This is the iPhone's most annoying "feature" and it seriously needs to go

posted by Chris P. / Mar 18, 2015, 7:35 AM

Historically, Apple has always prided itself with the level of polish of their products, and not just on the hardware level – software, too. And while we generally have few reasons to complain and appreciate the effort, there's one "feature" of the iPhone that drives us nuts.

It has to do with the way the iPhone structures its internal memory for the camera roll. You know, the DCIM folder that you have with most modern devices that have a shooter attached to them. With most devices, like ones on Android, it's one folder for all the images, and all images within are sorted by the date they were taken on. Not so with the iPhone.

On an iPhone, you get a new folder created for every 100 photos you took. Note that we say 'took', not 'have', so even if you deleted older pictures, this logic will still apply mercilessly. The result? If you're a trigger-happy photography buff and have shot thousands of images on your iPhone since you last set it up, you can easily end up with tens of folders, even hundreds! Worst of all? This is the type of cryptic names they get:

The mess that is the iPhone's DCIM folder

Notice that these alphanumerical tags give no identifiable information as far as we can tell, so you can't apply some logic to distinguish between what's new and what's old. And, no, you can't sort the folders by date, as they all have identical 'last modified' dates. Even worse, there's no separate folder for screenshots, of which we take many, so you have to hunt them down manually every time you need to download images to your computer.

What a mess! And we're not alone in our displeasure with this 'arrangement'. Sure, you could use iTunes, but that's not an ideal solution – after all, iTunes is a relatively heavy piece of software (doubly so on older machines) that needs time to sync up with your phone, and it is possible that you're trying to upload images on a different machine that doesn't have iTunes on it installed.

Apple, this needs to go.

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78 Comments

1. lhtbinh1909

Posts: 94; Member since: Apr 02, 2013

Noone cares about folder structure anyway, isn't it?

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 7:39 AM 0

2. Industriality

Posts: 131; Member since: Sep 08, 2014

I care, but I don't have this problem on Android :D Plug, copy, paste, é basta !

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 7:40 AM 64

3. Industriality

Posts: 131; Member since: Sep 08, 2014

Or you can use Airdroid :D

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 7:41 AM 17

5. Kruze

Posts: 1285; Member since: Dec 30, 2014

The beauty of Android.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 7:48 AM 35

50. neela_akaash

Posts: 1239; Member since: Aug 05, 2014

There are lots of other annoying features in iphone.PA pointed out just one...

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 12:41 PM 8

36. mrej201

Posts: 226; Member since: Feb 04, 2015

note 4 drag and drop feature can any other phone do that

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 10:19 AM 1

66. brrunopt

Posts: 742; Member since: Aug 15, 2013

Neither on WP

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 4:20 PM 3

21. Phooey506

Posts: 85; Member since: Sep 24, 2014

"Apple has always prided itself with the amount of Polish work that goes into their products" I thought Apple products were made in China? In all seriousness, the proper way to write the sentence is: "Apple has always prided itself with the polish of the work that goes into their products" It's subtle but important. PA must really be struggling for authors.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 8:34 AM 13

28. ePoch270

Posts: 193; Member since: Sep 26, 2013

How many Pollocks does it take to make a decently named file structure?

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 8:57 AM 4

30. Hatshipuh

Posts: 163; Member since: Aug 09, 2012

They need polished polish work!

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 9:06 AM 2

62. ILikeBubbles

Posts: 525; Member since: Jan 17, 2011

as much as i disagree with grammamatically destroying an article for the fun of it.. this is a good point. although i think it's a new standard with instant uploads these days because news is circulated completely differently than it was even 5 or 10 years ago.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 3:04 PM 1

67. kevin91202

Posts: 642; Member since: Jun 08, 2014

@Phooey506 "'Apple has always prided itself with the amount of Polish work that goes into their products' I thought Apple products were made in China? ... PA must really be struggling for authors." Poor writing is PA's bread and butter. They simply don't care. It's not like PA is a legitimate tech website; they just copy and paste from other tech outlets. What do you expect from the same people who can't conduct a simple display luminance test.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 4:29 PM 2

68. darkkjedii

Posts: 30875; Member since: Feb 05, 2011

Yet you came to PA, registered an account, and currently sit at 209 posts. Hmmm...

