http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/blog en bwebster@fatcatsoftware.com Copyright 2012 2012-03-07T23:45:10+00:00 http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/iphoto_for_ios http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/iphoto_for_ios#When:23:45:10Z Earlier today, along with The New iPad™, Apple introduced a new version of iPhoto that runs on both the iPad and the iPhone. I was naturally very curious to see how it worked, and how it interacted with the desktop version of iPhoto, and I thought I’d share what I found in my early explorations with it. Naming might be a bit confusing here, so I’m going to use the term “iOS iPhoto” for the version that runs on iPhones/iPads, and “OS X iPhoto” for the version that runs on Macs. Also, for simplicity sake I’m going to talk about the iPad, rather than using the clumsy term “iOS device” everywhere, but everything here applies to the iPhone as well.  Getting photos from OS X iPhoto to iOS iPhoto iPhoto on iOS works directly on the photos that are stored in your photo library on your iPad, the same one you see in the Photos app and the Camera app. So, if you sync your iPad with your Mac via iTunes, all the photos you sync from there will show up in iPhoto on iOS. If you are syncing directly with an iPhoto library on your Mac (as opposed to syncing with a plain folder of photos), you will also be able to browse your photo albums and events as they appear in your OS X iPhoto library. However, it does not appear that other metadata from OS X iPhoto is displayed when viewing photos on iOS iPhoto. For example, iOS iPhoto does allow you to flag photos, hide photos, and give custom titles to photos (among other things), but those attributes are totally separate from the corresponding metadata on OS X iPhoto. So, flags applied to photos on OS X will not show up in iOS, and vice versa. This also applies to edits made on OS X versus those made on iOS. If you have a photo in OS X iPhoto that you’ve made edits to, the modified version of the photo will be synced to your iPad, but the original version is not. So, if you’re viewing a photo on iOS that was edited on OS X, there is no way to revert to the original version of that photo on the iPad. Similarly, if you edit a photo on the iPad, if you later copy that photo back to the Mac, you will only get the modified version of the photo, and not the original. Getting photos from iOS iPhoto to OS X iPhoto That of course raises the big question - once you’ve done a bunch of changes on the iPad, how exactly do you get those changes back to iPhoto on your Mac? Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that these changes will sync automatically in any way, so if you want to move that stuff to the Mac, you must do so manually. iOS iPhoto does provide several options for how to do that, though. To copy photos out of iOS iPhoto, tap on the photo you want to work with, then tap the “share” icon (the little square with an arrow coming out of it) up at the top of the screen. This will give you a whole bunch of options - here are the ones that let you get the photos back onto your Mac: Camera Roll: this will copy the selected photo into the Camera Roll album on your iPad, so it’s just like you had just taken that picture using the camera on your iPad. If you connect the iPad to your Mac, it will show up like a digital camera in iPhoto, and you can import the photo into iPhoto from there. Note that if this photo was originally synced from the Mac, this will not replace the existing photo in OS X iPhoto, so you will end up with an additional copy of that photo in your library. iTunes: this option makes the photo available for copying via iTunes itself. If you use this method, open up iTunes, then connect your iPad to your Mac - the iPad should show in the “Devices” section in the left hand pane in iTunes. Select the iPad there, then click on the “Apps” tab. Down in the “File Sharing” section near the bottom of the window, iPhoto should be listed there as one of the apps that can share files. If you select iPhoto there, then any photos you have shared using this iTunes option on the iPad will appear there, and you can then use the “Save To…” button to save them to your hard drive. Finally, drag the photos into iPhoto to import them into your library. E-mail: if you want to, you can use this option to e-mail the photos to yourself, then import them into OS X iPhoto from your e-mail client. A bit roundabout, but it does the trick. Photo Stream: this actually isn’t an option in iOS iPhoto itself, but if you use iCloud and have enabled Photo Stream on your iPad, then if you use the Camera Roll option listed above, once the photo is placed in your Camera Roll, it will automatically be uploaded to your Photo Stream as well. Then, you can just open up iPhoto on the Mac and import the photos from Photo Stream there. The rest of the options (Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) theoretically could be used to get the photos back onto your Mac, but those services can potentially scale down the photos to smaller sizes upon uploading, so I wouldn’t recommend using them for getting photos to your Mac if you care about retaining the full resolution of the photo. iPhoto Library Manager and iOS iPhoto And last but not least, how does iPhoto Library Manager interact with iPhoto for iOS? The answer is basically, not at all. The data for iOS apps is kept separate, so other app can’t interact with it directly. So, to do anything with photos from iOS iPhoto, you’ll need to first copy the photos into OS X iPhoto using one of the methods above, then you can use iPhoto Library Manager to copy stuff around just like normal. So, that’s the story I’ve