If you find Photostream confusing you don't need to use it. Simple as that. It's not even activated by default, you have to turn it on the first time you try to access it.
If you don't activate it, you phone keeps working the way it used to: you sync to your computer and thats that. There are third party apps that will let you upload to Dropbox and google+ if you prefer those as repository.
Now, the thing is that you want the convenience to have PhotoStream without worrying about space constraints. Ever.
iPhoto automatically creates a folder with all last month's Photostream pictures and I think thats default behavior, unless you purposely turn it off. To me, thats the most "smart" sync can get, unless you want Apple to store every photo you ever took, forever, in their servers. Having around 400 million iOS users worldwide this seems to me a little unrealistic at the moment. Maybe someday.
But for me the key here is just being able to delete your own content. You don't expect the memory card in your camera to last forever, you periodically format it. You don't expect your download folder to hold everything you download forever. Every now and then you go in and clean around. Your phone (ioS, Android or whatever) is no different. Go into that Camera Roll and start cleaning around.
Unless you turn it off the option all the photos are already in iPhoto, ordered by month (something like "Sept XXX Photostream"). If you turned it off, just impoert all the photos before deleting to make sure you don't end up loosing any pics.
I agree on the video, though. Photostream needs to start syncing videos as well.
I agree with you. I'm a little confused about the "outrage" about Photostream.
It's basically just a wireless USB cable that automatically imports into iPhoto based on the month. It's actually been 100% perfect for me. When I plug my phone in using USB to transfer the videos over, it tells me that it already has all the pictures, then it imports the videos, then offers to remove the already synced photos and videos from my phone.
Once everything is in iPhoto, I have been curating an album from a vacation then sharing it with myself using Shared Photostreams. That way I have the trimmed down and edited album available on my phone and iPad.
Maybe people are asking it to do something it was never designed to do?
If you don't activate it, you phone keeps working the way it used to: you sync to your computer and thats that. There are third party apps that will let you upload to Dropbox and google+ if you prefer those as repository.
Now, the thing is that you want the convenience to have PhotoStream without worrying about space constraints. Ever.
iPhoto automatically creates a folder with all last month's Photostream pictures and I think thats default behavior, unless you purposely turn it off. To me, thats the most "smart" sync can get, unless you want Apple to store every photo you ever took, forever, in their servers. Having around 400 million iOS users worldwide this seems to me a little unrealistic at the moment. Maybe someday.
But for me the key here is just being able to delete your own content. You don't expect the memory card in your camera to last forever, you periodically format it. You don't expect your download folder to hold everything you download forever. Every now and then you go in and clean around. Your phone (ioS, Android or whatever) is no different. Go into that Camera Roll and start cleaning around.
Unless you turn it off the option all the photos are already in iPhoto, ordered by month (something like "Sept XXX Photostream"). If you turned it off, just impoert all the photos before deleting to make sure you don't end up loosing any pics.
I agree on the video, though. Photostream needs to start syncing videos as well.