Photostream Screensavers - Useless

Discussion in 'OS X Mountain Lion (10.8)' started by brettuk, Aug 2, 2012.

  1. macrumors member

    Jun 19, 2009

    I have a Mac Mini HTPC, and so was thrilled when I discovered I could set a screensaver of Photostream!

    However, this is useless. It will only ever refresh what photos it shows in photostream if iPhoto is open. Despite the fact the photostream photos exist on the hard drive elsewhere, it will refuse to show them unless you run iPhoto to refresh Photostream.

    Okay, I thought, why don't I just point the screensaver to the folder where photostream automatically downloads? Problem is, Apple has decided in their infinite wisdom to store all the photos in subfolders. Okay I think, I'll create a smart folder to return all the photos from the subfolders, this works perfectly, but the screensaver won't let you select a smart folder as a source.

    Meanwhile, over on Windows, photostream happily just downloads to the Pictures folder, and you can point screensavers at that folder. Easy. Added bonus in that you don't need to buy iPhoto.

    Why have Apple made something like this so convoluted, when their own software actually works better on Windows!? What the hell were they thinking?!

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