Top stories

Journalists Cover Microsoft, Using Macs

It’s not an easy time for Microsoft — with Steve Ballmer having to field questions about being “buffoons” and an “evil empire”  at the shareholder’s meeting (.doc) — so when they get together “the world’s most influential technology pundits and online writers” (nb: we weren’t invited) for Mobius to discuss super-secret mobile tech you’d think [...]

Guide To Black Friday Apple Bargains: Cheap MacBooks, iPods and Accessories Galore

Here’s a guide for finding the best bargains on Apple-related gear during the infamous Black Friday sales on November 27. We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of gear from leaked photos of sales flyers and descriptions of sales.
The bargains include a 2.26 GHz MacBook + $150 gift card at Best Buy for $999.99 ; a 32GB [...]

Review: Voices Is Today’s Best Thing Ever, Grab It Now While It’s Cheap

New on the App Store is Voices from the clever folk at Tap Tap Tap. You can guess what it does.

Open it up, pick a silly voice. Helium is pretty silly. A microphone appears and the app even clears your throat for you (try it, you’ll see what I mean). Now speak your brains, and [...]

Review: Sony Walkman S540 Series Video MP3 Player

Press releases, you will hardly be surprised to hear, are rarely very interesting. But one arrived in my inbox a couple of weeks ago that made me double-take.
“Sony’s S Series Walkman,” it chattered, “is a serious challenger to the iPod Nano.” Gosh, really? Perhaps the Cult had better have a look at one, then, despite [...]

Who Wants To Use Their iPhone For Looking At Photos Anyway?

Photo 93.jpg

Yay! Trust Apple to come up with the *best* way to stop me using my iPhone

Apple, you guys always make me smile! I love you and all your products!

I love surprises too! Those cute little tricks you discover when you’re using Apple stuff! Great!

And I’ve just discovered the best surprise yet!.

It’s the one that only lets you view the first 10,000 images on the built-in Camera Roll! After you reach 10,000, the rest are hidden from view, so you can’t see them at all!

FASTASTIC!!

THANKS APPLE!!!!!

Smileys Smileys Smileys Smileys Smileys Smileys Smileys Smileys Smileys

It’s even more fantastic for people like me who write about software for a living, and take loads and loads of screenshots of iPhone apps almost every day! I mean, I didn’t want to actually do anything with those screenshots! I didn’t want to include them in any of my articles! No!

So, THANKS AGAIN APPLE!!.

I just LOVE this Easter Egg! I love the way you’re completely ignoring those miserable people who dare to complain about it on your official forums.

And I LOVE the way you’re forcing me to download and possibly buy a third-party application in order to delve into my iPhone’s insides and try to fix the problem on my own!!

It’s almost like being an Apple developer myself! WOW!!

Thanks Apple!!

YAY! THANKS APPLE!!

Sigh.

About the author

gilest

Giles Turnbull is a freelance writer in England. He is a columnist for PA, and has written for the BBC, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, MacUser, Macworld, and The Morning News. He has a blog you can ignore and a Twitter account you needn't follow.

Email the author | Read more posts by Giles Turnbull.

79 comments

    What a childish rant. Since when, does what is essentially a nasty comment get elevated to the level of an “article”?
    Please grow up.

    Desperate much… This affirms people go out of there way to find things to b!tch about these days.

    How can you possibly justify needing to look at 10,000 photos at any given time? This is just lame. Get a content management system, buddy!

    Seriously? Why don’t you use the time that you obviously have on your hands to figure out how to fix the issue instead of whining like a 2 year old about it. Please take this ridiculous story (and even more ridiculous photo) off. This article offers nothing to readers, other than the knowledge Giles is a driveling idiot and to avoid reading anything else he has written.

    Seriously? I’ve been a dedicated reader to this blog for a long time without ever leaving a comment. I can truly say that this is the worst “article” to date.

    Manager’s of this site: I’d re-consider Gile’s value.

    The iPhone has been out for how long? You’re running into this now? Must have been a real burden to carry this dark secret and deal with this issue, day after day, for so long.

