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Saturday, July 15, 2006
Ugh, I had to use iPhoto on my wife’s Mac mini PPC today and even though it only has 996 pictures in the library, it still took nearly five minutes — yes, five! — before I could do anything with it. Granted, it’s last years model running last years version, but still, should it take about five minutes to open a library that is less than a thousand with 512 MB or RAM and nothing else is open! I remember the promise Steve Jobs made with iTunes in 4.0 and how it was better but here I sit in front of 5.x and it’s a freakin’ dog!
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Now that I have the new Intel dual-core chip, I figure I’ll have better luck with iPhoto, especially since it’s a new faster touted version. Well, it is faster, but I do still get beach balls and it is still slow enough that I just don’t bother with it any more.
It’s sad, because the other iLife and OS X core is so tied into it. But with it’s speed issues, it’s just not worth it in the end. What makes it the worst is everything else about iPhoto is so good. It’s ease of use, layout, and integration is just so awesome. If Apple could only resolve the speed issue. For real!
Me, I’ll still with Picture Arena for now. Hopefully IOSpirit will be able to mimic the iPhoto connection into other applications so I can then pull off it’s albums instead of having to open iPhoto, watch a beach ball, tap my fingers, create an album, watch a beach ball, copy pictures in (and thus take up more room from my hard drive), watch a beach ball, see it import into the album, and then close iTunes, and yes, watch a beach ball. I thought reflections of the beach bring good feelings to mind. 
I really hope iPhoto 7 is way better or I might have to punch Steve Jobs in the face at Macworld if he tells us one more time that it’s better. 
July 15th, 2006 at 20:20
I am sure others will be tempted to comment, but here goes. When reading that time you gave of 5 minutes to open and use iPhoto6, I started mine, and started counting. With a similar chip to your wife’s mini (eMac, 1.25GHz) but more photos and more memory — 2,200+ and 1G– we were up and running in 20 seconds: not just applicaton open but image open in the editing window. I can’t say that I found 5 noticably slower.
July 15th, 2006 at 20:34
Either you have a couple of messed up Macs, you have the patience of a 3 year old, or you’re just trolling for hits because I used iPhoto ever since it’s inception on a G3 and I never had to wait five minutes for it to open. I now have a Mac mini G4 with nearly 10,000 photos and it doesn’t take five minutes to open. I’ll admit that I’d like it to be faster too but it’s most definitely much better than just bearable. On the Mac mini, the limiting factor is probably the slow laptop hard drive. Once you remedy that (external Firewire drive or 7200RPM laptop drive replacement), you’ll notice a significant speed boost in iPhoto. You might try repairing permissions too; in fact, definitely do this if you haven’t already. I don’t know what could be causing your problems on the new Macintel, but it’s really hard to believe that Picture Arena could perform that much better than iPhoto 6 on it.
July 15th, 2006 at 21:01
Following Kazman’s comments I checked the other machines I have here. On my 12″ PB G4 with 1G and 1355 pics — mostly RAW btw — we were ready to roll in 7 seconds. So, what’s wrong with the way you are working or are we being disingenuous (perhaps à la Dvorak)?
July 15th, 2006 at 22:50
iPhoto 6.04 with 5951 photos. Config: G4 AlBook 15 inch, 120 Gig disk with 26 Gig still available and 2 Gig of memory. From click to start to full open library takes 7 seconds.
I’ve been a user since v1.o and yes earlier versions slowed significantly as the photo library grew. iPhoto is an excellent solution for what it does, but you have to give it room to play. I bet you have 1. not enough memory or 2. you are almost out of disk space—or both. In all likelihood were you running Windows your config wouldn’t even boot.
Why do people buy a Volkswagen and complain about never being able to win at Indy. Tip for those selling Macs… config at least 1 Gig of memory on every system. Tip for users don’t fill up your disk. You WILL start to have performance issues running serious apps whenever available disk space falls below about 10% of the capacity of the System drive.
Next topic is training. I hate user manuals myself, but love to watch someone else show me how to use a product. Have you considered http://www.lynda.com (iPhoto 6 essentials) or http://www.vtc.com (iLife 05)? These video services charge $30 per month.
Sign up for 30 days. Watch the iPhoto training and everything else you can cram into the 30 days. Then cancel your service. This training is worth every penny. (PS: don’t forget to invest in more memory and disk space too!) Then why not write another review?
July 15th, 2006 at 22:53
I just fired up my 1.5GHz powerbook with 1.25 gigs of RAM and opened up iPhoto 6. I only have a little more than half of the 996 that your wife has but it fired up in a few seconds. The problem is only 512 megs of RAM. OS X’s mimimum requirement is 256. 512 is recommended. iPhoto 6 requires 256 and 512 is recommended. That tells me that I should probably double the 512 just to get iPhoto to run comfortably. My old beige G3 was more than comfortable with 384 megs but that was 1998 and those days are long gone. The first thing that you should do immediately after buying a computer (assuming that it comes with the minimum RAM installed) is at least double the RAM.
