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.

Removing the functionality of the photo app to the point of rendering it useless was a mistake.

Considering how much effort must have gone in to gutting it compared to how much effort would have been required to leave it as is, it's hard to imagine some making that choice.

People are skeptical enough about windows 8 and 8.1. I can't believe someone at Microsoft would make the decision to remove functionality that (judging by the posts in this thread) people found very useful.

I've just installed the 8.1 Preview on a desktop. The Photos App has changed:

 

1. No longer includes the ability to show images from Facebook, Flickr, SkyDrive

 

2. No longer allows images from other computers or the network -  am guessing that because there is now support for SkyDrive on RT and MS is heavily emphasizing that as the preferred storage location (when you upgrade, one of the questions asked before you even get to the desktop is if you want to use SkyDrive as your default storage area - and that seems to be the default - and MS feels the network, NAS, Homegroup, and other computers are deprecated.

 

 

 

 

3. Does have some new editing features

 

 

 

 4. Live Tile functionality has disappeared.

Edit:6/30

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1_pr-pictures/possible-fix-for-photos-app-live-time-not-showing/e0eb3bb4-3e9c-4016-aa27-4a011ccc94a3 is what a possible solution is to missing Live Tile issues.

Edit: 7/04

Tiles are working, but images change only 1x per day. This needs to be a shorter period.

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Barb

Windows Entertainment and Connected Home MVP

My Blog - http://digitalmediaphile.com/

Barb's Connected World Blog Reader Windows 8 App -  

http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/barbs-connected-world-blog/02f35769-52bf-461c-b1d5-06e54a58d298

 

Please mark as answered if this answers your question

 

 

They need to keep facebook and skydrive integration! Shame on you Microsoft. One step forward, two steps back!

The software is beta, its baffling why they removed it (I am guessing due to Facebook and Flickr having their own app the condition was to remove from MS app and since it was so deeply integrated they just killed the adding altogether)

But, you can add skydrive and network locations by using the library feature and adding it there.

Right click on the library you wish to change, select properties, click add and select your network drive and sky drive location.

You may need to rebuild the index by going to the search charm type indexing options, advanced, rebuild.

Hope that helps!

No, it doesn't help, because the Photo App refuses to acknowledge network locations and SkyDrive.

See http://gcoupe.wordpress.com/2013/07/01/windows-8-1-preview-part-ii/

Also, the Photo App will corrupt the Makernotes of some cameras. See http://gcoupe.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/windows-8-1-photo-app/

And even if it did work, it is plain stupid as it is a complete regression in user friendliness and abilities. I mean, being able to browse network locations should be the minimum as is browsing local media !

And this Out of the box. I mean, it is Windows 8.1, not Linux from 1996, it is completely surrealistic to even have to imagine that one would have to hack libraries and indexation to be able to browse files on one's network.