I had some false positives before, but this time it’s certain. With iTunes 9.1 Apple has finally fixed the most irritating bug since the iPhone launch. In a nut:

• - If you sync a directory of photos (as opposed to syncing an iPhoto or Aperture library) to an iPhone, iTunes will strip out the EXIF data on those photos before they reach the device.
• - So photos taken with the iPhone’s own camera, on the device in the “Camera Roll” album have the proper EXIF data.
• - Photos imported to your computer (through Image Capture, iPhoto, or Aperture) have the correct EXIF data.
• - Those same photos synced back to the device will lose that data
• - Which wouldn’t be a huge issue, except that the iPhone camera is actually horizontal, and it’s only an EXIF rotation tag that makes vertically oriented photos appear vertical.

Net result is that photos taken on the device, synced back to the device, display incorrectly. I use the Camera Roll only as a temporary album until I can sync again. Having photos there just means I haven’t synced since I’ve taken those. I also have an “Imported” album that they get dropped in when I import, and then that album is synced back to the iPhone. “Imported” acts as a central dropbox for stuff that hasn’t been dealt with yet, much like a “Desktop” folder.

I’m very happy to see this bug fixed. Ironically though, I switched to Aperture a few weeks ago.