found in a couple hours of playing around with it. If I find any other juicy details, I’ll update this blog post later with anything I find. Tips & Tricks, iPhoto Library Manager, Apple, iPhoto, 2012-03-07T23:45:10+00:00 http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/how_itunes_match_interacts_with_multiple_itunes_libraries http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/how_itunes_match_interacts_with_multiple_itunes_libraries#When:17:59:21Z With Apple’s recent release of their new iTunes Match service, which allows you to store iTunes music content using Apple’s iCloud service, I’ve received several inquiries on how this interacts with having multiple iTunes libraries set up on your machine, whether it be with PowerTunes, or simply having multiple user accounts with their own iTunes library. There are no direct incompatibilities with PowerTunes, but there are a few things that are good to know with respect to how iTunes Match will interact with your libraries.Each of your libraries can have iTunes Match either enabled or disabled, and you can set this separately on a per-library basis. When a library has iTunes Match enabled, if you select “Update iTunes Match” from the “Store” menu in iTunes, it will automatically add any new tracks that have been purchased, matched, or uploaded to iCloud from other libraries or devices to the iTunes library you currently have open. It doesn’t automatically download all the new tracks by default, but it adds entries for the tracks to your library, and you can later download the actual song files for those tracks you wish to download. Note that this applies to any library with iTunes Match enabled, either on the same Mac or on different Macs. If you plan on using PowerTunes to keep different libraries with separate content, then you will probably not want to enable iTunes Match on more than one library. If you do enable iTunes Match on multiple libraries, when iTunes updates content from the cloud, tracks from your different libraries will end up intermingled with each other, which defeats the purpose of separating them in the first place. For example, if you have a Blues library and a Classical library, and you enable iTunes Match in both libraries, then iTunes will end up adding your blues tracks to your classical library and your classical tracks to your blues library, which is probably not what you want it to do. A single Apple ID can have a maximum of 10 devices (Macs, iPhones, iPads, etc.) registered with it at once for iTunes Match. This registration is per-machine though, not per-library, so enabling iTunes Match on multiple libraries on a single machine will only count as a single device as far as registrations are concerned. However, a given Mac can only be registered with one Apple ID at a time. This means that on your Mac, you cannot have one library with iTunes Match enabled using one Apple ID, and a second library with iTunes Match enabled using a second Apple ID. All libraries on a single Mac must all use the same Apple ID for iTunes Match, even if the libraries belong to different user accounts on that Mac. If you have any tracks in your library which are stored on iCloud, but which have not yet been downloaded to your Mac (i.e. they have the little “cloud download” button next to their names in iTunes), iTunes does not write out any information for such tracks to its XML file, so those tracks will not appear in PowerTunes when browsing your library, or using features such as “Find Orphans” or “Fix Dead Tracks”. The iCloud status of each track (e.g. “Matched”, “Uploaded”, “Purchased”, etc.) is not written out either, so you must open the library in iTunes itself to view that information. That is the basic overview of how iTunes Match works with multiple libraries. If there are any edge cases you’ve encountered that I haven’t covered here, feel free to e-mail support@fatcatsofware.com with any questions you might have. PowerTunes, iTunes, 2011-12-05T17:59:21+00:00 http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/iphoto_library_manager_3.7_now_available_with_iphoto_9.2_support http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/iphoto_library_manager_3.7_now_available_with_iphoto_9.2_support#When:21:06:05Z iPhoto Library Manager 3.7 is now available, with support for the new iPhoto 9.2, which adds support for the Photo Stream feature that works with Apple’s new iCloud service. Version 3.7 is a free update for all iPhoto Library Manager users, and is required for anyone who wants to use iPLM to copy photos or merge/rebuild libraries with iPhoto 9.2. To update, either open your current copy of iPLM and select the “Check For Updates” menu item from the “iPhoto Library Manager” menu in the upper left, or download the new version from http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/iPhotoLibraryManager.dmg and manually replace your existing copy of iPLM with the new version. For more details on how Photo Stream works when you have multiple libraries, you can read about that in the iPhoto Library Manager documentation on this page. iPhoto Library Manager, Updates, iPhoto, 2011-10-14T21:06:05+00:00 http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/status_of_iphoto_library_manager_and_iphoto_9.2 http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/status_of_iphoto_library_manager_and_iphoto_9.2#When:22:29:02Z Apple released a lot of new software today, including iOS 5, iCloud, and iPhoto 9.2, which includes support for iCloud’s new Photo Stream feature. The good news is I’ve been working with betas of iPhoto 9.2 that were made available to developers to test out Photo Stream, so most of the hard work in updating iPhoto Library Manager to work with iPhoto 