“Have you ever wondered where all those gigabytes went between the moment you bought a new Mac and the moment you looked at the amount of free disk space after using the computer for a while? Sure, formatting wastes some space, and it’s only natural that some more is lost when translating new and improved gigabytes back to classic gigabytes. But the real culprit is iPhoto. This application uses such an unbelievable amount of disk space, that we can only conclude Apple’s iPhoto group is receiving kickbacks from the hard drive manufacturing industry,” Iljitsch van Beijnum reports for Ars Technica.
Full article here.
4716 photos, iPhoto Library = 8.16GB.
Opened in 8 or 9 seconds.
iMac G5 17″ 1.9GHz, 1.5GB RAM, 4 of 6 user accounts active.
No problems here.
I looked. Nine gigs. Big deal.
“iPhoto sucks…….atleast the initial version. i dumped it and haven’t looked back.”
hmmm… then maybe you have no f’n idea what you’re talking about.
iPhoto is worth every dollar I paid for it. If you wanna spend money used Aperture or Lightroom. And tclash you’re so right about the trash. I dunno why iPhoto doesn’t work like iTunes and use the system trash can.
I think it’s funny when people with first- or second-generation programs complain about a program that’s up to Version 6.
I also have heard that early versions were slow with large libraries, but that isn’t the case with later versions. I have nearly 9,000 images, and it takes my G5 less than five seconds to open the program and get ready for work. And there are only two versions kept for those that are modified — I have 11.6 GB in my Originals folder, and only 2GB in my modified. And even though I’m a pro user, I find having all my images in a single, searchable database incredible convenient.
I use iView MediaPro to look through specific folders, but I actually prefer iPhoto for archiving, slideshows, etc.
I don’t find it slow AT ALL, and I’m pretty sure those who do are running very old versions of the software, or running new software on very old hardware (G3s)
The only application I miss from windows, is Picasa,
and if you take a look at the google group “mac inside google” you will see I am not alone in wishing their was a Mac version of Picasa
So what if apps are big? You install them once and disk space is cheap. We’re not booting off 5.25 floppies anymore, people…
What Apple DOES need, though, is to trim the size of their updates! Not all of us have broadband. And 30 to 300 megs for an UPDATE? You gotta be kidding. Do that many changes really need to be made each time? I don’t see it.
BTW, Apple, I’d happily pay an Apple Store a few bucks to get the updates on DVD. HEY why not an option to order update disks right off Software Update?
Nope! I think iMovie is the by far the WORST of Apple’s appications. It’s terribly slow and is bloated. I took on a projest for a friend insisting that her PC Roxio program for creating DVD’s was inferior, she was with me through the whole iMovie project and I was so embarassed when iMovie would take so long to perform easy tasks such as adding a Ken Burn’s affect and encoding. It crashed a couple of times too. IT SUCKS!!!! I was using it on a 20 inch Intel iMac Core Duo with 2GB Kingston ram and a superdrive with no other applications running even closed Mail!
iPhoto is stupid, because even checking the option to NOT duplicate photos in its library, it creates a copy of itw own. So if I have 10GB of photos in a folder, it creates another 10GB folder in its library. STUPID. iTunes doesn’t do that when you check the option to not copy files to its own library.
Dear Mr. Peabody, the first part of your posting was good; but then you lambast iPhoto without having a clue as to 1) how to use it properly; and 2) without having used any recent version.
Please do us a favor and don’t write reviews about software which you do not use. It’s like saying that OS 10.4 is not good at setting up printers because when you used the Chooser in System 7.5.3 the experience sucked. Know what I mean?
Well, theres alwasy iPhotoDiet…(Google it…)
I have no issues with iPhoto and use it all the time. Photos, especially high quality photos are going to take up drive space, that’s just a fact of life. Anyone who ever works in Photoshop could tell you that.
emptying the trash, the iPhoto application internal trash that is, really improved things here. I just did it first time ever when I read it above. However, there seems to be no obvious way to do it. So I selected all the photos in the trash and pressed [cmd]-delete. Do I miss anything? (I’m using iPhoto 5)
AAAARRRGGGGHHH again!!!!
