I sell enterprise data classification software. In less buzzword terms, one of the features of our software is that it can add labels to things (including photos). This helps business people find things they need to work on.
In my personal life, I am a photographer and spend time organizing and classifying my photos. I add keywords to photos in Lightroom and tags to videos in Finder (MacOS). These are part of my workflow.
With the billions of photos people take every day (like the zettabytes of data in the corporate world), I feel it’s vital we use some form of organization. This helps us find what’s most important to us while eliminating distractions, and reducing unnecessary and costly storage requirements.
Like many of you, I have an iPhone and use Apple’s Photos app. I noticed today that there is no way to add labels (keywords, tags) in Photos on the iPhone. You can add captions, adjust place and time, tune people identification, and use markup to add text, but you can’t classify your photos with words that suit you. I know about the game-changing features of AI assisted search but it’s not perfect, and cannot be corrected or customized. I had a quick check of Google Photos on my iPhone and it appears they have the same limitation.
I can’t understand why Apple would not have this fundamental feature in Photos to easily help people organize their precious images. It’s tempting to think of evil corporate strategies to make us consume more iCloud storage and keep us scrolling for more minutes on our iPhones. I can’t believe they didn’t think about it. It’s possible they may not wish to add features that could be confusing or misused. I can’t think of a technical reason. I’m going to post this on Apple Communities and see what other people say.
I’m passionate about photography as an art form and for preserving memories. I like helping others get the most from the magic of digital photography. I’ve written about this in the past - it’s a topic I spend a lot of time thinking about. I’d love to know your thoughts.
