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We (at least I) compensate for that by having 10k photos on it, which again makes it impossible to find anything. And if you decide to cull them because it's just too much, it's a chore.

I agree with you but still not using it. The challenge when I first tried Apple was, the photos all disappeared into iTunes. I wanted to pull out a jpg to do some photo editing and it was difficult. So I gave up and never went back. It must have improved in 15 years, but they will now be training their AI on my photos. So not gonna use it now either. I'll look for an open source app after I retire.

My previous manual organisation of digital photos into directories on my home server was quite time consuming. I got an iPhone a few years ago and started using Apple Photos. Like you, I put no effort into organising the photos – other than adding some descriptive metadata to a few photos. Apple’s organisation and their user interface allow me to quickly find any photo that I remember taking. However, I’m curious about what you mean by “didn’t use the software effectively”.

Off Topic: one other thing I really like about Apple Photos is that I get to see my photos on the Apple TV when screensaver kicks in.

> However, I’m curious about what you mean by “didn’t use the software effectively”.

Specifically, Photos has facial recognition and has had it since iPhoto ‘09. Instead of using this to do the work for them, they manually scrolled through thousands of thumbnails looking for a certain face. When I mentioned I used the facial recognition feature, the others said they didn’t enable it and were fine scrolling for hours.

The software has different tools for different jobs. In this case, the facial recognition was the efficient way to cull down thousands of random photos to something manageable, but they weren’t interested.

Similarly, I constantly use the map view to find pictures from a trip, or that I know were taken around a certain location. People have seen me use it, they’ve asked and I’ve explained it to them, and yet they never seem to commit it to memory to use it for themselves.

I’ve also spoken to people who talked about scrolling through their pictures to delete old screenshots. There is a Utility filter to view just the screenshot. A few minutes looking around the app and it’s right there, but I see people scrolling their whole library.

All of this is not using the software effectively or efficiently.

The facial recognition has been enabled by default since I started using an iPhone in 2020. I find it to be useful but not as useful as the map view: as a bird-watcher and wildlife enthusiast, I’ll remember where (but not necessarily when) I took interesting photos. The geo-tagging also makes it easy to delete old work-related photos of computers from my workplace.

I’m generally considered by peers to be somewhat paranoid when it comes to computer/mobile privacy and big ad/tech but I find these features to be very useful and I’m surprised your peers wouldn’t make use of them when they’re available – particularly when the software is so intuitive.

Thanks for the clarification.

  Others who didn’t use the software effectively spent hours and days manually scrolling through their photo grid. I attempted to tell them how they could make it easier, but they weren’t in the mood to deal with technology lessons, understandably so, so I didn’t try and press it.

Doesn't that demonstrate the point?

They spent years actively avoiding letting the software do its thing in several ways. In many cases putting forth more effort to avoid letting the software make their life easier. Their rejection of technology is what led to the struggle.

For example, I clicked a button 16 years ago for face detection, and in 16 years they didn't do that and didn't want to. I use iCloud photo library so I have access to all my pictures everywhere, while they have fractured libraries on various hard drives (that I don't think are backed up anywhere else).

Turning on face detection any time in the last 16 years and keeping their library together, solves the problem and creates less work. And sure, I end up paying $2.99/month for extra storage, but that seems cheap when factoring in the time they spend trying to avoid it, not to mention the calls I've gotten when they think a drive isn't working and they are crying, because they think they just lost everything. I'd pay the $3 for them if it meant never getting a call like that again, where I'm bracing to hear someone died, because they are crying so much they can't get the words out.

Several times when I pulled up pictures they have asked me how I'm able to do it so quickly. It's not exceptional organization or effort on my part, I'm simply using the software. I took 10 minutes, one time, to play around with the new Photos app when they revamped it, instead of just complaining that it changed, like most of the internet. There is no magic. Learn how the tools work, and use the tools. When you do that, the organization can often take care of itself.