For those of you suddenly pissed off at iPhoto for the alleged bloat this sensationalistic blog convinced you of. This official Apple Ars Technica blogger (with a wee bit of responsibility, I might add) failed to mention that THREE HUNDRED TWO – 302 MEGABYTES of the supposed bloat IS IN ONE SINGLE ‘THEMES’ FOLDER, easily removed in literally 15 seconds!
This same blogger just managed to get 719 Diggs for his (unless Iljitsch is a girl’s name) previous article, “Apple may have trouble selling 10 million Phones in 2008” — which must’a just been exciting for the lad. This time around he fails to mention hundreds of MEGAbytes of files having nothing to do with software code (just for those who want to create, then order albums from Apple online) and instead instructs his readers to delete bytes —sans MEGA— of paltry language files right next to said Themes folder!
Here’s how to get rid of it:
• Right click on iPhoto.app
• Select Show Package Contents
• Navigate to Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/Resources/Themes
• Delete it, burn it to disk, or offload it to external drive (if you might ever order albums printed from Apple)
This blogger should, in good faith, append the post because the code in iPhoto is actually quite a lot better than one would expect for pre-installed software that doesn’t have to compete out in the pay-for shareware market. And it really seems like he’s pandering for hits, though I really hope I’m wrong, considering he writes the frickin’ Mac blog @ Ars Technica, of all places! Hopefully, he’s just an AOK Mac user who simply made an oversight, but is sorely in need of a lesson in (i)Life.
Sorry, bit anyone criticising iPhoto and who are not on Version 6 are truly insane, stupid or both.
6 IS stable, fast reliable and as good as any app anywhere. There is an app called iPhoto diet which will for example remove originals where you want only to keep the modified version..
Control click or right button click ‘Trash’ for the submenu to find the option Delete.
It comsumes more disk space as it is the underlying framework for iLife’s iPhoto integration system. Be careful before you remove it; besides, it’s not a ton of memory it consumes.
iPhoto has been a real disappointment to me. Does anyone know of a good alternative to iPhoto on the Mac? I really love ACDSee in Windows (especially its photo management capabilities), but their Mac version seems lame by comparison.
I dunno why iPhoto doesn’t work like iTunes and use the system trash can.
How about Preview, where command-Delete closes the window AND puts the file in the Trash?
Of course Delete is right next to – and + for scaling, so easy to hit accidently. And no menu item or warning dialog for the function either. Ack.
It’s why I switched to Aperture. Versions instead of duplicates.
I use iPhoto on my G4 Mac mini with 20,000 photos and it is almost impossibly slow…… then again… it is a G4 mac mini. Not the Speediest of Machines.
I can’t believe so many people here think iPhoto is slow. Are all of you running Intel Macs? I have a 1.5 GHz. Powerbook and well over a thousand photos in iPhoto and it opens fast, scrolls like butter, and is very responsive in general. I don’t understand the problems others seem to be having unless it’s related to the new Intel chips, and that will be solved once Leopard comes out. Leopard is going to fly on an Intel Mac!
It sounds like people need more memory. A fully gig’d out Mac is a completely different experience.
If you haven’t maxed out your ram yet, I highly suggest you to do that…it’s worth every penny.
DC,
You need to get a refund on that Kingston RAM, mate.
No, seriously.
I’m running an older iBook G4 and after the initial startup while I let everything load, it’s nice and smooth. I upgraded to iPhoto 6.0.5 and I have no complaints. In fact the past swim meet I was at, the professional photographer was using iPhoto as his main photo management while at an event. He was using 3 separate Nikon DSLR (idk which bodies or lenses) with 4GB CF cards. When he’d fill one, he’d just dock the card into his MacBook pro and let it whirr away at 4gb of imports. At the end of the meet I stopped over to ask him about his opinion on iPhoto (and to see what amazing shots he got). He says he uses it 99% of the time for his management, unless he’s shooting a ton in raw (Aperture) and he uses PS for editing and such.
I really don’t see what the big fuss is all about, digital photos will take up space no matter what program you use to manage them. I like the fact that iPhoto has an original pre backed up for me, that way I’m not afraid to lose anything.