9.2 has already been done. The bad news is that Apple managed to throw in a few last minute bugs which are causing intermittent issues when copying photos between libraries that I’ll need to work around before I can post the update for iPLM. The issues are relatively small, so I hope to be able to work out the kinks by the end of the week. In the meantime, if you decide to update to iPhoto 9.2, you’ll still be able to use your iPhoto libraries just fine, but you won’t be able to copy albums/events, merge libraries, or rebuild a library until iPLM can be updated. If you need to do any of those things, then I’d recommend waiting to update iPhoto for now. I’ll post further updates here on the state of things as they progress. iPhoto Library Manager, iPhoto, 2011-10-12T22:29:02+00:00 http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/iphoto_library_manager_3.6.8_now_compatible_with_iphoto_9.1.5_and_os_x_lion http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/iphoto_library_manager_3.6.8_now_compatible_with_iphoto_9.1.5_and_os_x_lion#When:21:57:55Z iPhoto Library Manager was updated today to provide support for iPhoto 9.1.5 and the upcoming update to OS X 10.7 “Lion”. The changes themselves are minor, but it is recommended that anyone upgrading to either iPhoto 9.1.5 or OS X Lion (once it is released) make sure to also update to iPhoto Library Manager 3.6.8. This can be done either using the “Check For Updates” menu item within the program, or by downloading and installing the update manually from the website. Updates, iPhoto, 2011-07-12T21:57:55+00:00 http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/iphoto_9.1.2_event_listing_bug http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/iphoto_9.1.2_event_listing_bug#When:05:44:30Z Since Apple released the iPhoto 9.1.2 update last week, there have been multiple reports (both from iPLM users and from iPhoto users on Apple’s discussion forums) of problems working with iPhoto events in other applications such as iPhoto Library Manager and iTunes. Specifically, some events will show up with multiple entries in the event list, with the event’s photos split up among all the events shown in the list.  This appears to be the result of a bug in iPhoto 9.1.2. iPhoto writes out a file named AlbumData.xml inside its library, and that file contains a listing of all the albums, events, and photos in that library. It’s this file which iPLM reads in when displaying the album/event list in its own window, and is also used by other applications such as iTunes when syncing photos with your iPhone/iPod/iPad. While the affected event will still appear as a single event in iPhoto itself, iPhoto is writing out multiple entries for the event to the AlbumData.xml file, providing iPLM and other programs incorrect information about the event. This mainly appears to affect events which consist of photos that were originally in multiple events, but have since been merged together using the “Merge Events” menu item within iPhoto itself. (not to be confused with iPLM’s “Merge Libraries” command) The result of this bug is that when using iPLM to rebuild a library, or copy photos between libraries with the “Use XML Info Only” option, any events copied will be split up like they are shown in the AlbumData.xml file, and not how they actually appear in iPhoto. Apple is aware of the issue and is hopefully working on a fix for it, but no telling how long it may be before they can release an update to fix the problem. I’ll also be investigating to see if I can come up with a temporary fix for iPLM to try to compensate for the bug and at least be able to copy photos correctly. Update 5/5/11: I’ve just posted a 3.6.6 update to iPhoto Library Manager which works around this iPhoto bug, so events should now be displayed correctly when viewing them in iPLM. Note that this does not fix the underlying iPhoto bug, so you’ll still experience multiple event entries in other applications such as iTunes until Apple can fix the bug in iPhoto. Update 5/12/11: Apple release iPhoto 9.1.3 today, which fixes the event listing bug. Download the update via the “Software Update” menu item in the Apple menu, and you should be able to sync your events with your iOS devices correctly again. iPhoto Library Manager, iPhoto, 2011-05-05T05:44:30+00:00 http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/iphoto_library_manager_3.6.5_released_for_compatibility_with_iphoto_9.1.2 http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/iphoto_library_manager_3.6.5_released_for_compatibility_with_iphoto_9.1.2#When:20:06:25Z Apple released an update to iPhoto (version 9.1.2) the other day, which caused iPhoto Library Manager to have trouble copying photos, failing with an error message. I just released an update to iPLM that should fix these problems, so if you’ve updated to iPhoto 9.1.2 and are having a problem when trying to copy photos, use the “Check For Updates” menu item within iPLM to update to 3.6.5. If you have any further problems after installing the update, please contact support@fatcatsoftware.com with a description of your problem. iPhoto Library Manager, Updates, iPhoto, 2011-04-28T20:06:25+00:00 http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/iphoto_library_manager_3.6.4 http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/iphoto_library_manager_3.6.4#When:23:30:26Z I just released a bug fix update to iPhoto Library Manager, bringing it up to version 3.6.4. Nothing terribly exciting, but squashing a few bugs is always good. For more details, you can take a look at the release notes. The easiest way to update is via the “Check For Updates” menu item within the program, or you can also download it from the the product