    If you download MobileStudio from the AppStore you may be able to copy the old photos (if you press the camera button on the down left)

    Honestly, why wouldn’t you just upload photos to your computer occasionally? This is childish. I’m not sure if you were going for humor, but you came off as an idiot.

    So I’m assuming the previous commenters have never had a moment of intense frustration due to a product not functioning as it ought to…right?

    “Desperate much… This affirms people go out of there way to find things to b!tch about these days.” – Prnsr82

    Don’t see the self the self-defeating nature of that comment, eh? Take your own advice.

    “Seriously? Why don’t you use the time that you obviously have on your hands to figure out how to fix the issue instead of whining like a 2 year old about it.” -Anon

    Perhaps you missed this part:

    “And I LOVE the way you’re forcing me to download and possibly buy a third-party application in order to delve into my iPhone’s insides and try to fix the problem on my own!!”

    Sorry for you frustration, Giles. Hope you find a solution soon.

    You seriously scroll through 10,000 photos? What a horrible waste of time.

    I download photos to my computer, organize them in folders, and sync those folders back to the phone. This allows me to actually find things instead of flick, flick, flicking through thousands of images.

    Maybe Apple didn’t think anyone would do that because what you’re doing sounds like a terrible way to work.

    File a bug report with Apple (Google “apple bug report”). 10,000 photos in a camera roll is an edge case, but the chances of the bug getting fixed go way up if you file a bug on it.

    You are a spastic. And you write for a living? Surprised you can afford a phone.

    hint: try padding out the article with more white space and exclamation marks.

    Perhaps the greater issue is that you have too many images. Even if you looked at each one for a good half second, Giles, you’d need over 83 minutes to look at all 10,000. And the “forcing you” bit, why don’t you offload some? Or buck up and spend some money and buy the app that lets you use over 10,000 images and stop bitching to us folk who could care less about the minute fraction of the iPhone owner population who has that many images.

    Guys go easy on Giles. This is like the time I complained to the land lord because my flat could only house 22,000 bottles of my own urine before the space ran out.

    If you are SOOOO DISAPPOINTED in Apple for not letting you view (not store, just view) your picture #10,001; then why don’t you just get yourself a Blackberry? Why are you using Apple products if they are such a waste of your precious time?
    Until you have a serious reason to complain, I would suggest you find a new hobby.

    I think you guys are mistaking what the actual post is about.

    He doesn’t want to look at 10,000 images at once, he’s just saying that after the camera on the iPhone itself has taken 10,000 images (be them photos or screenshots) the pictures/screenshots no longer show up in the camera roll.

    They’ll sync to iPhoto when the iPhone is plugged in, but they will not be viewable in the Camera Roll after the camera has taken 10,000 images.

    It’s a pretty stupid shortcoming on Apple’s part.

    -KK

    What a ridiculous post. You are obviously frustrated, but this is such a rare issue as to not be a problem for 99.9999% of iPhone users that nobody cares. Why are you keeping over 10,000 photos in the built-in camera roll anyway? Have you ever heard of folders? How do you even *find* a photo in such a crazy mess?

    Even if there were a valid reason to keep so many photos in the camera roll, I would bet that this is a common problem with many digital cameras, especially the ones built into smart phones. If you have any experience with technology whatsoever, you should know there are always limits built in to most hardware and software. So the limit in this case seems to be 10,000. Big deal. What would be a reasonable number to you? 100,000? A million? A billion? Eventually, someone will hit those too and then whine about them in a public forum just like you did.

    I can’t imagine that the author doesn’t transfer the 10,000 photos to his computer, if they’re that important. You wouldn’t store them on a ‘losable’ item like an iPhone…. if they’re that important. I can’t think of a single real world situation in which it would be useful to have 10,000 photos in your pocket. Maybe he’s a walking 99 Cent store, and his phone has a photo of each product in it?

    Wow. 10,000 images? Seriously? Apple is being so unreasonable as to put the limit to view at 10,000 rather than, say, 1,000,000,000,000? I agree, they’re a horrible company.

    I’m with the other commenters on this one. Stop bitching and offload some of your photos.

