It wasn't that long ago that photographs were rare and special. You only had a limited number of photos on a film roll, so you wanted to save your film for just the good shots. And then you had to bring the film to a store and wait for the film to be developed. Sharing photos meant going through the trouble of ordering additional prints. Suffice it to say that there was a lot of hassle, and it meant that people took and shared far fewer pictures than they do today thanks to digital photography. There were digital cameras as far back as the 1990s — I have some pictures taken with an Apple QuickTake 100 back in 1995 — but picture quality and storage on those older models was limited. It wasn't until I bought my first digital camera in 2005 (a Nikon D50 DSLR) that I was able to start to enjoy the freedom of taking unlimited, high-quality photographs that I could see (almost) instantly on my computer without having to find the nearest Fotomat. I suspect that most of you can similarly remember when you transitioned from film to digital photography.
It has been a year since Apple introduced the Memories feature of the Photos in iOS 10 and on the Mac. I've always considered Memories interesting, but thanks to updates in iOS 11 (and macOS High Sierra), the feature is becoming much more useful. If you haven't paid much attention to the Memories feature in the past, I hope that this post encourages you to check it out more often.
Curate collections of photos (and videos)
The goal of Memories is to automatically create curated collections of your most meaningful photos and videos. When the feature was first announced, I thought that it would be mostly useful for folks who don't take the time to organize their photos. I figured that for people like me — who take the time to delete bad photos and then put the good remaining ones into an event with a title such as "Mom's Birthday" or "Christmas 2016" — the feature would be largely irrelevant. Surely my ability to organize my own photographs would be better than a computer.
Now that I have used Memories for the past year, I see that my first impression was wrong. Sure, for folks who don't take the time to organize their photos, Memories can handle much of that function. For example, it is smart enough to notice that you have a bunch of photos taken when you were on vacation at the beach, and it can automatically put those photos together into a single memory.
But Memories will also collect photos based on categories other than date, and that makes Memories useful for everyone, even people who take the time to curate their photo libraries. For example, I can see that Memories put together a collection of some of the best photos and videos in my collection that were taken in Chicago from 2012 to 2016 (much of which is photos from ABA TECHSHOW).
I also see that Memories recently put together a collection of what Memories thinks are some of the best pictures of my wife from 2006. Suffice it to say that Memories often comes up with collections that I wouldn't have taken the time to create, and it does it all without me having to lift a finger.
Below the pictures and videos, you will see thumbnails indicating the people whose faces appear in the Memory, the locations where pictures were taken in the Memory, and other Related Memories.
In iOS 11, Memories does an even better job of creating collections based on something other than a specific date range and/or place. Apple says that iOS 11 adds "[m]ore than a dozen new memory types including pets, babies, weddings, and sporting events." I've seen reports that other new ones include sporting events, performances, outdoor activities and nights out with friends. Sure enough, just yesterday Memories was able to figure out my wedding date and put together some great pictures for me from that special day. When I first saw this happen, I have to admit that I was a little surprised. How did Memories know the date I got married over 20 years ago? I suppose it was smart enough to figure out that if I was wearing a tuxedo (certainly not an everyday occurrence) and my wife was wearing a white dress, well then that must be a wedding. And a few days ago, Memories put together a memory called "Go Team! New Orleans 2015" which included some great pictures of my kids playing soccer that year.
I hope that Memories continues to add new themes which connect photos taken in different years and/or in different locations. These are the collections that I often find most interesting because they are the ones that I rarely take the time to create myself.
Surface great photos (and videos)
Another reason that I've grown to love Memories is that you get new collections frequently. Thus, whenever I tap the Memories tab in the Photos app, there is a good chance that I will see something new. Some are better than others; a "best of the last week" collection isn't that impressive if I didn't take particularly noteworthy pictures at that time. But more often than not, Memories will suggest that I look at a nice collection of pictures that I would not have otherwise thought to look at
Sometimes I will see an "on this day" collection that will remind me what I was doing on this same day many years ago. Or maybe it will surface pictures from a family vacation or a holiday many years ago. Sure, I could have searched for and found those pictures on my own if I had thought to do so, but I love the serendipity of Photos just nudging me as if to say: "Hey Jeff, remember these great pictures from that such-and-such event?"
