1) Pick a closed ecosystem
2) Have a non-standard use case
3) Beg Ecosystem owners to change to meet your needs
2) Have a non-standard use case
3) Beg Ecosystem owners to change to meet your needs
1. Pick the best (free) iOS management tool for the job at the time
2. Invest eight years of curation and 70Gb of photos in it
3. Use the setup with more than one device and the same way that 20M+ other users use it
4. Expect that I shouldn't have to be a contortionist to continue to do so
And voila, you have found yourself a closed system which wont let you treat your data as yours, just as pointed out in the comment you replied to.
There is nothing wrong with pointing out that Apple has a closed solution here, and that the solution is seriously lacking.
The complaints as I read them are about pain points in syncing and accessing the different photos you have spread across different Apple devices, and how whatever sync features exist today ("Photo streams") exacerbate rather than improve the situation.
Apple doesn't have a great guide for best practice, and should fix that. But most of the troubles you outline, I feel you're "doing it wrong" or are actually flat wrong about how it works. This may be a training issue Apple should address.
As just one example, I very specifically want my device camera roll and combined photo stream separate. Combining them as you suggest has severely negative consequences your article doesn't consider. Edits on iOS carry over to desktop, you can edit on the loo all day if that suits your style. You never ever have to delete photos from your photo stream and no Apple dialog tells you to delete from photostream. If you set prefs right, you'll get photos imported exactly once.
Your letter raises awareness that people like photos. That's good.
But while waiting, look into some of the prefs dialogs in Aperture or iPhoto. I'm comfortable that every need you mentioned is handled.
But if you still can't find satisfaction for your particular workflow (e.g. photo pro doing commercial work in studio and on laptop in field), check out Image Capture plus the lesser known Auto Importer scriptable tool. You may have to mindlessly plug in a cable after a shoot or at least once in 30 days, but you won't have to press a key.
2) Ignore those points and make a cynical/spurious criticism
3) Derail the discussion away from anything useful
That said, my family has the exact same photo problem, but only half of the devices involved are from Apple. A solution which was not limited to a closed ecosystem would be much better than an Apple-specific solution, in my opinion.
But how is the scenario described in the article not the standard use case for everyone who has more than one (internet connected) device that takes pictures?
Android/PC can do what the article wants, albeit with an initial investment of research and set-up but that's the choice... do you want buttoned up, everything 'just works' but only a certain way? or do you want customizable with tinkering required?
Just enable/install Google+/Picasa sync and you have all your pictures on all your Android-devices, and on the web, just in case you need it outside this semi-closed Google system.