    Actually this is the first time I’ve ever commented on this site. So, ‘thank you’ Giles for being the first person to post some thing so absolutely irritating that I had to actually comment on a post.

    Two words: Use iPhoto

    @Admin: to clarify – the problem occurs when your phone has *taken* 10,000 images. It’s not a case of having them all installed and available to look at. Just that, from the 10,001st image onwards, new ones can’t be viewed in the Camera Roll.

    I enjoy a good snark as much as the next person … except perhaps my wife … and some of her friends.

    But anyone who has 10,000 photos on their iPhone is a boor or has some kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder that really ought to be seen to. Yes, even if they have a new baby.

    10,000 photos. Think about that for a minute. TEN THOUSAND PHOTOS. Most people barely take that in a LIFETIME. Screenshots or no, if you have 10,000 anything on your iPhone (even songs) you’re a bit of an ADD wanker IMHO.

    or you could use iPhoto to import your photos…. then you can actually do some organization….. rather then have a huge 10000 photograph roll. Thats completely illogical. Use your brain.

    Wow, that is truly an idiotic post. Learn to backup your device.

    This is Cult of Mac’s lowest point ever. What an asinine, pointless, self-indulgent rant. Get over yourself, clown.

    And who takes 10,000 photos with a craptastic iPhone camera, anyway? If you’re working with images that much, maybe it’s time to jam a crowbar in your wallet and go out and buy — oh, I don’t know — an actual CAMERA, maybe?

    Finally, you need to fix the tags for this steaming pile of crap. One of them is “humor,” which clearly isn’t the case.

    The comments following this rant are even worse than the puerile rant itself.
    Perhaps because it was written so tongue-in-cheek, the story doesn’t get the point across. Commenters should read a little more closely. Reading is fundamental.

    The problem is not that one can’t view more than 10,000 photos on the iPhone. The problem is that each photo, when taken, is given an incremental filename, i.e., IMG9820.jpg

    Once you reach IMG10001.jpg, for some reason, the system won’t let you view the photo. Even if you have only that one photo on your phone, you can’t view it.

    It has nothing to do with how many photos you keep stored on your phone or anywhere else.

    Nearly every commenter here claiming superior intelligence has just exposed their woeful lack of same.

    Idiots, read the post and comments, would you please… The issue has to do with simply taking a total of 10,000 photos, after which the Camera Roll does not display newly taken or imported photos any longer. It occurs whether or not said photos are on the phone, have been backed up or deleted. It is a software bug, a design flaw, an oversight or a cruel joke, but what it is manifestly not is a case of someone inexplicably keeping all their photos on the camera roll sans backup.

    Blimey. Calm down people.

    For the record, I don’t have 10,000 photos on my iPhone, I only have (checks…) 681.

    Erase the iPhone and restore it from the factory settings. Welcome back, IM0001.jpg.

    Whaaat is anyone doing with 10k pix on an iPhone anyway?

    Store ‘em in an app like iPhoto or Aperture of course.

    ALERT: Troll this way comes.

    Gene, I see what you mean.

    However the piece is written so badly that it’s hardly surprising most people don;t get it.

    Sloppy journalism.

    OK… its these whiney people who tend to push tech companies to include features that very few of us need… the bloatware is as much a fault of the companies making the software as it is a fault of the whining minority of tech users who have very specific needs that are not at all like the mainstream (we’ve all been there at times). “I can’t believe that [insert tech company] wouldn’t include [some rarely used feature] in their new [gizmo]. I’m going to hold my breath until I turn blue!”

    Sorry Giles, but your post was not well-received by most as it comes off as whiney and childish. Yes, Apple’s self-imposed limitations are annoying to us power users, but you have to know that you are a tiny minority of users who desire such features. As such, you don’t matter as much as you think you do.

    This is blog journalism at it’s absolute worst. Save your bitching for the pub after a few pints. Maybe someone will be willing to listen then. While your at it, you might as well dunk your iPhone into your beer because it might just give you some of your life back. You can’t view your 10,000 photos at once on your iPhone? This is not an issue worthy of a post on Cult of Mac. My 18 month old daughter whines less than you.

