Advice on time zones with iPhones?

Question

Hi All,
I have been on several trips this year to multiple time zones.  Ther are some problems, as have been described here in multiple posts, with Aperture's import function with respect to time zone.  However, it seems to have an extra wrinkle when importing photos from an iPhone (I'm assuming because the iPhone is time-zone aware).
This is what I have observed:
When changing the time zone "Camera time" and "Actual time" in the import window, the "Adjusted date" may never be right ("File info" pane).  However, after performing the import, Aperture's time for the photo will still be correct for my Canon Rebel XTi.
However, under similar circumstances with my iPhone, Aperture always makes the resulting photo in EST (maybe because that's what time zone my computer is in?), even though I tell it, in the import dialog, that the photo was in CST.  The numerical values are right, though, so the photos are actually 1 hour wrong in this case.  That is, the time tag of the photo in the phone is 1:00 PM (CST, since the phone was synced with CST cell time), and after importing it is 1:00 PM EST within Aperture.  I set Camera Time and Actual Time to America/Chicago.  When viewing the photo in Image Capture, it says 1:00 PM.
Has anyone had any similar problems with iPhones (or time-zone aware cameras)?  Any thoughts on the best way to import?
thanks,
nathan
PS, I have written several messages to Aperture Feedback concerning these bugs, which essentially make time zone management unusable.

Answer 1

Hi Mr Endo,
I see the same date confusion with my iPod - so probably the issue is caused by IOS 5 and Photo Stream, not by Aperture. To download from the PhotoStream there are no Timezone import settings - probably that is causing the buggy behaviour.
Conjecture: Mobile devices are pushing their data for immediate download, so it would be safe to assume, the images you download have been taken in the same timezone you are in now.
My question was, is Aperture using the timezone of your mac or asking the iPhone for the timezone? All my cameras, and my iPod, too, are set to UTC, because I like to have a continous timebase without daylight saving discontinuities.
When I took a picture with my iPod right now (8:30 MEZ) - iPod clock and Aperture import set to camera time and actual time both UTC, this image showed up in the PhotoStream and the import panel  as 7:30 MEZ. The import was tagged correctly, however, after I downloaded the image files to disk (I usually geotag in jetphoto before importing to Aperture) and imported from a Finder folder. Then the timezone settings were respected by Aperture.
As a workaround, we will probably have to fool Aperture, to make it forget that the images originate from a mobile device.
Regards
Léonie