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iOS 8’s iPhoto to Photos app transition to ditch Journals, Books, and Slideshows

Screen Shot 2014-07-25 at 12.23.10 PM

Starting in iOS 8 beta 4, which was released this past Monday to developers, Apple has begun notifying users of the soon-to-be-defunct iPhoto for iOS to migrate their iPhoto data to the totally revamped Photos app in iOS 8, as part of Apple’s new photo strategy being rolled out this fall and early next year. While photo data can be migrated out of iPhoto, Apple warns that Journals, Slideshows and Book layouts will no longer be available going forward. Right now, Apple’s “Learn More” link appears to be dead.

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Starting in iOS 8 beta 1, users were prompted that projects had been moved to the Photos app, but given no real explanation as to where or how to make the transition to Photos. It appears now that Apple intends to provide a smoother upgrade path to Photos. However, some users of iOS 8 beta 4 are still seeing a rather generic “iPhoto is not supported on iOS 8” message, as depicted below.

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Apple launched Photo Journals back in 2012, as part of the introduction of both iPhoto for iOS as well as the iPad 3. It’s clear now that Photo Journals, along with Slideshows and Books will be going the way of the ill-fated Cards app when iOS 8 is officially launched this fall. Ironically, at the time Cards was discontinued, Apple recommended iPhoto as a replacement. It’s safe to assume similar functionality will disappear on the Mac with the launch of its dedicated Photos app early next year. While screenshots of Photos for Mac show a projects tab, it’s unclear what types of projects will be supported and whether or not these will sync with iOS. As we previously noted, Photos for Mac seems to focus on editing features, rather than professional tools.

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While pieces of Apple’s new photo strategy still remain unclear, it’s likely we’ll get a more complete look at their vision for photos perhaps this fall before the official launch of iOS 8. If you’re an avid iPhoto user, it’s probably a good idea to start planning out an upgrade path for yourself. We’ve reached out to Apple for comment and will update this post with any they may provide.

 

 

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Comments

  1. Sumeet Sharma - 10 years ago

    Great News! I love the new migration of iPhotos for iOS 8, just to add to it, these are Apple iPhone 6 specifications you should be knowing before you buy one this year
    http://www.iappnalysis.com/2014/07/apple-iphone-6-specifications-releasedate-cost.html

    • Mr. Grey (@mister_grey) - 10 years ago

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      • Sumeet Sharma - 10 years ago

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        Ouch!

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  2. Taste_of_Apple - 10 years ago

    Reblogged this on Taste of Apple and commented:
    Good to know. I’m sure some of these features will return in some form via future updates.

  3. MuÑeCa GreÑuDa - 10 years ago

    It’s pretty rare for someone to print photos. I was reading an article a while ago on Yahoo that one woman decided to print the photos from her phone and that everybody in her neighborhood was amazed to see printed pictures. ‘Real Photos, OMG’ XP

  4. Whoda (@Whodakat) - 10 years ago

    This is so stupid. I love those books, and so does my wife. They make great presents. Why do they always have to dumb their software down lately? Its just another draw into their apps, whats the point of getting rid of it when you know the entire internet is letting out a collective sigh every time they revamp an app.

    • Apple is not in the business of printing. They work with third party companies to offer this service. Apple makes a small margin on the items sold. The same thing happened with their cards app. They allowed iOS users to make custom greeting cards, and cards for other occasions. They also included free shipping for only $4.99. If you think about the third party’s profit, cost, postage cost – all in all Apple isn’t making a large enough profit. Consider the fact that all other Apple products are known for their strong margins. On top of all of this Apple stated that the cards app wasn’t very popular. I see this as being the same thing.
      Anyways there are competting apps out there for this kind of thing: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/mosaic-photo-books-make-photo/id547986608?mt=8

    • Mike Knopp (@mknopp) - 10 years ago

      I have a feeling that their book business was faltering.

      Anecdotally, we print a photo book each year. For the first couple of years that we did this we used Apple’s iPhoto book. However, by the third year we wanted something different, and to put it bluntly iPhoto wouldn’t allow us to customize the book very much at all.

      So, we went to through other services for the books since then. It was a little bit cheaper, but the price wasn’t the biggest draw. These other services allowed us to customize the books much more than iPhoto ever did.

      iPhoto’s book options was one of those standard Apple products that they release and then pretty much neglect.

