Photos - First Look

With the most recent iOS and OS updates, Apple has replaced iPhoto with Photos. Here are some initial impressions after a short period of experimentation. The Photos editing tools are impressive and a drastic improvement over iPhoto.  I have one complaint in this area. Perhaps the things I do most with photos is to crop and then adjust image size for use outside of the Apple environment. I cannot figure out to adjust size beyond one kludgy 3 size option adjustment I could make when emailing an image. I keep thinking I must be missing something, but I don't think so.

   

Apple assumes we want to access our images across devices and store these images in the cloud. We tend to use multiple devices and in at least some cases even with cross-device access we would prefer not to save the image on the device. This makes some sense. However, Apple is not keeping up in the storage wars. Apple offers 5 GB free with Photos, but the first price point beyond 5 GB would be approximately $12 per year for 20 GB. Flickr offers a terabyte at no cost and my $25 per year pro account gives me unlimited storage. I suppose $12 a year would satisfy the needs of most individuals and you could then take advantage of the convenient access from any Apple device feature.

Free Image EMBEDS from Getty

Getty is a stock image provider. Typically, you pay for use of the images. Getty is now offering images to bloggers and web page authors at no cost - 35 million images are available.

It is important to understand the implications of image embeds. When you embed an image (see below), you are serving the image from the provider and not from the server you use to offer your blog or web page. The Getty approach does not offer you possession of the image.

What could be a limitation of this approach. I guess it depends on how paranoid you care to be. I heard one podcaster contend that the terms of service allow Getty to change its mind. For example, it could decide to terminate the service or possible monetize the service with ads. You can see that Getty identifies that it is the source of the image (see below). If you blog, the image would eventually disappear from your front page and might change without your awareness. I must say this would not concern me - few of those who visit my site use the search feature to locate old posts. Even if they did, what would be the harm in seeing an ad?