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

I agree this is a huge step backwards, I wonder if they had to agree to removing photo stream syncing and messaging to get Facebook to make an official app. 

  This is all due to people moaning about a lack of apps - the truth is apps are out of date as far as I'm concerned - integration into the operating system is far better.  Who wants to open an app every time you need to check Facebook? I don't want to open an app, I may as well just use the web based browser, I want all my pictures  from twitter, flicr, Facebook, SkyDrive and local pictures integrated on my computer.

  "Apps" - or as they were used to be known programmes before the world went iOS crazy, are really no more conceptually advanced than anything we were using when windows 95 was about - click an icon - run the programme. Boring, slow, time consuming - where's the cross programme communication? where's the efficiency saving?  The real reason the iPad is a success (and other tablets) is because it offers an efficiency saving, its more convenient than sitting at a laptop or computer. Apps were not the revolution!

 With windows 8 Microsoft showed us a vision of the future and pushed the boundaries of integrating social media and the operating system directly.  This was the real advantage of windows 8 - the revolutionary convenience and efficiency saving that makes it better than iOS.

  I don't honestly believe they only included the feature because Facebook  (or any other service) hadn't yet produced an app.  I do believe that in order to get Facebook to produce an app they have been forced to remove it.

 Why do Microsoft so desperately need to court Facebook and the like?  Because they haven't sold the integrated nature of the start screen strongly enough which is a shame because once you get that you get windows 8. Its not about tile sizes or lack of start button, that's not the revolutionary thing. 

 By retreating from this core philosophy Microsoft are giving up on a key differentiator which is  a shame , at the end of the day apps come and go (yes one day facebook will go the way of bebo) OS's aare here to stay.

Windows team please keep the photos app the same as it was and also reinstate the messenger app (or make sure Skype can function just as well)

Sorry for rambling on

Adam

I agree this is a huge step backwards, I wonder if they had to agree to removing photo stream syncing and messaging to get Facebook to make an official app. 

  This is all due to people moaning about a lack of apps - the truth is apps are out of date as far as I'm concerned - integration into the operating system is far better.  Who wants to open an app every time you need to check Facebook? I don't want to open an app, I may as well just use the web based browser, I want all my pictures  from twitter, flicr, Facebook, SkyDrive and local pictures integrated on my computer.

  "Apps" - or as they were used to be known programmes before the world went iOS crazy, are really no more conceptually advanced than anything we were using when windows 95 was about - click an icon - run the programme. Boring, slow, time consuming - where's the cross programme communication? where's the efficiency saving?  The real reason the iPad is a success (and other tablets) is because it offers an efficiency saving, its more convenient than sitting at a laptop or computer. Apps were not the revolution!

 With windows 8 Microsoft showed us a vision of the future and pushed the boundaries of integrating social media and the operating system directly.  This was the real advantage of windows 8 - the revolutionary convenience and efficiency saving that makes it better than iOS.

  I don't honestly believe they only included the feature because Facebook  (or any other service) hadn't yet produced an app.  I do believe that in order to get Facebook to produce an app they have been forced to remove it.

 Why do Microsoft so desperately need to court Facebook and the like?  Because they haven't sold the integrated nature of the start screen strongly enough which is a shame because once you get that you get windows 8. Its not about tile sizes or lack of start button, that's not the revolutionary thing. 

 By retreating from this core philosophy Microsoft are giving up on a key differentiator which is  a shame , at the end of the day apps come and go (yes one day facebook will go the way of bebo) OS's aare here to stay.

Windows team please keep the photos app the same as it was and also reinstate the messenger app (or make sure Skype can function just as well)

Sorry for rambling on

Adam

Full Win 8 and same problem here...

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.

Also, if its too hard to fix this current broken App, here's a suggestion. Just roll back. The only issue with the last version was that it could have been MORE like Windows Phone, not less.

Why the heck was so much effort invested in a rewrite anyway? Switched platforms Xaml <-> WinJS or vice versa? If you're going to redesign though don't forget to actually make it better.

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.

If you can point to one thing that everyone that reviews Windows Phone OS loves about the operating system, and what personally sold me on it, its the integration and aggregation that it does when dealing with people, photos, messaging etc.

That is the one UNIVERSAL thing that everyone likes about the OS. So to take a photos app for Win8 that embraced this ethos, and dial it back to a completely useless local file viewer seems beyond absurd. I can't even contemplate what motivated this.

If anything the built in windows phone apps needed to be MORE like Windows Phone, not less. Get your heads in the game. The stakes are too high to make errors like this.