      I am much more concerned with Apple solving iPhoto’s issues with large sets of photos than continuing a service that they have made blatantly obvious they don’t really care about.

  5. aawil - 10 years ago

    I really like the books and calendars. It would be a shame to lose the in iPhoto option to make them.

    • Mr. Grey (@mister_grey) - 10 years ago

      Wow. A printed Calendar? I know some folks still print photos, but Calendars? I remember getting them as presents in the early 90’s (20 years ago!) and they were mostly useless things then.

      • aawil - 10 years ago

        I went on a huge 13 country road trip through Europe last year. I did the calendar from them. I glance at the date once in a while but to be honest I mostly did it for the pictures.

      • Robert Stukenbroeker - 10 years ago

        Yes definitely. I print one out of my kids and keep it on my desk at work.

  6. Brandon James Ferretti - 10 years ago

    I want to know if they will maintain Faces metadata anymore. I’ve invested so much time and use that feature so frequently D:

    • kepardue - 10 years ago

      This. I’ve spent a ton of time tagging faces and have smart albums to show me, say, photos with both of my kids in them. I hate the thought of losing all of that effort, though admittedly it’d be worth the tradeoff to have all of my photos and videos available *everywhere*.

  7. gradly - 10 years ago

    Apple becomes more like Google, services and apps popping in and out. Better keep ur hope in check and never get attached to a service

  8. fabrica64 - 10 years ago

    Apple migration strategy: forget all the work you’ve done and start again…
    How can you do that Apple? You’re never shure your work will be accessible in the future with Apple apps, thta’s why serious people use Adobe…
    See what happened with documents written in Pages, I can no more acess it, and to convert I need to use an old version of Pages (that does not run on later OS X)
    Never trust Apple for your longterm data

  9. Igor Rusinov (@rusinov_) - 10 years ago

    I print a few books from iPhoto and I absolutely love it. I can’t believe I was using my iPhone (and iPod touch) for this, because it’s looks so cool.

    I know not many people print photo books like I do, but you should give it a try. Hope in Photos.app it will be still possible to order and print books.

  10. Lars Pallesen - 10 years ago

    “As we previously noted, Photos for Mac seems to focus on editing features, rather than professional tools.”

    Huh? Editing features RATHER THAN professional tools? What exactly does Michael Steeble think professional photographers do with their photo software? They EDIT, is the answer! Professional photo software like Adobe Photoshop is ALL about editing features! You didn’t seriously think that something like Journals and Books is considered a “professional tool”, did you?

  11. Maybe I’m just being optimistic, but the pop-up in the article says “Layouts and text added to Books, Journals and Slideshows will not be available.” It didn’t say Books, Journals, and Slideshows will not be available. Apple could just be changing the format or the process in which they are created such that there’s no backwards compatibility. Any books or whatever you made before will have to be re-made in Photos.

    • borntofeel - 10 years ago

      Exactly. If they were going to remove books they would have just have clearly said that.

    • robertsammons - 10 years ago

      I found when migrating a journal they just took all of the photos from it and made an album, so yes the layout and text disappear

  12. David Pfenninger - 10 years ago

    The infromation in the article and the included photo of the dialog box describe two completely different things. The article states that Apple is ditching Books, Journals, and Slideshows altogether…but Apple clearly states in the dialog box that just the text and layouts won’t be available moving forward. This article seems to merely be a very early alarmist misinterpretation of something in a beta piece of software.

    I, for one, use the Slideshow features of iPhoto a lot. And I print the occasional book and calendar as well. To lose these features, especially the slideshows which seem very commonly used and widespread, would be bad. I could be wrong, but I don’t think that is what is happening here.

  13. Jamie Hamilton (@iJamie5) - 10 years ago

    This is a little disappointing as the end of an era but I suppose they’re moving forward and simplifying. The photo journals were a big part of the Mac experience in the 00’s.

  14. Brian Ramage (@BJMRamage) - 10 years ago

    Seems odd about the slideshows. they are the same basic slideshows used for screensavers on AppleTV and Macs. Perhaps just greater API/plugins for sending photos (within Photos) to snappish, shutterfly, etc.

Author

Avatar for Michael Steeber Michael Steeber

Michael is a Creative Editor who covered Apple Retail and design on 9to5Mac. His stories highlighted the work of talented artists, designers, and customers through a unique lens of architecture, creativity, and community.

Contact Michael on Twitter to share Apple Retail, design, and history stories: @MichaelSteeber