    For those coming to the defense of this ridiculous, childish rant:

    1. The article itself is so unclear, and so full of self-indulgent nonsense, that the author himself had to clarify the most important point in the comments. Reading might be fundamental — wow, never heard that one before, yuk-yuk — but so is writing **clearly**, especially if one happens to be some sort of alleged columnist.

    2. Even then, as another commenter has noted, it’s still a “problem” likely to affect an incredibly tiny, tiny percentage of all iPhone users. Who takes TEN THOUSAND photos with a jokey little cellphone camera?

    Well I stand corrected since the problem isn’t having 10,000 images on the phone. But that just underscores the spirit of most of the comments. Perhaps if Giles wasn’t so fixated on making the post look childish he could’ve more clearly explained the issue. The only part of the post that describes the problem is this

    “It’s the one that only lets you view the first 10,000 images on the built-in Camera Roll! After you reach 10,000, the rest are hidden from view, so you can’t see them at all!”

    but that is something that hardly explains the issue well.

    Is this something that needs to be fixed? Of course. But next why don’t you act like a professional and post the problem without all the caps, bold, and dancing icons.

    Who the hell want to look through ten thousand photos? Who the hell HAS ten thousand photos anyways?

    Giles, I really don’t like your writing style. You’re making this wonderful blog/community look awful. Very Disappointing.

    Wow, now thats WRITING!!!

    Funny… I’m sure someone must be thinking:

    “…why the hell didn’t I ask a friend to review my damn article before I sent it?”

    And then:
    “…why the hell didn’t CultOfMac warned me?”

    And finally he’s sitting on a chair, alone at home, pouring some whiskey while reading post after post and he says:

    “There goes my reputation as a serious columnist…”

    And someone from Apple is ROTF while reading these posts.

    Way to go Giles!

    What a pathetic rant. Who can work through 10,000 pics in the camera roll anyway, I don’t have time to do this on the MB, let alone the iPhone.

    Cult of Mac has lowered its standards by letting this kind of crass rant get onto the site. Come on guys do better, its not news and its not interesting

    I had that happen, and I have under a thousand photos. I did a hard reset of my iphone and it fixed it. The camera was frozen too and it fixed that.

    This is one of the only times I’ve ever been moved enough to comment on a blog post. Reading this article was akin to reading the comments below a Youtube video. A waste of my time at best along with being childish, annoying and insulting to the reader. Please give me substantive material on this blog, not childish complaints. I can get childish complaints from reading the comments any time.

    Very poor.

    I frequently recommend Cult of Mac to fellow Mac fans. However, frivolous posts like this make me think twice about doing so again.

    Wow, you have 10,000 photos in your camera roll? Damn thats a lot! I have like 50

    I wonder what he said when his kodak film camera only could take 24 shots. 10,000 seems a reasonable limit.

    Apple makes a device capable of viewing your 10,000 photos: a computer. The iPhone is a phone, not a laptop. Pardon my brash approach: you are an idiot. You probably use a week-whacker to mow your lawn. It cuts blades of grass but it’s so inconvenient to do the whole lawn so you probably b*tch about that, too.

    Cultofmac.com editors: why even publish this kind of childish rant that has provided no value beyond starting a flame war?

    Pathetic fanboys, can’t STAND it when someone points out a bug in the Holy JesusPhone. No, 10,000 is not a “reasonable limit”. A “reasonable limit” is any number that Apple TELLS YOU ABOUT IN ADVANCE and DOCUMENTS ON THEIR SUPPORT WEBSITE. Not one that’s imposed by poor programming practice and insufficient SQA before the software is released.

    /facepalm

    “Pathetic fanboys”? You probably are correct in one of those words, yes. Using the word “pathetic” gives way to just how finger pointing and uneducated people like you really are, pal.

    “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance–
    that principle is contempt prior to investigation”
    –Herbert Spencer

    How do you know anyone well enough to all them “pathetic”? GFY!!!

    get a LIFE

    Springle Finger:

    ‘…poor programming practice and insufficient SQA…’

    Are you serious? You need to have guts to call Apple a company with poor programming practices and insufficient SQA. I say you are either a genius out of this world and far from human nature, or else… well… you are just ‘entirely and truly pathetic’.

