No Facebook integration in the photos hub for 8.1

[gedzum]

Microsoft kills Facebook, Flickr integration in Windows 8.1 Photos app

I saw this article yesterday and felt kinda disappointed since I view facebook as well as skydrive pics all in the photos hub on my phone. I find it way more convenient than opening the respective apps. Now I'm not sure how it works on Windows 8 since I don't have it yet, but I was wondering, is this a feature you use on Windows 8 and if so, how do you feel? While it may be a bit redundant if they now have a facebook app in the works, I was thinking the option would have been nice to have.

 

[stmav]

I mainly go to photos on my Surface to see pics that are physically there. I've never launched into my Facebook photos from there. Just tested and pinned a tile for my Facebook pics to start screen. That works just fine if I was ever in a hurry to get to them.

 

[Dos101]

Remember this is still a Preview, the Photos app could be updated to connect to other services at a later date. Or even ship with Windows 8 RTM with those features.

 

[gedzum]

I mainly go to photos on my Surface to see pics that are physically there. I've never launched into my Facebook photos from there. Just tested and pinned a tile for my Facebook pics to start screen. That works just fine if I was ever in a hurry to get to them.

That's an interesting way to get it to work. I wonder why they would consider stepping away from the hub integration. Perhaps those services would rather people used their apps?

Remember this is still a Preview, the Photos app could be updated to connect to other services at a later date. Or even ship with Windows 8 RTM with those features.

Yeah I hope that is indeed the case. It is a feature I really like and use quite a bit on my Windows Phone.

 

[stephen_az]

If this is something you want, I would advise you to visit the Microsoft Windows 8.1 Preview forums and comment. This is not a rumor, nor a maybe it return because this is just a beta scenario. The person on the Microsoft forum who stated the removal was by design was one of the leads. Commenting here or hoping for the best will not get it back. It is also not just Facebook and Flickr. They crippled the ability of the photo app to see your own SkyDrive hosted photos as well. All the 8.1 app can see are local photos. BTW, if your local photos are under the SkyDrive folder meaning they are on your machine but sync to SkyDrive, the app cannot even see those.

 

[gedzum]

I found the thread of that discussion here for reference: Photos App in 8.1 loses most of its best features e.g. - Microsoft Community

The way that Microsoft employee replied makes it seem like they want to move away from the integration I thought they were trying to push on their platform, to now be more app centric. At least with regard to pictures. I'd like to post a reply there, but there's already a lot of disgruntled users on there that have essentially covered what I would have said already.