Photos

Well, in iCloud, you already have other data there, so there's no reason for the backup itself to include this data.

That includes your iCloud Photos library, your messages, so long as Messages in iCloud is turned on, your iCloud Drive files, and your notes.

So it's important to understand that synced, which is what each of those categories is doing, is not the same as backed up.

So if you delete on one device, your notes or your photos or an iCloud drive file, it's going to delete them everywhere.

Oh, I know your

iPhotos photo is crazy.

I was

like, what have I done? I'm just uplifting mostly hot white men.

I've been loving the iOS beta, I've got to say.

And one of the new features in iOS 27 Photos is now instead of taking a screen capture, I would pause a video and then take a screenshot and then try to edit out all the photos.

Plaque bars and play controls and that kind of stuff.

And you don't have to do that anymore.

If you open the Photos app and tap into any video, you can play or scrub to the exact moment you want and then pause.

Tap the little three-dot menu in the top right corner and tap Save Video Frame as Photo.

Mm-hmm.

on their desktop because it's offloaded to iCloud.

Or more often, the bigger one is iCloud Photos.

They have iCloud Photos turned on, they have all their photos showing up in their Photos app, but they're using optimized Mac storage.

By default, that's also Apple's answer.

Somebody walks into the Apple store, as we've talked many times, those are salespeople most of the time that the client is interacting with.

Because if it was more full, that's where optimized max storage might kick in.

If there's 300 gigs free, I believe it would use that space.

Drive would download more stuff and keep it, and iCloud Photos would as well.

All right.

So with regard to the new Photos Shared album, where you can get, like, full resolution photos and that in, in all the OSs 27, Tim Hardwick at MacRumors writes, "For years now, Apple has allowed you to store up to 5,000 photos and videos in shared albums without impacting your iCloud storage limit.

That's no longer the case in iOS 27.

Perhaps more significantly, if you invite someone to a shared album and they add their own photos and videos to it, as the owner, this too will count against your iCloud storage limit.

Apple has made it easier to invite people to shared albums.

The company says friends and family can now join and collaborate on the web, even without an Apple account or Apple device.

Existing shared albums are unaffected by the changes, but the Photos app does include an upgrade shared album option for those who want to improve the quality of its contents at the cost of iCloud storage." Friend of the show, Greg Pierce, also writes, "It's worth noting that if you create a shared album on iOS 27 or any of the OSs 27, it's not shareable with devices on older OS versions."

Yeah.

And so you have to turn on your show ratings controls selection

And is that in the settings of the photos in the Settings app, or do you do that within the Photos app?

Within the Photos app.

So if you type on collections-

Okay

Service interruptions affecting iCloud and more.

Several iCloud services, including Photos, Find My, and iCloud Mail, are currently experiencing service interruptions.

Apple has acknowledged these issues, which began on August 18, 2026, at 3.33 p.m.

ET.