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

Greetings. For me I've been frustrated that this happened so abruptly. I capture n edit gameplay for the memories & fun. While trying to do a crappy blues intro for a bf3 game edit.. all seemed lost in the photo/video app. In haste I refreshed all leaving me with crappier blues without evidence I can fake play ok sort of a bit. I thought Microsoft was a technological tyrant.. mb their name-brand refers to limited cranial capacity as their OL help is currently offline. They's hoitin' us in ways words merely imply.. the horror.. pain.... technonononcaughh cough shh couph.. blood. its begun

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.

Microsoft, what happens if your partners don't provide this awesome functionality? Are we going to be stuck with a crappy photo app?

If MS is going to become a devices and services company, wouldn't this fall under services? As in providing the best possible service to its customers?

I think they should have a similar design to Windows Phone in the music and videos hub. Where all the apps that play music or videos are shown. So in Windows 8 they should have an apps section where you can view photos from Facebook, Flickr, instagram, etc.

Hi everyone,

Some of you might remember that when the beta versions of WIN8 came out, they were also missing the ability to see photos on your own network (although everything else worked)...Suddenly when it was released all was fixed...

Either there is an internal battle with some nitwit that keeps removing basic features like this or it's just because it's beta...

Either way, it's almost better the MS employees don't answer at all as their answers are beyond stupid

You are really blowing it here. The hub-like integration here was a key selling point for me. I don't WANT to have to launch a billion different apps to send / see photos in the various places I have and put them. Flickr, facebook, skydrive, those were a big three, and the existing app should have had share-out capabilities to those services (the 3rd party ones don't work well and are mFugly).

Do not make the mistake of forcing users into the multiple-app world of iOS and android. That's a step back we don't want to take.

As others have pointed out, your logic is flawed (and, my guess, complete BS) in claiming that outside apps have taken up the slack so integration isn't necessary. There are a dozen or more basic photo editors out there offering the same junk filters and presets. There was zero need for your teams to spend time on that.

Integration plus basic metadata editing (tagging, face-tagging, captioning) are the holes in the current photo app ecosystem. You had the first of those well in hand. Now you've blown it.

If you want to know why reviewers keep ridiculing windows 8, it's because the apps your producing for it have lousier functionality than the standard apps of 5 years ago.

Seriously bad move.