I turned off iCloud Photos & recovered the space that photos/videos were unnecessarily consuming off iCloud storage. I do not use it anymore, inspite of how hard Apple wants me to. It’s crazy that how poorly Apple handles photos and how difficult it makes for us to use them.

@amit I am definitely not a power user in the photo world … and they do what I need. What is it that you do that they aren’t doing? I am more than likely missing a trick or seven.

@vincent Frankly speaking, after trying a few options I have settled on to Google Photos. It’s an experience way better and simpler than what Apple provides. May not work for all, but does for me.

@JohnPhilpin Oh, I am no power user either. I need a platform that works well cross-platform, plus works well on web. Is able to quickly load videos from years back. Has tools for building quick collages, movies etc. Has simple editing options. Searches well when needed. The list goes on - minor, but important for me. Photos fails big time.

@amit @JohnPhilpin @vincent If I wasn’t all in on Apple I would dump iCloud pretty quickly. It’s a bad general purpose, cross-system platform, which I would guess is by intent.

Even being all-Apple, and surprised by how well they have developed Photos, I am not going to rely on it for anything even serious enough for hobbyist activity.

As for power users; I’d be surprised if the average person cares about anything you listed there, Amit, except maybe for search (even then I think searching well is not an expectation many people hold). I think you are a power user, and that isn’t a bad thing.

@amit got it .. search and edit are our crossover .. both of which are ok for me in the apple world .. I find the power to novice spectrum relative … to me, you are a power user ..

@SimonWoods we clearly agree on the ‘power’ status of @amit

@JohnPhilpin I use iCloud sync for photos, but also use Google photos in parallel. I am fine with iCloud for daily use, but Google’s image search is way better when I’m looking for an old photo.

@SimonWoods @JohnPhilpin I am not an average user, sure. But if you knew how heavy the usage for sharing Photos via WhatsApp is in my family (and in general in India), you would realize the importance of many features here. None are power user specific.

Every average person uses most of these; Android is all they use, and Google Photos is all they know. They crop, apply filters, build collages, search by location, add text etc., regularly. We should stop misjudging the requirements of the “average” person – their needs are different, not less.

@SimonWoods btw, I agree with this sentiment – “it’s a bad general purpose, cross-system platform, which I would guess is by intent”. Else there’s no need for iCloud suite of apps to be so bad on web.

@amit @JohnPhilpin As I said, I would be surprised. And given that I forgot (again) about the Facebook Effect, I am surprised by the things people do in WhatsApp… although my guess is that people also do that with iMessage.

I certainly don’t think their needs are less. I’ve just forgotten that I am not in that world as much as I used to be; it can be difficult to remember which world you’re in, especially when you’re an unpaid and unemployed enthusiast surrounded by people who are very much not that.

@amit 💯- My reference is not to do with how tech is used - but what is known about the tech. My daughter is a master at Instagram - at least compared to me - and she uses it to do what she needs to do for what she does - so filters, cropping, grouping - and everything else that you can do … me no idea how to do that - BUT - if I need to I have apps on my mac that will do what I need (not as efficient - for sure - but I am not going to bother learning how to use an app that I have no interest in. In her world - if Instagram suddenly stopped - she would be lost. Much as a lot of twitter people seem to be lost on Mastodon, because they don’t seem to have an understanding of the under pinnings.

It’s just different knowledge that we all learn to do what we need for ourselves.

(Sorry - just read this through - and think I might have deviated from the topic - oh well!)

@SimonWoods

> “unpaid and unemployed enthusiast surrounded by people who are very much not that.”

we should form a band.

@JohnPhilpin Podcast name idea: Fish out of Orbit