Photos App in 8.1 loses most of its best features e.g. Facebook/Flickr support...

Thanks for the feedback, everybody.  In Windows 8, we wanted to provide a way for folks to view their photos on other services knowing there would be few (if any) apps in the store at launch that would do so.  Now there are many apps in the store that offer ways to view photos on other services and soon there will even be a Facebook app from Facebook.  We’re confident Facebook will offer great ways to view and engage socially with photos on Facebook.  We welcome Flickr to do the same.  In addition, the People app still offers the ability to socially engage with your friends and even your own photos.

This goes completely against everything great about Windows 8. Windows 8 is supposed to bring things together in a centralized place.  This is a terrible decision. If this is the line of thinking for you guys, why don't you just get rid of the people app all together, because that works on the same premise. Get rid of SkyDrive integration too. Why don't you just make Windows 8 back to what Windows 7, iOS, Android, Linux... are, separate apps for specific functions? If I want see what is on facebook I'll just open my browser. NO! I can open the separate facebook app on my android, in Windows 7 etc, but Windows 8 is supposed to be better! It is supposed to be a step forward! It IS SUPPOSED TO INTEGRATE THINGS!

PUT THIS INTEGRATION BACK!!!!!!!

I'm as furious about the loss of SkyDrive, Facebook, and network shares (particularly) as everyone else in this amazing thread (I just read the entire 27 pages), for the same reasons.  I have 2TB of photos, many of which are very very large and RAW.  There's no way I'm going to want to put those in ANY cloud service as browsing them, let alone tag or make minor edits... it would be far too painful.

HOWEVER, we do need to realize we're working with BETA software here.  We now know, as of this week, that SkyDrive has been re-added, as has import functionality. 

We are still TWO MONTHS from public availability of Windows 8.1.  It's been reported that, while OEMs will get the bits this month to pre-install on devices for the Holiday season, MS will be continuing to patch bugs and improve apps up until the GA date.  This is exactly what happened last year, when Win8 was released.  There were some pretty significant changes to apps. 

It's not hard to imagine a final Photos app that has SkyDrive support (check!) and network share/homegroup support, but perhaps is missing Facebook or other services--for now.  It's also not hard to imagine those things improving post-RTM.  MS *is* making LOTS of changes to its apps and services at what would, 18 months ago, have been considered an impossibly fast (for MS) pace.

I say this only with the intention of encouraging a bit of calm.  Rather than demanding people's heads for features that we don't see today, what else can we ask of Microsoft?  Perhaps we CAN ask for Microsoft to improve its communication... even if just to say, "We know people miss Feature X and we're examining what we can do to provide the best solutions for our customers."  ESPECIALLY if they ARE in fact trying to fix something (e.g. SkyDrive and import in the first release of Win8.1 Preview).  Personally, I'd feel a lot better if someone from Microsoft simply said, "People, this is beta software. We hear ya.  Please hang tight and there will be some changes between now and RTM."

But, again, in the end I *do* miss the same things everyone misses.  The "hub" concept is currently lacking in Photos (while getting better in People).  The universal design approaches are disintegrating.  But we're getting a lot of value in return.  If they take 10 steps forward and 2 backward in just 11 months of release cycle, that's a real net gain, even if the backward steps were onto my toes.

Well Steven did go to Apple... probably why the iPad is getting better and win8.1 is so broken. 

The only reason I haven't reverted my SurfaceRT is the mess of trying to roll it back and the one improved feature more choice with tile sizes.  Worse performance, instability, lost features... what a waste.

Way to support your customers.  Tell them they a screwed then disappear forever.  (it's been almost 2 months.). way to listen to our feed back. 

This decision and the decisions to remove other hub apps is very disappointing.  I gave surface RTs to several family members last Christmas and with these lost features on Windows 8.1 the upgrade will either not happen r will be very expensive having to replace the built in functionality they depend on daily with third party applications.  They will also have to deal with a mess of third party support issues which s another reason I was pushing they to winRT. 

The editing functionality of the new photo app is useless for those that want to view large static collections from multiple sources.  A better decision would have been to ether create a public interface for third parties to extends the photo, messaging, music and game hubs. Or to create new applications with the new functions.  The absolute worst decision is the one you and your team made.  Discard the applications that users love and replace them with functions they don't want or care about and remove the features they use everyday. 

I guess this shouldn't surprise me.  It is not the first bad decision made by Microsoft.  This in combination of not being able to use existing printers and other network devices with RT will probably have a few f these windows 8 devices replaced with iOS or Android devices.... (both of which are looking at the cleaner design and hub features from windows and bringing it to their platforms.)

Way to innovate and rally... for your competitors.

I just downloaded the leaked build and installed it in a virtual machine.

While there are no longer options for network such as HomeGroup, if you include a network location in the Pictures Library the Photos app will display it's contents and let you view the pictures unlike the 8.1 preview photos app that would just crash when selecting items if a network location is in a library.

Some good news, although the decision to remove facebook, flikr and homegroups is still completley mystifying, and a terrible backwards step.