    Please, show a little respect and humility. That was as a stupid statement as the article we are genuinely criticizing.

    Ridiculous post.

    I just starting using this site today, are a lot of posts like this?

    Stop the Presses: “Man finds bug in software”. I found 2 similar bugs: I find that if I talk for 10,000 minutes, my battery dies 100% of the time. Also, if I drop my iPhone onto the floor from 100cm it generally is not affected. But when I drop my iPhone from 10,000cm it breaks 100% of the time. Nutty, crazy Apple – I sympathize Giles.

    says the douche writer… C’mon really. I know some people don’t grow up but acting like an upset child… that’s really gonna solve your problems… LOL

    Wow, you guys are unbelievable. It’s a pretty big deal, actually. I haven’t taken 10k pictures (YET) but I will hit that ‘limit’ someday. You fucking vultures come out of nowhere if anybody has anything negative to say.

    Jesus, shut up.

    LoL This Guy is Pathetic.

    What a wanker. As if Apple needs to cater to his little whims. I doubt 99% of the owners will ever reach the 10,000 photo limit. Go back to your sandbox…

    Giles, I just came back to let you know one more time that I think you are an idiot.

    giles shoots himself in the foot when he doesnt make it clear that its not the ability to store 10,000 images on the iphone, its when you take your 10,001 image!

    giles does make a comment to clarify, but he should provide an update in the article itself – like is standard blog protocol for clarifications.

    its definitely an edge case, but he does have a point.

    let’s just put it down to poor writing, and poor editing (did an editor even look at this) and move on.

    This guy is soooooooooooooooo Lame. What a retarded MoFo.

    I had to laugh at this. What professional in his right mind would use an iPhone? Okay for the average Joe I get it but if you are taking professional pictures someone might need to recommend a professional camera. Don’t get me wrong being an average Joe it is fine for me but you? I guess you aren’t that professional.

    Yep…. The comments were the good read here. Common you don’t sync to iPhoto and organize them? And be more clear, is it that you can’t view 10,000 pics in the “camera roll”? Or can you not view more than 10,000 stored anywhere in photos? If that was the case it’d be the only plausible complaint here…. Next time stop, count to 10, and then see if you still think it’s a good idea to post, save yourself some shame

    Yes this is a serious bug. If you use your camera for time lapse photography, you can easily shoot 1000 photos in a couple hours. The issue is that after you reach 10,000 you can no longer see ANY photos you have taken on the iPhone. Even if you have deleted every single photo, after you reach that number you cannot view any photos on your phone.

    This could quite possibly be the worst, most childish, un-thought out piece of so called “technical reportage” I’ve ever read in my life.

    Up until now I’ve rated Cult of Mac quite highly but come on, who’s allowing idiots like this to post such drivel?

    WTF? Was this written by a 10 year old?

    Many more articles like this and I’ll be removing Cult of Mac from my RSS feeds.

    It pleases me that people are starting to see this site as pretty amateurish at best. There’s some good contributors to the site – LK and GT aren’t two of them.

    Having said that – it’s certainly a ‘feature’ of the phone that isn’t ideal, but this isn’t the way to address it. Well, it is if you’re a teenager on MySpace.

    “I had to laugh at this. What professional in his right mind would use an iPhone? Okay for the average Joe I get it but if you are taking professional pictures someone might need to recommend a professional camera. Don’t get me wrong being an average Joe it is fine for me but you? I guess you aren’t that professional.”

    Despite my previous post regarding the article, this is the stupidest comment on here. GT clearly states that as an Apple journalist he takes many snaps of apps on his iPhone – presumably this is what has taken up the space in his album.

    Who on earth said anything about taking professional photographs? What an idiotic comment.

    If this is considered an *article* on this blog then perhaps Cultomedia Corp needs to reconsider who they allow to write for them.

    But does it play Crysis?