Sometimes I disagree that a Memory is worth being a Memory. Memories recently offered to show me pictures from September 9, 2005, a day when I was taking pictures of what must have been the last apartment in Baton Rouge, LA that was still for rent after Hurricane Katrina, when a large part of the Greater New Orleans population tried to squeeze into the state capital. I really didn't need to see those pictures again.
But far more often than not, Memories surfaces a memory that I do want to think about again, and jumping into those photographs and videos makes me smile.
Compared to the old days of film photography, I far prefer the world of digital photography, in which it is easy and virtually free to take lots and lots of photographs. But the downside is that there are so many pictures that it is easy to forget about them. I see that I have over 45,000 photos in my collection right now, so there are tons of pictures that I wouldn't even think about looking at again if Photos didn't bring back that memory. Thus, the ability to surface great photos from the past is one of my favorite parts of Memories.
Presenting a Memory
All of this would be useless if Photos just dumped hundreds of pictures on me every day. Perhaps the best part of Memories is that it automatically creates a nice little slideshow of some of the best photos and videos. Just tap on the play button at the bottom right of the banner image for each Memory. If the high quality versions of the photos and videos are not already downloaded to your device, you need to wait a little while (often just a few seconds) for your device to download those images from iCloud, and then the movie will start.
Apple calls this a "Memory movie" and the word "movie" is appropriate because it truly is more than just a slideshow; it features nice transitions, zooms in on the people in the pictures, and uses great background music. Each photo doesn't stay on the screen for very long — just enough to time for you to say "oh yeah, I remember that!" And it does a fantastic job with videos — including videos associated with Live Photos — because it creates very quick video segments, which can be far more interesting than, say, sitting down and watching the entire dance recital again.
The final effect can be really dramatic, making it sometimes look like Ken Burns himself had created a documentary based upon your collections of photos. In fact, the movies are so nice that sometimes they are out of proportion to the subject matter. Allison Johnson of Digital Photograph Review recently said: "The misses are all much funnier because of the slightly dramatic treatment: panning, gentle transitions and music give the impression of something that's been carefully curated to invoke nostalgia. It's all very serious, and works very well for a post-hike selfie with a majestic backdrop. It's downright laughable when it's a photo of some acne-treating serum I took a picture of to send to my sister."
Strangely, the Memory movie feature is currently missing from Photos on the Mac (although I suggest a workaround below). But it works on the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, and I'm sure that it will come to the Mac soon. If you own an Apple TV, this feature is really nice because it is such a great way to share with family and friends who are sitting around your televtion. There have been many times when my family has sat down to watch a movie but first we take a quick look at a new Memories slideshow. And then we watch a related Memory, and then another, and the next thing you know we have laughed for an hour as we walk down memory lane.
If you are just looking at Memories by yourself on your iPhone, even that experience is better in iOS 11 because Memories now optimizes its slideshows for both portrait and landscape view. Thus, no matter how you hold your iPhone in your hand, the slideshow will look great.
You can also send a Memory movie to someone else. Start to play the Memory movie, then tap the screen to show the edit options. In the bottom left you will see the share button (a square with an arrow pointing up). Then choose how you want to share the movie — Messages, Mail, save it to Dropbox and then give someone else a Dropbox link, iCloud Photo Sharing, etc.
And if you really like a Memory, you can scroll to the bottom and select "Add to Favorite Memories." Over on the Albums tab, you will see a folder near the top called "Favorite Memories" with every Memory you designated as a favorite. This makes it much easier to find that Memory in the future, and saves you the trouble of scrolling through newer Memories in the Memories tab to find that older one that you really liked.
