Too many clouds in the sky

I’m the sort of person who doesn’t like a lot of unnecessary stuff on my iPhone. If my Home screen spills into a third page, I have to go into serious Cull Mode, as I will never use that many apps. Likewise, if I haven’t used an app for a long time, it’s gone. Not relegated to the ‘Stuff’ folder — full-blown gone.

Imagine my frustration, then, when it comes to Photos. While having access to all your iCloud photos on the iPhone certainly makes your life easier when boasting to your coworkers about your latest trip to New Zealand, I wish there was a way to filter out ‘All iCloud’ pictures from ‘Pictures taken with this phone’.

Here is my situation: I don’t take that many photos on my phone, preferring to use an actual camera while away on holiday. I’ve taken a picture before the holiday — say, of a plant I like that I may buy later when doing some work on the garden, or a nice cat I want to show a friend when I see them, or maybe even a bit of amusing graffiti. I then go on holiday, go snap-crazy and upload all those camera-taken holiday pics to Apple Photos on my Mac at home. They then sync to my phone... and now I have hundreds of pictures between now and the last phonetaken photo I took, which I now need to look at because I want to buy that plant or I’ve met up with that cat-loving friend or I want to have a giggle over that bit of ‘street art’. If I can’t remember exactly the date on which I took that photo, I have to trawl all the way through my holiday snaps to find it! Surely, there’s a better way!

Why doesn’t iOS give you the option to filter out iCloud photos so you can see, even temporarily, just the pictures you’ve taken on that phone? It could be like sorting music by genre or something. I know how to create a Smart Album through my Mac to filter pictures taken by the phone, but that doesn’t help me when I’m out and about. Come on, Tim Cook! Make it happen, son!