A few months ago, I wrote about the convenience of cloud computing. I tried to have a balanced view of it but was leaning more towards local storage over cloud storage as a default. So I leaned away from cloud storage hard. The result? I couldn’t do it! I love convenience far more than I realized.
After writing about the benefits of local storage, I stopped using Apple Photos (the app) and iCloud Photos (the syncing). I went old-school, using a cable to import my phone snaps onto my Mac and manually organizing my pictures in the files app (Finder). It worked. And sure, it was more laborious — less convenient — but it wasn’t hard.
I also found a new-to-me photo editing app I was loving: Affinity Photo. It had all the adjustment sliders I was accustomed to. Plus it had all the brushes and layers I was missing, which gave me more photo-editing power. But…it took more work to edit my pix, which is less convenient. Affinity Photo also lacked any photo management, so no albums or special ways to organize. I could only sort pictures into individual folders in the file system.
None of the above is actually hard or too much work; it’s the way it used to be done and was fine. But all those little inconveniences added up. More friction. More work.
And…old habits die hard.
My habit of taking pictures, seeing them in the Photos app, and editing them there, all on my iPhone, was more ingrained than I realized. Not only were pictures synced back to my MacBook auto-magically, but so were all the edits I’d made on my phone. That is powerful and totally convenient.
Added to that is the fact Apple makes the iPhone and MacBook default to the Photos app for doing any work with pictures, like sharing them to other apps.
Apple Photos and iCloud Photos are too sticky and too convenient to ignore. Last week, I quickly reverted back to relying on them. I feel relief. And while I also feel kind of split for flip-flopping back and forth in my tech setup, the relief and the convenience override that easily.
Missing Apple Photos for a season made me realize how much I love it. Try to not love it too much, eh?
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