Tag: iphone 13

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Apple at 50 and the iPhone

iPhone
Image by Jan Vašek from Pixabay

Apple started back in 1976, though I am old enough to remember 1976, my personal history with Apple begins half way through their fifty year history in 2001.

I have already written about my computing for personal and professional reasons, the iPad, and the iPod; this post is about the iPhone.

I have used a range of iPhones over the years, some through work and those that I bought for personal use.

I now have an iPhone 17 Pro Max and the main use case I got for this was the photographic capabilities which have made dramatic improvements over the years.

I have also used the iPhone 13. It’s interesting that in the early iterations of the iPhone there was often very good reasons for upgrading, with the more recent versions, the improvements have been marginal at best. You notice the improvements when jumping from something like the 13 to the 17.

I didn’t buy the first version of the iPhone, mainly as it didn’t have 3G, which I felt was important for how I was using a phone.

I did get the iPhone 3GS. I liked it, but it was a secondary phone and I kept the Google Nexus One going for a few years.

Through work I then got an iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 is what the iPhone should have been from day one. Finally, the iPhone came of age. It is one of the best phones I have ever used. The camera was better than ever before, and the phone also came with a front facing camera. At the time the iPhone 4 was one of the best phones I had ever used, and I was really pleased with it.

My next iPhone was the iPhone 5S. I also had a work phone in the iPhone 6 Plus for a while, and I replaced my dependable Google Nexus One with an iPhone 6S Plus. Later in a different job I had the iPhone 8, but the iPhone 6S Plus kept me going for a few years.

I then had an iPhone 13 for a few years, but now I have the iPhone 17 Pro Max, which I am hoping will last a few years.

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Has 15.5 fixed My Photo Stream?

In a previous post I mentioned I was having issues with My Photo Stream having upgraded my iPhone 13 to iOS 15.4.

I noticed that photographs I had taken with my iPhone 13 were not being uploaded to My Photo Stream and shared across my other devices.

This was an annoying bug, as I did use this feature a lot, using photographs I had taken on my iPhone and then using them with my Mac.

I did try a temporary fix my changing the camera mode, it was set to High Efficiency, so I switched it to Most Compatible.

However this wasn’t a real fix, as though some photographs were uploaded to My Photo Stream, not all were.

I have now upgraded to iOS 15.5 and though there wasn’t a mention of fixing this bug, I did notice that yesterday all my photographs were uploaded to My Photo Stream, but I was still using Most Compatible mode. This morning I switched to High Efficiency and took a few photographs and allwere uploaded to My Photo Stream.

screengrab of iOS screen showing My Photo Stream working

So here’s hoping that bug is now fixed.

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Temporarily resolving an issue with My Photo Stream on my iPhone 13

I have managed to resolve an issue having taken photographs with my iPhone that My Photo Stream was not then updating across my devices.

It was in the past week that I noticed that photographs I had taken with my iPhone 13 were not being uploaded to My Photo Stream and shared across my other devices.

I first did the usual trick of going into settings for the Photos app and turning My Photo Stream off and then back on again, however this made no difference.

What was weird was that the photograph I had taken weren’t been uploaded, but the edited versions from Snapseed or Instagram were being added to My Photo Stream.

This photo of the Bristol Harbourside didn’t upload.

This version I edited with Snapseed did.

I checked back through my iPhone camera roll and there was a range of photographs missing from My Photo Stream.

It was working fine on the 16th April, but had stopped updating on the 17th April.

Doing an initial Google search didn’t help, with most references referring to turning My Photo Stream off and back on again, which I knew didn’t work. I powered off the iPhone and back on again, that didn’t resolve the issue either.

My Photo Stream was working fine on other devices. Took a photo with the iPad and it was uploaded to My Photo Stream. On the iPhone if I created an image with Snapseed it was uploaded to My Photo Stream. 

That got me thinking that the issue wasn’t with My Photo Stream or the Photos app, but was with the Camera app.

Now doing a Google search I found that others were having a similar issue. It appeared to be related to the 15.4 iOS update.

Going through the settings for the Camera app I checked the formats setting.

Settings > Camera > Formats

To reduce file size, capture photos and videos in the High Efficiency HEIF/HEVC format. Most Compatible will always use JPEG/H.264. Cinematic video, 4K at 60 fps, 1080p at 240 fps and HDR video require High Efficiency.

This was set to High Efficiency, so I switched to Most Compatible.

As a result the next photograph I took was uploaded to My Photo Stream.

I switched back to High Efficiency and the problem came back. It was apparent that the HEIC images were not being uploaded to My Photo Stream, though they were with iOS 15.3 and earlier.

So for the moment I have a temporary fix, so when I take photographs with the iPhone 13 they will upload to My Photo Stream.

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Replaced the iPhone

With my iPhone 8 randomly turning off and then always turning it off, I had it replaced with a new iPhone 13.

iPhone 13

I decided not to transfer the full iPhone 8 settings over to the new phone and start (nearly) afresh.

Sometimes I will “clone” my old phone when I have a new one, but most times I like to start from scratch and install the apps I need as and when I need them. This means I don’t install stuff I have stopped using.

What I did do, was copy over my “settings” so I could automatically connect to my known WiFi, use saved passwords and so on.

I configured the phone for multi-factor authentication for work and this was nice and simple.

Overall it was an easy experience moving over to the new phone.