep saying in this thread. However, you NEVER mention individual photo deletion in your blog post. You should probably re-read it yourself. What you do say is this:

Wait, you can’t DELETE photos from the iOS photostream?
The answer is yes, you can.

You also say this:

“So you’re telling me, Mr Apple, that I could grab my friend’s iPhone, visit some dodgy adult sites and take some screenshots (which will go straight into his photostream) and he’ll have to live with that for 30 days? And so will his parents whose iPads are sharing the same account?”
The answer is no, That’s not the case at all.

You also say this: 

“So every photo I take — EVERY PHOTO — whether it’s a blurred shot of my foot or a throw-away screenshot, it’s going to be WITH ME for 30 days? And I can’t delete it?”

The answer is no, That’s not the case at all.

I’ve read the sodding post three times now. I think you’re missing something yourself.

- J.

Oh my gosh I’m astonished that you actually need me to spell it out. I just assumed everyone wound understand from the examples I gave!

I will modify the post later tonight.

At which point you can then tell me there’s a ‘delete all’ function and I can tell you that this is a complete and unmitigated fuck-up from Apple as they’ve clearly shipped an Alpha version.

And then we can both stare at each other.

Dunno man – you made a lot of exasperated statements in your blog post, most of which centered around this idea that your photos would remain in the iCloud photostream for 30 days with no user control over removing them. That simply isn’t true. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to read the title of your post as any more nuanced than it actually was. When you wrote it, you had no idea that photos were deletable, period. When I read it, I didn’t either. So I researched it for two minutes and found the actual answer. Unfortunately the majority of people who read your blog left thinking that they had no way to delete photo content from iCloud, which isn’t actually the case.

That said, I want more control over iCloud too. But the answer to your blog’s claims were already stated on Apple’s support pages. It was in the comments thread that you changed your focus once the current controls were made apparent to you (i.e. the Little Jimmy’s parents seeing dirty photos on their iMac for the next 30 days scenario was a load of hogwash).Do what you will with your blog, but I’d recommend being less emotional and hyperbolic – the humor in the post is lacking – and try to be a little more fact-focused while you’re at it.- J.

The post refers to ‘photos in the photostream’ and then goes on to refer to ‘a photo’… singular. It’s pretty clear that Ewan’s referring to a sub-set.

Nuking the whole stream is as good as turning the product off, which isn’t really a very good response for customers who want (and perhaps have now paid for) the syncing service.