As Apple transitioned away from the skeuomorphic mess that was the pre-iOS 7 era, the design-minded company systematically trimmed the fat from its iconic mobile and desktop operating systems. Unfortunately, even after that process, one product in particular still stuck out like a big, anachronistic sore thumb: iPhoto, plague of Mac users everywhere.
Apple
We’ve been patient with iOS and OS X both, waiting until the day when that one last thorn was pulled from our side. That day isn’t quite here, but with the release of Apple’s OS X Yosemite 10.10.3, we’re definitely getting closer. Apple’s iPhoto has been a trainwreck for years. Part of that is a function of the fact that iPhoto relies on iCloud, Apple’s other enduring hot mess of a software product. Between redundant photo products, syncing issues, and a hideous user interface, we’re ready to say sayonara to iPhoto once and for all.
While we wait for the final product to hit Macs, where Photos for Mac will play nice with Apple’s mercifully revamped iOS Photos app, let us pause for a moment to recall the myriad flavors of loathing that iPhoto inspired in users far and wide over the last 13 or so years.
“My wife fears iPhoto so much she’d rather leave a years worth of photos to get corrupted on her iPhone (it’s happened) than cast them into iPhoto’s diseased maw.” – 2013
“Must say that I love the idea of iPhoto, but man is it buggy, have to agree that it is possibly the worst Apple program I have worked with.” – January 2014
“I always thought it was just me and I hadn’t spent enough time learning the software but then I went and read the reviews for iPhoto on the App Store and nope, it definitely sucks.” – January 2013
“I hate iPhoto with a fiery passion. Please help me find an alternative.” – January 2014
“My boss complained, saying ‘I thought you said that Mac was better than Windows… but the program made for organizing photos won’t let me keep them organized the way that is the simplest?’” – 2006
“I hate to say this, but it looks like MS got it right with Vista’s photo organization (from the look of the beta). It gives most of the options iPhoto gives inside of the file explorer when you click on the ‘photos’ section.” – June 2006
“To me, it’s biggest mistake is operating on a single file database that is a pain to maintain and closed to anything that deals with files.” – 2013
“Better to use the native photo import from OS X to fetch the photos from the iPhone to a Dropbox, Google Drive, or other kind of cloud based file sync.” – August 2013
“I’ve been using Macs since 1984—seriously (I still have the original in my storage). And iPhoto sucks. It’s clunky, crash-prone, and painfully slow. The fact that it makes duplicates of the photos is very annoying and now that I’ve gone through a few Macs with iPhoto, I have many duplicates and it’s become a monster.” – February 2013
“Just because by far and away Apple does make great hardware and software, that doesn’t mean they can’t make a mistake.” – April 2013
Yes, a thousand times yes.
Apple
That ambiguous Spring 2015 launch date can’t get here soon enough.
