Apple Will Permanently Delete iPhone Photos in July: Here’s How to Keep Yours Safe

Epoch Times ^ | 07/09/2023 | Jack Phillips

[P.O.E.]

Always a good idea to have important files backed up on at least three platforms / types of media. For example, hard drive, CD or DVD, cloud, etc.

Oh, and print. Paper is not device / programming dependent.

btw - where is the “Rosetta Stone” for digital info?

[pas]

But you will never get that great photo, right before you fall off a cliff.

[brianl703]

Paper will never be obsolete. The “paperless office” that they were predicting back in the 70s and 80s never happened.

[GingisK]

I own a lot of books and my project files are kept in 3-ring binders. I’m right there with you.

[Swordmaker]

“It just doesn’t work anymore....”

This is a FUD headline about an old service called “My Photo Stream” which was not an iPhone Photos related service, but an old iCloud service which people could set up to share selected photos with non-Apple users to see their pictures with family and friends, by putting those photos in a cloud based folder in their iCloud server and making it available to selected invited participants. This service was very sparsely accepted by users and the public. The server space is being reclaimed and Apple is telling people to take any unique picture store on My Photo Stream space and store them elsewhere. As the article itself states:

“My Photo Stream is a separate service from iCloud Photos. Moving forward, iCloud Photos is the best way to keep the photos and videos you take up to date across all your devices and safely stored in iCloud,” Apple said. “If you already have iCloud Photos enabled on all of your devices, you don’t need to do anything else—your photos are already uploaded and stored in iCloud.”

No one is going to have their iPhone photos or their iCloud Photos stored on the cloud deleted that are outside of the discontinuing My Photo Stream storage space deleted. FUD it is Paladin and FUD it stays. PING!

APPLE FUD PING!

If you want on or off the Apple/Mac/iOS Ping List, Freepmail me.

[Swordmaker]

Calling all my relatives now.

Don’t panic. It’s FUD… a false report about an old, little used cloud service that is being discontinued that has nothing to do with photos on iPhones. Unless you or your relatives opted into sharing your selected photos from the cloud with non-Apple users, then you’ve got nothing to worry about, and even then it would be ONLY if you had a unique photo that ONLY existed in that shared photo on My Photo Stream that you would lose. That’s a very unlikely possibility.

[Swordmaker]

PING

Answered and pinged the group. It’s FUD.

[StAnDeliver]

"Meanwhile, there have been reports signaling that Apple is soon to cut off support for some older iPhone and iPad models with the release of iOS 17 later this year. That includes the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X, as well as devices that debuted in 2017 and before, meaning they won’t get an update for iOS 17"

X on EOL life-support is a trial balloon, will be surprised if they go that far up in product. I mean, I just put 17.0's beta on an iPhone X last week...

[Chgogal]

Bookmark

[Swordmaker]

What that means is Apple will permanently take full ownership and deny author access.

No, it doesn’t. My Photo Stream was a little used service of the Cloud. So few people opted to use it that Apple is discontinuing it. There were easier and simpler ways of sharing photos than My Photo Stream that people opted to use instead. Unless you have a unique photo stored on My Photo Stream you are sharing that exists ONLY in that location, you are unlikely to lose anything. Apple CANNOT delete photos on your iPhone, and Photos you have stored in your iCloud account are also not going to be deleted.

Users who subscribed to My Photo Stream were notified directly from Apple to download any unique content they had uploaded to their accounts long ago. This is no surprise to the very few people who were possibly still using that service.

Apple now provides Shared Albums that essentially provides the same thing as My Photo Stream did back 12 years ago.

[Swordmaker]

“My Photo Stream” was just a sub-set “Album” of iCloud Photos for short-term photo…

Actually, no, it wasn’t a sub-set “Album” but instead it was an early iteration of the concept existing solely in the Cloud before Apple developed the Shared Album concept. A user would upload pictures to the “My Photo Stream” location unique to that user, then give access to that location to other users whom he/she wished to share that site with. They could then see and download the photos there, and if, given permissions, upload photos for other users, or just for the owner of the account to see. It was awkward to use and navigate.

I set one up and found it so, and soon deleted it, opting to just send and receive pictures to family members via email. Too much time was spent trying to tell family members how to do things on “My Photo Streaming” and others who had their own accounts had trouble coordinating with others.

Apple had expanded it from the system in place that allowed all devices in one AppleID user’s account to share documents, photos, etc., but that did not lend itself well to sharing just photos with other AppleIDs and certainly not with non-AppleID accounts which they tried to Jerry-rig onto it.

It simply was not ready for prime-time.

[telescope115]

Good advice. I use the iCloud, and pay for 5 GB to store photos, but I’m going to get an external hard drive with at least 2 TB storage, maybe more.

[Swordmaker]

X on EOL life-support is a trial balloon, will be surprised if they go that far up in product. I mean, I just put 17.0's beta on an iPhone X last week...

Unfortunately, it’s not a trial balloon. Both the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X shared announcements… with only a short differences between release dates for sale:

• iPhone 8 & 8 Plus Release Date – 22 September 2017
• iPhone X Release Date – 3 November 2017

Only 42 days separated the released to sale dates of these two phones. It used to be that Apple Deprecated iPhones at five years. So six years is pretty good.

The problem is that the technology in these phones is not capable of BEING upgraded to the newer iOS because they just do not have the hardware to take it. It ain’t there to take advantage of the upgrades the software has!

It is likely Apple will provide security upgrades for another two years post deprecation, as a friend just got a security upgrade for an iPhone 7 a short time ago. Just no performance enhancements. The iPhone 7 software support ended September 12, 2022… fully six years after it was released September 12, 2016.

[Irish Eyes]

bookmark

[roadcat]

Always a good idea to have important files backed up on at least three platforms / types of media. For example, hard drive, CD or DVD, cloud, etc.

Absolutely good idea. I have files backed up in triplicate across different media. I have had hard drives get corrupted, and it's a pain to recover data. SSD and USB sticks are non-mechanical, no spinners, but volume information can get corrupted and necessitate file recovery which may or may not work. DVD and CD platters can get scratched (or heat warp), and over time the coating material can go bad. Claims of lasting 100 years are bogus.

Best bet is not to have all your eggs in one basket. One good thing about iCloud is that if your house burns down, you can get your data recovered. (But you'll have larger issues to handle.)

[Drago]

Thanks for the more “in-depth” explanation of the “My Photo Stream’ tech. I am sure that NOT having the “3 months” (or whatever time it was) and 1K photo storage for recently taken photos will “enhance” Apple’s “iCloud+” storage sales revenue. ;-) I have yet to set-up/figure out “iCloud Shared Photos”....on the to-do list.

[Mark17]

Thanks bro.

[Unrepentant VN Vet]

I really like my iPhone 8, so I suppose my next iPhone will be an SE (latest version) to maintain the size and still get the updated hardware.

Correct?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks SM.

[Swordmaker]

I really like my iPhone 8, so I suppose my next iPhone will be an SE (latest version) to maintain the size and still get the updated hardware.

Correct?

If Apple follows the last two iterations of iPhones, the SE will have the same processor in it as the highest model so the SE will only have limitations on screen and a few lesser features than the highest versions… and generally not have the faceID. So that would be a good choice for a reasonable price upgrade.