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Apple's entire iCloud offering is a mess. I have no idea what the "rules" are. For example, I bought iCloud storage plan for 200 GB for $4/month, and I'm not

by steven2012 11y ago

Apple's entire iCloud offering is a mess. I have no idea what the "rules" are. For example, I bought iCloud storage plan for 200 GB for $4/month, and I'm not sure what that is backing up. Is it just backing up a single version of my phone? Or multiple, in case I accidentally delete something? I'm thinking it's the former, which is only barely useful. I also do a lot of Photostreaming with my family. Photostream is a great product. I already have 4 separate photostreams with thousands of pictures and videos, but I'm apparently paying nothing for it. Why? What's the limit? How can I get a copy of an entire photostream? Can they arbitrarily delete all my photostreams? All of these I'm unsure about. The same goes for Photo Library and iCloud Drive. I have no idea how it works, what the limits are, but I'm too afraid to try it because of the things that OP says. It may delete my entire photo library, and I can't afford that because I have years upon years of photos on my iPhone of my family that I can't lose. I wish the explanations were better, and their guarantees were stronger. As I said, it feels like their entire offering is a mess, which is too bad, because it shouldn't be this confusing and bad for all of their success.

zwily 11y ago
The first hit to "photo stream limits": https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202299 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202299 I don't know if that answers your questions or not. It does seem kind of complicated.
- steven2012 11y ago
  Exactly. I already found this page, and I still don't understand. I can upload 25,000 photos to my photostream per month? For free? That doesn't sound right. Do they get deleted? I purposefully create a new photostream when I get close to 1000 photos/videos, just because I remember reading somewhere that 1000 was the limit per photostream, but I don't see it listed here. As I said, the entire thing is way too complicated.
  - stephenr 11y ago
    Photo stream is meant to let you sync photos between devices - that's why photos get removed automatically. What you want is regular shared albums. The upload limits are to do with the number of images you can upload per hour/day/month - they're about the amount of uploaded items not stored items.
    - steven2012 11y ago
      There is nothing that I've read that describes what you said. That said, I have multiple photostreams with almost 1000 photos/videos per photostream, and none have been deleted. So I'm not sure how it's supposed to work, if it is just a sync mechanism. As well, I do know that without an internet connection, the videos don't work, so I'm not sure what "sync" even means in this context.
      - stephenr 11y ago
        > There is nothing that I've read that describes what you said. Literally the second (non-ad) result when I searched on DDG for "apple photostream": https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201317 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201317 From that page: The subheading says: "With My Photo Stream, you can access the recent photos that you take with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, on your Mac and PC." Under the instructions about setting it up is this: > My Photo Stream uploads your most recent photos so you can view and import them to all of your devices. Photos are stored in My Photo Stream for 30 days. I don't know what material you've been reading, but Photostream has always been marketed by Apple as a way to get photos from any of your devices, onto the others. Think of it like a delayed queue. Device A uploads the 5 photos you just took to the photostream. Devices B and C connect later (either because they were off, or had no Wifi, etc) and (depending on your settings) can download those 5 photos. After a month, the photos are automatically deleted from the photo stream. In the world of iCloud Photo Library, the only reason to keep the "Upload to My Photo Stream" option turned on, is if you have a device that can't use the new Photos app (e.g. older iOS/OSX). Based on what you're saying about "multiple PhotoStreams" I don't even know what you're doing. Are you sure what you're using is PhotoStreams, and not just regular shared albums? It doesn't sound anything like PhotoStream if you have multiple, long-lived collections.
dperfect 11y ago
I might describe myself as an Apple fan boy, but I wholeheartedly agree with this. As one of the few technical people in my family, I get asked about problems with Photo Stream, iCloud, iTunes storage, etc. far more than anything else these days. It also seems that increasingly, I don't have good answers to those questions because so much of the complexity is hidden (not even accessible by power users or documented online). After months of frustration, I've pretty much decided not to use any of the cloud services on Apple products. I really want to like Apple's cloud services, but I'm not sure any sane person can put up with them on a regular basis.

zwily 11y ago

The first hit to "photo stream limits": https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202299 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202299 I don't know if that answers your questions or not. It does seem kind of complicated.

steven2012 11y ago
Exactly. I already found this page, and I still don't understand. I can upload 25,000 photos to my photostream per month? For free? That doesn't sound right. Do they get deleted? I purposefully create a new photostream when I get close to 1000 photos/videos, just because I remember reading somewhere that 1000 was the limit per photostream, but I don't see it listed here. As I said, the entire thing is way too complicated.
- stephenr 11y ago
  Photo stream is meant to let you sync photos between devices - that's why photos get removed automatically. What you want is regular shared albums. The upload limits are to do with the number of images you can upload per hour/day/month - they're about the amount of uploaded items not stored items.
  - steven2012 11y ago
    There is nothing that I've read that describes what you said. That said, I have multiple photostreams with almost 1000 photos/videos per photostream, and none have been deleted. So I'm not sure how it's supposed to work, if it is just a sync mechanism. As well, I do know that without an internet connection, the videos don't work, so I'm not sure what "sync" even means in this context.
    - stephenr 11y ago
      > There is nothing that I've read that describes what you said. Literally the second (non-ad) result when I searched on DDG for "apple photostream": https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201317 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201317 From that page: The subheading says: "With My Photo Stream, you can access the recent photos that you take with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, on your Mac and PC." Under the instructions about setting it up is this: > My Photo Stream uploads your most recent photos so you can view and import them to all of your devices. Photos are stored in My Photo Stream for 30 days. I don't know what material you've been reading, but Photostream has always been marketed by Apple as a way to get photos from any of your devices, onto the others. Think of it like a delayed queue. Device A uploads the 5 photos you just took to the photostream. Devices B and C connect later (either because they were off, or had no Wifi, etc) and (depending on your settings) can download those 5 photos. After a month, the photos are automatically deleted from the photo stream. In the world of iCloud Photo Library, the only reason to keep the "Upload to My Photo Stream" option turned on, is if you have a device that can't use the new Photos app (e.g. older iOS/OSX). Based on what you're saying about "multiple PhotoStreams" I don't even know what you're doing. Are you sure what you're using is PhotoStreams, and not just regular shared albums? It doesn't sound anything like PhotoStream if you have multiple, long-lived collections.

dperfect 11y ago

I might describe myself as an Apple fan boy, but I wholeheartedly agree with this. As one of the few technical people in my family, I get asked about problems with Photo Stream, iCloud, iTunes storage, etc. far more than anything else these days. It also seems that increasingly, I don't have good answers to those questions because so much of the complexity is hidden (not even accessible by power users or documented online). After months of frustration, I've pretty much decided not to use any of the cloud services on Apple products. I really want to like Apple's cloud services, but I'm not sure any sane person can put up with them on a regular basis.