Editing a Memory movie or creating your own
If you want to make some quick fixes to a slideshow, Memories makes it easy to do so. Just tap on the screen and pause the slideshow. There, you can easily change the length of the movie to short, medium or (if there are enough photos in the collection) long. You can change the mood of the movie, which changes the font of the title screen, the transitions and the background music.
While I don't consider myself much of a "Club" person, I like the diagonal transitions that the "Club" setting uses. Check it out.
For more advanced edits, tap the Edit button at the top left, which brings you to a screen where you can change the words and style of the title and the picture displayed behind the title. You can also add or delete specific photos or videos from the Memory movie. And you can choose an exact duration.
For the background music, you can add any song from your own music collection, but I find that the movies work great if you select one of the dozens of Memory Soundtracks (some of which are also in the Clips app). Soundtracks are grouped by mood: Dreamy, Sentimental, Gentle, Chill, Happy, Epic, etc. At the very bottom there are Special soundtracks, which Memories only selects automatically under very special circumstances, such as a Happy Birthday soundtrack only used for birthdays, a song called Girls of Waikiki which is only used automatically for photos taken in Hawaii, etc. Most Soundtracks are just instrumental, but a few feature vocals, such as the nice song "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri (Apple Music link) located in the Sentimental section. By the way, that song is one that that Memories will sometimes automatically select for wedding movies. Memories does a great job of adjusting these Soundtracks so that they last the right amount of time for your movie and so that pictures change with the beat of the song.
As sophisticated as all of this is, of course it doesn't come close to what you can do in an expensive program like Final Cut Pro. Nevertheless, I love that I can just spend a few minutes to get in and get out and then have an even better slideshow to show off to others.
In addition to editing a Memory movie that was created automatically, you can also instruct Photos to create a Memory movie from a collection of photos. First, you can tap the Photos tab at the bottom of the Photos app, which is where you see your pictures organized into Years, and then Collections (pictures taken around the same general date and place), and then Moments (pictures on a specific day and usually in a specific place). For each set, just above the set of pictures, you will see bold words with the place where the pictures were taken and then the date just underneath (or sometimes, if there is no place, just the date in bold).
If you tap on those words, Photos will start to create a Memory for that collection of photos and videos.
If you like what you see, you can scroll all the way to the bottom (just below the related Memories section), and on the bottom left tap on the word "Add to Memories" to add this collection to the Memories tab in Photos.
You can also instruct Photos to create a Memory movie from an album that you created yourself. In other words, you can collect any photos you want, taken at any time or place, and make that a Memory. In Photos, tap the Albums tab at the bottom right. Then select any album that you created. Then at the very top left (just above the first picture in the album) you will see bold words with the title that you gave the album and the date(s) underneath. Tap those words to create the Memory. Once again, if you like what you see, scroll all the way to the bottom and you can choose to "Add to Memories" so that this one appears in your Memories tab.
The ability to share Memories also provides a sort of workaround for the current limitation of not being able to create a Memory movie on the Mac. You can create your own Memory collection using Photos on a Mac, then choose Add to Memories on your Mac, then go to your iPhone or iPad and you will see that same Memory, and from there you can create the Memory movie and then use the share function to send the finished movie back to your Mac. It's a clumsy workaround, and will hopefully soon become unnecessary as Apple expands the Photos app on the Mac.
Conclusion
Memories is an example of Apple at its best: simple to use but professional results. If you don't want to do any work, you can just tap the Memories tab and scroll through to see what the Photos app has already created for you. You are sure to find something interesting, and then you can enjoy the Memory movie. Although you can stop there, with just a few seconds of effort you can often dramatically improve the movie by adjusting the mood and the length. And then if you want to fiddle around for a few minutes, you can take out the photos you don't like, add in some really good ones, pick some great background music, and end up with something really special that would have taken you hours to create without the Memories feature. And whether you send the Memory movie to others, share with family and friends on an Apple TV, or just enjoy the movie yourself on your iPhone or iPad, there is a darn good chance that you will smile as you walk down memory lane.
So Apple: thanks for the Memories.