    If this is considered an *article* on this blog then perhaps Cultomedia Corp needs to reconsider who they allow to write for them. [2]
    Pathetic…..

    Have to side with the Author here. People, he has a HUGE right to be this upset. What he failed to mention is that his iPhone has STOPPED SHOWING PICTURES.

    My phone has done this as well. Whenever I take a screenshot or a picture, it says I have them in my camera roll but I, too, get the screen saying no photos are in the camera roll. Hmmm, let me think how this can be a gigantic problem. My car was in a minor accident yesterday. I think to myself, I have a camera on my iPhone so that I can show the security office (it happened at work and was a result of the parking lot being messed up). But, since my camera roll is busted, I had to leave my car in the middle of the parking lot and walk the 15 min. to the security office. Had my phone been working, I could have taken the pictures and parked the car so it was out of the way. It was a major inconvenience that my phone did not function as it should (especially when the asking price for my 32GB 3GS is $600).

    So, I called Apple. The tech sat with me for 2 HOURS. His final solution, deal with it or erase you phone and start from scratch. Lose all of your stuff, in other words, ALL APP perferences and history. I’ve had my iPhone 2 years so there is an immense amount of data that would be unrecoverable. So, I’m dealing with it. He passed on the issue to the engineers, but I don’t think that means anything.

    The problem causing this issue???:
    The camera preference file is damaged/corrupt, and unlike on a mac, Apple does not give us a way to throw out that preference file. I knew this was the answer before I even called apple, b/c the problem started on my 1st gen iPhone and transferred to a 3G then the new 3GS.

    So, there IS NO WAY TO FIX IT. My phone does not take pictures or video that I can see or use until I get to my house and download and re-sync with iTunes.

    How is that right? Lay off of this guy because I am just as PO’d as he is. I paid a lot of money (its still a lot with an upgrade) to have a FULLY functioning phone yet I do not have the function of my camera. I will not be able to use SMS texts when they start working on the 25th (most people do not send old photos – they take one and send it). Its messed up that a bug is doing this and there is NO FIX for it except to wipe your phone and NOT restore from backup. RIdiculous. So, again, unless you are going through this you can’t understand. And yes, its just a function of the phone, but a function I use daily and NEED working.

    Thanks for reading,
    Sandy

    Is this guy/ article for real? Where is the credibility with this article/ site with all the spammy links to smileys, desperate SEO much…

    Seriously? I have been following this site for years, and never have I seen such poor writing, a terrible article. who is this giles anyways? first article fail, imo.

    I would really like to read an apology from the author just for the very poor quality of writing. Not for what he believes but posting such language on a site that you consider professional is almost not respecting its users.

    I am so disappointed I could easily unsubscribe from the RSS..

    What is more worrying than the quality of the humorously written article (which clearly explains a software bug and shortcoming of the iPhone software) is the appalling and extremely lacking quality of the comments herein. The same content is repeated over and over again and shows a kind of lynching or “hooligan” attitude. I am quite sure that most people posting here did not bother to properly read through everything before they posted. Giles Turnbull is a fine writer that seems to have pushed the wrong button (this time) and he got an avalanche which is totally out of proportion with his “crime”. Good luck, Giles. I am looking forward to see other articles from you; both those containing humor and otherwise….. :-)

    Dear Sir:

    I do not know why these people are being so rude and mean to you.

    I am a photographer, and I have only had my iphone for about 6 weeks, and I already have over 600 photos. I use it all the time for photos and documenting items, and for just plain fun. I can see that I’ll easily hit the 10,000 photo mark in just a few months or so.

    At that time, if my iphone stops taking photos – whether I upload all of them to iphoto or not – then that means the camera function is useless to me for taking new photos.

    If you try a restore, will the camera app work again?

    Please let me know. I thank you. Hope you – and I – find a solution to this.
    And believe me – there are MANY MANY photographers who will be affected by this as well, just not these negative people here.

    Thanks,
    Steven

Add your comment

Name(Required)

Mail (required, but not published)

Website

Comment

Buy Inside Steve's Brain Buy from Amazon.com Buy from Barnes & Noble