webpage. iPhoto Library Manager, Updates, News, 2011-04-15T23:30:26+00:00 http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/iphoto_library_manager_3.6_released http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/iphoto_library_manager_3.6_released#When:00:24:15Z I'm happy to announce that iPhoto Library Manager 3.6 is now available for download. The main enhancement in the new version is that photo copying is now supported with iPhoto 9 (a.k.a. iPhoto '11). Copying albums and events, merging libraries, and rebuilding a library can now all be done with iPhoto 9, and all the usual information such as ratings, keywords, faces, places, and more will be retained in the process. There are also a handful of other miscellaneous bug fixes thrown in as well.The update is free to all users, and if you have an earlier version installed already, the easiest way to update is by using the "Check For Updates" menu item within the program. Otherwise, you can download version 3.6 directly from the iPhoto Library Manager homepage.One aspect of the update which made it take a little longer is due to requests I've been getting from people who are either a) having trouble upgrading their iPhoto library from iPhoto 8 to iPhoto 9, or b) have upgraded to iPhoto 9, but would prefer to go back to using iPhoto 8 and would like to "downgrade" their library back to the older version.I wanted to support this via iPLM's "Rebuild Library" command, but doing so meant ensuring that photo metadata could not only be copied between libraries of the same version, but could also be translated from iPhoto 8 to iPhoto 9, and vice versa. Doing this took a little extra engineering time, but I was able to get it up and running, so those people who want to rebuild their library as a way of moving it from one version of iPhoto to another can use version 3.6 to do so, all while maintaining the library's photo metadata.So, go ahead and give the new version a spin, and if you have any problems or questions, please contact support@fatcatsoftware.comNote:For those getting the "-[NSCFDictionary setObject:forKey:]: attempt to insert nil key" error when copying events, I'm currently investigating the issue and will update when I find a fix. In the meantime, if you enable the "Use XML Info Only" option found in the Photo Copying section of the iPLM preferences window, that should allow you to copy events successfully. iPhoto Library Manager, Updates, News, 2010-11-24T00:24:15+00:00 http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/iphoto_library_manager_and_iphoto_11_compatibility http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/site/iphoto_library_manager_and_iphoto_11_compatibility#When:02:08:59Z In their media event today, Apple announced a new version of iPhoto, iPhoto '11. I have not yet obtained a copy of the new iPhoto, so I don't yet know exactly what the compatibility issues will be, but in the past, what's typically been the case is that basic activities such as creating libraries and switching between them usually continue to work fine, but the more advanced functions like copying albums or merging libraries have required an iPhoto Library Manager updated in order to work properly.I will be updating this post with more details as soon as I'm able to get my hands on the new software and give it a try. For the time being, if you need to be able to continue performing copies between iPhoto libraries, I'd recommend holding off on upgrading to iPhoto '11 for now. If you just need to create and switch between libraries though, then upgrading shouldn't present a problem.Update 10/21: I've now had a chance to do some preliminary tests with iPhoto '11, and things are just as I expected. Creating libraries and switching between them works fine, but an update will be required for photo copying to work with the new version. I've already started work on the update (which will be free) and hope to get it out there in the next couple of weeks.Update 10/24: I released a quick 3.5.8 update yesterday, which doesn't yet provide full iPhoto '11 compatibility, but does provide a couple improvements for iPhoto '11 users, including a fix for those experiencing the issue of being unable to reopen a library after upgrading it to the new iPhoto version. If you have such a library, simply open the library up via iPLM, and you should be prompted by iPhoto to upgrade the library again. Once it's complete, you should then be able to close and reopen the library normally.Update 11/5: Just thought I'd chime in with a progress update. Things have been coming along nicely, though it looks like the complete update will take a little longer than I originally thought. The main reason for this is that it seems, due to various issues people have had with iPhoto '11, either in terms of bugs or just not liking the new interface, there are a fair number of people interesting in reverting from iPhoto 9.x back to iPhoto 8.x. So, I'm engineering things in such a way to allow people to copy data from an iPhoto 9 library back to an iPhoto 8 library (as much as is feasible, in any case). However, this adds a bit of extra complexity to things, and thus takes a bit longer to complete. I think the extra wait will be worth it though.Update 11/21: Sorry for the delay since the last post, but the iPhoto '11 update is currently in beta testing and is functioning well. I hope to be able to tie up some loose ends and have the release ready by Wednesday 11/24 at the latest.Also, anyone having various issues with iPhoto '11 that are looking for help, please contact support@fatcatsoftware.com. A blog post comment thread is not a very good place to provide assistance. :) iPhoto Library Manager, iPhoto, News, 2010-10-21T02:08:59+00:00