3 ms·

Yeah, that jumped out to me too. I wonder what their justification is? Seems like another anti-competitive restriction.

simondotau 4y ago
I imagine there’s a possible justification of libraries getting broken because Photos.app doesn’t know how to handle partial syncs gracefully. Many apps don’t. (Though I also agree Apple really does need to clean up its own room before worrying about what third party software is doing.)
- huggingmouth 4y ago
  Wait. I thought partial syncs are never visible to the rest of the system. Files are either synced or they're not. AFAIK, synching does it this way.
  - zbentley 4y ago
    Doing an atomic-swap sync of a folder (which is what a photo library is) can result in momentary doubling of size-on-disk. For something as big as a photo library that may not be acceptable/possible. The solution (differential syncs with atomic update and with support for the version being diffed against changing during the sync) are quite tricky to get working reliability, and they get less reliable the larger the atomic unit of data is. All that is also assuming that there's a way for the sync program to interpret what units (files or folders) the user wants to be updated slowly/expensively/atomically, which is itself very hard to solve without adding friction or foot guns.
    - kccqzy 4y ago
      APFS has copy-on-write semantics. I regularly duplicate my entire photo library folder. Just duplicate a large folder in Finder and you'll notice (a) it's instantaneous (b) it doesn't cause the disk usage to increase appreciably.
fortran77 4y ago
Maybe because they can’t scan them for CSAM?
clnq 4y ago
I agree. There is a clear way that Dropbox hurts Apple's business interests. Many Apple devices don't have a lot of space. The current generation base Mac Mini and MacBook Pro both only have 256 GB of storage. The iPhone 14 Pro starts at 128 GB. So, many people in the Apple ecosystem rely on things like iCloud Drive not only for backup storage (like storing only important files) but also for the bulk of their storage (as the device space is so limited). The 2TB iCloud Drive costs €10 a month or €120 a year. That is a lot of money over a device's lifetime - about €850 for an average MBP (which on average has a 7 year lifespan). And Apple users really feel the pressure to use these more expensive iCloud Drive plans. Unless there is a competing service targeting the same price point (and even a slightly lower one with an annual subscription). So it makes clear business sense to kill the competition. Every other explanation is just a little bit more contrived than the straightforward business case.

I imagine there’s a possible justification of libraries getting broken because Photos.app doesn’t know how to handle partial syncs gracefully. Many apps don’t. (Though I also agree Apple really does need to clean up its own room before worrying about what third party software is doing.)

huggingmouth 4y ago
Wait. I thought partial syncs are never visible to the rest of the system. Files are either synced or they're not. AFAIK, synching does it this way.
- zbentley 4y ago
  Doing an atomic-swap sync of a folder (which is what a photo library is) can result in momentary doubling of size-on-disk. For something as big as a photo library that may not be acceptable/possible. The solution (differential syncs with atomic update and with support for the version being diffed against changing during the sync) are quite tricky to get working reliability, and they get less reliable the larger the atomic unit of data is. All that is also assuming that there's a way for the sync program to interpret what units (files or folders) the user wants to be updated slowly/expensively/atomically, which is itself very hard to solve without adding friction or foot guns.
  - kccqzy 4y ago
    APFS has copy-on-write semantics. I regularly duplicate my entire photo library folder. Just duplicate a large folder in Finder and you'll notice (a) it's instantaneous (b) it doesn't cause the disk usage to increase appreciably.

fortran77 4y ago

Maybe because they can’t scan them for CSAM?

clnq 4y ago

I agree. There is a clear way that Dropbox hurts Apple's business interests. Many Apple devices don't have a lot of space. The current generation base Mac Mini and MacBook Pro both only have 256 GB of storage. The iPhone 14 Pro starts at 128 GB. So, many people in the Apple ecosystem rely on things like iCloud Drive not only for backup storage (like storing only important files) but also for the bulk of their storage (as the device space is so limited). The 2TB iCloud Drive costs €10 a month or €120 a year. That is a lot of money over a device's lifetime - about €850 for an average MBP (which on average has a 7 year lifespan). And Apple users really feel the pressure to use these more expensive iCloud Drive plans. Unless there is a competing service targeting the same price point (and even a slightly lower one with an annual subscription). So it makes clear business sense to kill the competition. Every other explanation is just a little bit more contrived than the straightforward business case.