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 4:44 PM 5

73. ZEUS.the.thunder.god

Posts: 1093; Member since: Oct 05, 2011

lmao. +1

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 10:54 PM 1

77. TechieXP1969

Posts: 14967; Member since: Sep 25, 2013

He hasn't even been here a year yet. But you came in 2011, and you have over 14,000 post. I bet 80% of them were bashing people who don't use iPhone. lol j/k

posted on Mar 19, 2015, 2:46 PM 0

43. sharks

Posts: 236; Member since: Feb 16, 2013

No one cares what you think. This article is 100% right all the way and has my vote!

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 11:10 AM 3

4. SIGPRO

Posts: 2813; Member since: Oct 03, 2012

The iPhone itself is a annoying phone!

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 7:41 AM 31

33. MrHate

Posts: 314; Member since: Feb 09, 2015

No one forces you to use it. Oh and you are also an annoying person!

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 10:04 AM 2

57. SIGPRO

Posts: 2813; Member since: Oct 03, 2012

It's my opinion and experience! No applefanboy can change my opinion about iPhones! Me annoying? Look at your name....MrHate........hahahaha!

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 2:07 PM 6

61. MrHate

Posts: 314; Member since: Feb 09, 2015

How old are you? 5?

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 2:30 PM 0

78. TechieXP1969

Posts: 14967; Member since: Sep 25, 2013

When were you born? YESTERDAY?

posted on Mar 19, 2015, 2:47 PM 0

45. Wiencon

Posts: 2278; Member since: Aug 06, 2014

Just install PwnTunes from Cydia and you're good to go. Honestly, anyone using iPhone without jailbreak is just stupid.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 11:16 AM 1

63. NICEBOY_1373

Posts: 21; Member since: Mar 28, 2013

Anyone who don't think like you is stupid?! Be sure the only one who is stupid is you. :/

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 3:16 PM 0

69. qxavierus

Posts: 51; Member since: Mar 20, 2012

Jailbreak or not.. it's the same thing.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 5:57 PM 0

71. animaleyez

Posts: 1; Member since: Mar 18, 2015

Anyone who jailbreaks an iPhone secretly wants and Android.

posted on Mar 18, 2015, 8:34 PM 1

79. TechieXP1969

Posts: 14967; Member since: Sep 25, 2013

I disagree. Anyone who uses an iPhone period is just stupid. Anyone who jailbreaks an iPhone is classically stupid. Now to be fair, I was once both stupid and classically stupid. I had an iPhone 4 and 4S. In fact I still have my iPhone but I only still have it because it support iPod Out and the iPhone 5 forward doesn't. A very useful feature in my car, that Apple dropped for no reason whatsoever. I got sick of jailbreaking, having to save the blobs or flobs or whatever they were called so I could always go back to an older OS. I got sick of updates that fixed nothing, but were done just to break the jailbreaks. I bought an Android because I get al the benefits of an iPhone. No jailbreak required and I get more on top of it. Jailbreaking is stupid. It makes the phone run like crap, it freezes, its very laggy and is all the more reason to ditch.

posted on Mar 19, 2015, 2:53 PM 0

80. coldspring22

Posts: 349; Member since: Feb 28, 2015

That means most iphone users are stupid? What now that apple has made jailbreak virtually impossible on IOS 8.13 and 8.2? Going forward, jail breaks will become increasingly more difficult. Soon all iphone users will be stupid I guess.

posted on Mar 24, 2015, 4:39 PM 0

47. Kakarotto

Posts: 255; Member since: Dec 07, 2010

I agree. For example, I'm sick of these iphone icons. When you wake up the device they are always there, they are always the same. Nothing changes. When I see this, it makes me wanna puke.