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.

Think of your Windows Phone ... the Pictures "App" is actually your Picture Hub. The one place you go to on your phone for pictures, regardless of where they reside. This is what the Pictures app used to be. Now it's not. We're going backward to where iOS and Android force you to be app centric instead of "content centric".

This is the way the People Hub works on Windows 8.1. You want to do anything related to a person, phone them, Skype them, check there Social status updates etc. you go to the People hub. You don't open each application individually.

This was a major bonus and draw card with Windows 8. Every time I demo that to someone they go ... WOW, amazing. This is so cool.

The Core apps like Photos, Music, Videos, Calendar, Mail, etc. should ALL be central Hubs where you go to interact with that content.

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.

No offence, but this is a silly decision. The Photos app is now essentially useless to me. Why would you remove functionality from it? Users want more choice, not less, so it matters not to me that there are apps on the marketplace that offer similar functionality

• I want my Photos app to tap into my Facebook and SkyDrive photos so the tile itself is alive with my latest photos.

If this is something Microsoft won't move on, then this is a duff move, and literally the one thing about 8.1 that disappoints. Please consider switching back to the old Photos app.

Crmen, What about the lack of network support and the inability to add image folders from other computers? And NAS storage? 

Indeed. Store everything on SkyDrive, where we can charge you to store all your stuff. I have heaps of very high res pohots I would love to use in this app and they don't fit on my 64GB Surface, I won't upload 50GB to SkyDrive. etc.

 

What about videos, music etc. am I expected to put all of those on Skydrive too?

Likes others I've already invested money into local network storage and I have devices like the Surface that make use of them when they're on my local network so the fact that both the original Windows 8 launch (which granted, was fixed eventually) and the 8.1 preview keep insisting that they don't exist is incredibly frustrating.

I also don't understand the continued reliance on the Windows Libraries for these things. If MS is going to force us to use them fine, but dropping down to the desktop, and now having to un-hide them to be able to even add in content is just...

And for CarmenZ, while there might be apps to handle pictures and all that, there aren't any third-party apps that handle the DRM Xbox Music and Video files, and to my knowledge there aren't any APIs available for third-party apps to play them back either. I don't want to use two different apps to manage my music collection which is what I currently have to do in Windows 8.1. Me having a local/network library isn't going to stop me from using a MS service. A poor app that doesn't make use of content I own will.

Edit: Clarification and spelling!

Yes, please bring back the ability to show the SkyDrive/Facebook/Etc. pictures. Especially now with being able to make the tile larger than before. I could show a lot more of my pictures that way.

My favorite thing about the Windows 8 experience is that the photos (usually taken with my Win 8 phone) automatically saved to SkyDrive and then magically appeared on my surface Photo live tile.  And now that's gone.  Wish I'd known that before permanently uplifting my RT.  Facebook and Flickr aren't the answer -- I want my files in a private storage I can more fully control.