July 15th, 2006 at 23:21
what is wrong with your system!!
8 seconds and i have a 1.5ghz PPC powerbook and get this 13 thousand photos!
It is no way slow on my 2 year old slow powerbook.
I suggest you remove this obviously very miss leading page and replace it with one which is more accurate after your sort out whatever your issues are as it is not the way iphoto 6 runs on everyone elses system
July 16th, 2006 at 0:19
1. You are trolling for hits
2. You are peddling software to make you $$.
This a very FAKE Article.
Shame on you.
July 16th, 2006 at 4:31
You might want to check the size of your iPhoto.library file. There was a problem with certain brands of camera that was highlighted on Apple’s support forums. It appeared that the MakerNote field in the EXIF field was imported at too large a size for certain brands of camera. This meant that the iPhoto.library file became very bloated and could adversely affect the loading time of the library. There were a few unofficial tools built to remove the Makernote
July 16th, 2006 at 5:58
macMini, G4, 1.42, 512 RAM, 80 GB HD w/16GB free, iPhoto 5.0.4, 2146 photos, 7 seconds to open and editing. Something is hosed with your system.
July 16th, 2006 at 6:26
Let’s be honest - iPhoto is still a slow application and 7 seconds is a very long wait. I have 10,000 pictures and on my Intel iMac it takes about 10 seconds to start. The time to launch iPhoto should not depend on how many pictures you have - I had to run Picasa on my 6 year old PC a few days ago and it was so snappy. iPhoto definitely needs to be improved.
July 16th, 2006 at 8:03
My my, what a difference a little honesty makes. For one, it makes for pretty good comedy.
Roustem: “7 seconds is a very long wait.” First: it isn’t. Unless, as kazman suggests, you have the patience of a three year old. And second: yeah, Roustem, let’s BE honest. Let’s re-read the article above, and replace 5 minutes with 7 seconds. And let’s see how ridiculous the article’s complaint suddenly becomes. And Sven: please don’t embarrass yourself pretending to write a tech blog, if you’re gonna be so far off base. Please. Some of the people here are cutting you lots of slack. Some aren’t. I can’t tell whether you’re trolling or whether you were simply an incompetent who should have spent a little extra time being technical and a little less time spouting off. But HONESTLY, neither possibility casts a great light on you. Does it?
July 16th, 2006 at 8:34
Ron, I have a three year old and he is very patient so I do not think it is about the age.
I spend a 10-14 hours in front of the computer and 7-10 seconds here and there do add up. The long startup time is the main reason I do not use iPhoto as often as I would like to.
Still, I think you missed my point — iPhoto start up time should not depend on the number of pictures you have. Imagine if Google search speed depend on the number of documents (or images) they index.
I love Mac OS X so much that I quit my job to stop using Windows and I would love to see an improved version of iPhoto that makes OS X even better.
July 16th, 2006 at 9:11
Still, I think you missed my point — iPhoto start up time should not depend on the number of pictures you have. Imagine if Google search speed depend on the number of documents (or images) they index.
This seems to be comparing apples to oranges and, as Ron pointed out, does miss the initial point about a 5-minute startup: something is wrong there.
July 16th, 2006 at 9:34
I don’t know if your trolling or not. But according to what you say there is something wrong. A few thousand photos in iPhoto 5 on a G4 450/512ram opens in 4 seconds and 7 seconds to get a photo all the way to a edit window. On my MDD 867 it is about 5 seconds to the edit window. iViewMedia pro is only about a second faster with the same photos and cost $200.
You may want to look into what is wrong’
roger
July 16th, 2006 at 11:52
You do seem to be trolling, using Mr. Mossburger’s patented style(dissing Mac in the title). The ram installed upon purchase is only enough for OS X and mail or surfing. One gig minimum for anything fun. My daughter’s iMac DV(G3 450 1gig ram) screams through iPhoto. You also fail to compare iPhoto to the compition. Adobe Elements is a confusing mess. The free stuff that comes with printers and scanners even worse. For a bit of PhotoShop muscle(filters and fine adjusments)without the PS price or overhead buy Color It! This softwarwe is a gem and is a big step up from the pedestrian photo software and it’s cheap at under $50.
Chick
July 16th, 2006 at 18:27
Running a PowerBook G4. 2900 photos, 512mb of ram. 7 seconds to open iPhoto. Hmmm, must be some kind of problem with the computer or this is not an honest posting!
July 16th, 2006 at 19:33
Wow, I didn’t know so many of you are right here in my home looking over my shoulder to make such claims that I am “trolling” and “lying”. Vuong Pham, shame on *you* for being so judgemental and assuming this article is fake. You are _personally_ invited to come and see for yourself!
