Buried among all of this morning’s MacBook news was word that Apple will be pulling the plug on its Photo Print Products services. That tidbit was first noted by the folks at 9to5Mac, courtesy of an app pop-up noting that the service will sunset at the end of September.
The service has been around for a while, dating back to 2002, in those dark days when Photos was still iPhoto. The project was designed to give users a more permanent/tactile take on all of the shots they captured on their iPhones. It was a pretty charming artifact from the company that included a number of different print out formats, like photo books and calendar.
Apple has no doubt seen the writing on the wall for a while now. Thanks in large part to the iPhone and photography apps, the photo book just doesn’t carry the cache it once did. It’s honestly a bit surprisingly the whole thing stuck around for as long as it did — though granted, it probably required little in the way of heavy-lifting from the company to keep it around.
If you’re feeling a sudden tinge of nostalgia while reading this, you can still get your hands on one. The company will keep printing out orders placed before September 30. After that, you’ll have to go third-party. The company paved the way for that possibility with last year’s High Sierra release.
Less surprising is the end of the 2015 MacBook Pro, the last high-end Apple device to support full USB ports an SD slot and pre-butterfly keyboard. That also disappeared from Apple’s site today, making room for new models.
Mimeo Photos just announced that they have been partnered with Apple print our photo projects for years. In fact, with their new app extension available on Mac, they offer identical design themes, products, and templates while still upholding the same quality standards we’ve come to love from Apple. https://www.macrumors.com/2018/08/02/mimeo-photos-apple-photo-books/