Design flaw in MAC OS X "smart folders" system resulting date lose

Question

Hello there !
I would like your opinion on that issue.
This is how I discovered it : many, too many friends who switched to Mac reported me loss of iPhoto pictures with a question mark instead of the picture and "corrupted" iPhoto library. Is been more than 2 years and 15 persons in my entourage who reported that to me. This is big, too big in my opinion to not take in account those behaviors. I always thought they used iPhoto in a (very) bad way and I was wrong. They never recovered their picture.
After observing by chance how they manage their pictures, I observed, in my opinion, a big design flow in Mac OS X "smart folder" system that can too easily lead to (logically) data corruption in iPhoto.
As you know, Mac OS X comes with pre-made "Auto search" "smart folders" that are available in the lateral bar of every finder window such as "all images", "all movies".
What my friend do is use this automatic "all images" smart folder to browse recent imported pictures in iPhoto and send them by e-mail and move them around their disc, and/or share them. I fact I never had the idea of doing that with those folder, and this is very quick and handy !
Where the huge issue lies is that this auto "All images" smart folder searches INSIDE the iPhoto library package ! Therefore, if you move a file from the smart folder "all images" result to another place in your hard drive, you actually remove it FROM THE IPHOTO library package folder and iPhoto naturally lose track of the picture resulting in data loss.
I posted you a screenshot to illustrate that :
http://gallery.me.com/jbroussel#100105
I really wonder how the Apple Team can factory "lock" the iPhoto library content by making the folder a "package", BUT, at the SAME TIME, allow the predefine "all images" "Smart folder" browse in this entire very folder as if its content was available to the user. It is not a "Smart Folder" at all.
In a user point of view this is a huge FLAW. No wonder the user have no clue that he (or she) is doing something wrong by doing so. I especially noticed those error from users switching from Windows machine.
In my opinion this the most illogical design I saw in a long time !
What do you think about it ? Am I to exigent ? Too logical ?
Message was edited by: Didsayan

Answer 1

Thank you all for your interesting feedback, really.
When I say 15 people, it is the truth because I love to help my entourage with Mac (since I often recommended them the Mac in the first place), and this is on a 2 years timeframe, so it is not that bad, but I is enough to me to consider their behaviors, especially since I would not have done it myself (I am a Mac-only user).
Most of them had a backup (thanks Time Machine), but unfortunately, when they do noticed the problem it was too late and Time Machine already erased the backup that had the original pictures in it, so they could not retrieve their pictures.
Of course, as you said, some of the pictures were not "lost", just removed in another location, but this led to iPhoto database corruption and this is a lot of trouble. Trying to find the original location of 100+ pictures in iPhoto database is a pretty hard job since the structure is complex and this is very time consuming, I gave up the idea of fixing those folder.
I totally agree on the fact that I is too easy to blame the system for user wrong manipulation.
In that very case, the standard features of the system are to me far too ambiguous :
- iPhoto library folder content is hidden to the user (UNLIKE iTunes library folder)
- but the standard "smart folder" "all image" search within this very "hidden content"
All that without letting the user know if he does not pay attention to the path.
Look at the screenshot I made and you will see the path is so long that it is hard to keep track were the file actually is.
I talked to user who made the mistake, and their belief, this "all image" folder is "like browsing in iPhoto" or like any "media inspector" window like in iMovie or Keynote. Which in fact, is not at all.
I suggested this discussion because in my opinion, this "all images" "smart folder" is too prone to incident, especially with unexperienced user. Thank you for the feedback.
As suggested by etresoft, I will let Apple know.