People, first, read the article more carefully. I never said the Mac mini was running iPhoto 6, YOU did. Sure, it maybe be better, but as I stated in the article since my past experience shows how there has been little improvement, I don’t feel like putting any more money into iPhoto at this point for the PPC-based Mac. I love how you all are so quick to judge and then you make an error onto what you judge on. You call me the troll and idiot? I’d hate to be side-by-side you all in battle!
Second, if any of you read other articles here on this site before making your accusations about this article and its attempt to attract easy hits with knocking down and Apple product, you’d know that was a poor choice in statement as I am a Mac lover through-and-through. However, I’m not blindly loyal. I am critical when justified.
As to those suggesting 1 GB of RAM, yes, I’m sure that will help; however, per Apple’s own system requirements, I am well within reach of what iPhoto should perform. Again, 1,000 photos should not be a program hinderance.
Now clean reboots do help the situation but having to reboot every time one needs to use a program is like, well, like using Windows!
I’ll say it one again, I do not troll for hits or ad revenue. Both are nice, but not the reason for this site. Regulars know that and you would do if you read more.
To all those who were polite in your response, thank you. To all those who weren’t, get off your high horse ’cause when you get smaked in the head by your idiocy, it hurts when you hit the ground.
July 16th, 2006 at 20:07
I may have started that iPhoto6 idea in the initial comment, although my last sentence, “I can’t say that I found 5 noticably slower.” did put it back on course. Whatever Sven now says, I would stand by the basic comments that others make, something is not right with that installation. I used all the iPhoto iterations (and on a couple of machines I bought for a student resource, we are running 256 RAM), and never had anything like a 5 minute start-up for the application. I think there is consensus on that point here among us.
July 16th, 2006 at 20:54
I have no issue admitting there may be a problem with the Mac mini in question; however, I’ve seen similar results on my PowerBook G4 800MHz as well. Since I haven’t tested this one specifically, I can not say five minutes with it (and I am pretty sure it isn’t since it has 1 GB of RAM on it.)
The Mac mini has always ran iPhoto slow from the day we brought it home from the Apple Store and just powered it on. No new applications installed, no web cache to slow it down. It’s always been a dog. Yesterdays frustration is what let to the post. Trying to make an album of just 40 pictures for a slide show and it took nearly ten minutes to complete was more than most could handle. Even the finger pointers here, I’m sure.
Like I said, and few here, the 1 GB memory upgrade is probably going to fix a lot, but Apple needs to better state it’s system requirements, then. I know that 256 MB isn’t enough for the OS and anything else, hence the reason we got the Mac mini in the 512 MB configuration. That should be enough. I’ve seen XP boxes running Adobe’s Photoshop Album run fine on this configuration. Heck, more than fine. So why shouldn’t iPhoto?
Maybe our Mac mini is doomed, then. Since it sounds like the Mighty Mac Men above say things are fine in their nirvana, maybe it’s time to find another Mac mini like the one we have and test it. I’m man enough to admit I could be wrong.
July 17th, 2006 at 0:00
Maybe you want to just run a quick test. Since you have so few pictures why don’t you copy your photos to your shared folder, create a new temp user and open iPhoto. What speed do you get empty? Go back to your shared folder and import some pictures. Open close…jow’s the speed? Keep doing that and see if your issue is corruption someplace in the thumbs etc.,
July 19th, 2006 at 7:29
I have a new powerbook 1.8 GHz with 2 GB of RAM. It takes 7 seconds to load iPhoto with 183 images. That seems pretty lame to me when most people chose Camino over Firefox because Firefox takes an extra 2 seconds to load (at least on my config).
I speculate that the reason it takes so long to load is Apple re-generates the thumbnails each time iPhoto loads. I have a 5 megapixal Canon PhotoShot so iPhoto needed to create 183 thumbnails from 183 1.2MB files. AFAIC, parsing 220 MB of images from a **4200** rpm laptop drive is pretty damn good, so kudos to Apple for that. However, why the hell do I need to wait for all my images to render? If the initial screen simply showed the last 20 imported images, it would load in constant time - likely 1-2 seconds.
July 21st, 2006 at 12:50
If I haven’t opened it in a while, it will take 12 seconds or so to load (4000+ pics). If I re-open it shortly after using it, it’s down to 7 seconds. By most people’s standards, that’s pretty slow. Of course, it’s way faster than Dreamweaver…
August 21st, 2006 at 20:03
1) MacBook Pro with 512MB and 10 000 pics. Takes too much time to open AND quit. The file Library6.iphoto is 130MB and I realized that each operation in iPhoto recreates this file (using the temporary file Library6.temp).
2) iMac Intel with 1GB and 7 000 pics (subset of the previous 10 000). Now the Library6.iphoto is 17MB. What a difference! Opening and closing time quite acceptable.
Conclusion: Unexplicable problem with Library6.iphoto (can’t be explain by EXIF info based on all the tests I made) and more memory probably makes a difference, but not much.