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Comment by yaky | Hacker News Reader

AFAIK you can use SyncThing-like utilities, like Möbius Sync, on iOS, but not for photos, because… iOS does not consider a photo a file. Which is baffling (probably for some security reason), so I have to stick with a USB cord and ifuse + heif-convert on Linux.

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> probably for some security reason

While I'm sure this is probably true, the number of features Apple is depriving us from due to alleged "security reasons" is baffling.

It's a general excuse among firms that want to keep their monopoly and walled garden (OpenAI does the same).

Apple provides access to photos just fine, using a different API.

Having a separate API for photo access is annoying while developing this use case, but it's appropriate for a couple different reasons: for one, if apps could access the raw files, that could reveal metadata like location. For another, filesystem access wouldn't properly handle cloud-synced photo libraries.

Perhaps photos on iOS are persisted into some sqlite-style database on the device rather than as individual files...

The Dropbox iOS app would be a good example here. It acts as a ReplicatedFileProvider so apps on the device can access your Dropbox files, but it also provides an optional config flow where users can ask for their photos to be backed up. Then, the Dropbox app fetches the photos through PhotoKit and writes the .JPEGs or .HEICs to a folder of your choosing into your Dropbox files.

This should be the user's choice, not Apple's. Explain the security tradeoffs then let me do what I want with my device.

That’s what I mean, there are technical reasons why it doesn’t necessarily make sense to represent photos as individual files: they might not live in a file system, they might have to be downloaded, they might have to be transparently converted from one format to another, they might have to have metadata transparently stripped. Any applications are going to need to use an API to get the right form of photo that the user wants anyway. Having a dedicated API that users can call as they need makes more sense than having the operating system hackishly pretend that your photos live in a bucket of JPEGs somewhere

I know this is an outdated meme, but it sounds like you're holding it wrong

You can use it for photos, but for those contained within the photos library that's handled separately through the PhotoKit now. It should be technically possible to backup your photos library through syncthing, I only think the automation of such and the permissions required would probably be annoying to deal with. Not sure if Mobius developer(s) looked into that yet.

If you don't use the photos app, you can keep them all in the files app and it syncs just fine. Annoying to use since the files app is nowhere near as nice for photo browsing/management.

What I've done is to leave a Windows VM running which has both the iCloud Photos app, as well as Syncthing, both pointing at same directory. This then works as an iCloud/syncthing bridge, letting my iPhone sync with my linux machines.

Do you ever get the feeling you're just inventing asinine problems for yourself to waste time solving?

I mean, everyone needs a hobby

Does Immich have a work-around for this that could be implemented in Mobius Sync?

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