AppleInsider Staff
Apple added a few new features to Photos beta in a recent update to its iCloud.com hub, bringing manual image zoom controls and email sharing capabilities to the iOS-connected Web app.
With the latest Photos beta for iCloud.com, users will see a new slider element for controlling image zoom levels appear in the top left-hand corner of their browser window. The same zooming functions can be performed by pressing the Option key and scrolling up or down on a trackpad or Magic Mouse.
In addition, Photos beta now allows sharing through email, a feature previously restricted to iOS and Mac devices. When viewing single images, the option appears as an envelope icon in the upper right-hand corner, next to the favorite, download and trash buttons. Multiple pictures can be shared through the Select Photos feature while in Moments or Album views.
Clicking the email sharing icon opens a new iCloud Mail browser window with the selected photo or photos already attached. The usual attachment size information is also displayed, noting how much overhead is left of iCloud's 20MB sending limit.
The new image zoom and email sharing options come as part of Apple's continual effort to build out a more comprehensive Photos platform. For example, a feature that lets users upload pictures directly to their iCloud account from a Web browser debuted in November.
iCloud Photos and its iCloud Photo Library counterpart on iOS 8 still carry beta designations. The iCloud.com version is limited to JPEG image uploads and does not yet support other formats or video, though those functions may become available when Apple launches the upcoming Photos app for OS X Yosemite.
Promised some time in early 2015, "Photos for OS X" will supposedly merge the best features of Apple's iPhoto and Aperture apps. The company halted further development of its consumer and professional image editing programs last summer, noting the upcoming Photos app will bake in unique features from both including image search, editing, effects, and plugins.
Andrew O'Hara
Malcolm Owen
Wesley Hilliard
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
20 Comments
It is utterly lamentable how appalling the state of photo saving / sharing is. How did they launch iOS 8 with this not all properly sorted and a Mac App for heaven's sake? I know i know it's due but his isn't hard. Flickr , google and even Microsoft have been churning this stuff for years - smarter web apps, more generous storage (basically unlimited). Hell even Amazon seems tk be racing ahead with photos. And to just take the piss they're still happy to promote the option to buy an EOL aperture when you buy one of their macs!
Wake me when iCloud Pages.beta gets Table of Contents for in-document and out of document link supports, back citations options and more.
While you're discussing other software in this thread, could you perhaps tell more about your hobby's and favorite food as well? [quote]Wake me when iCloud Pages.beta gets Table of Contents for in-document and out of document link supports, back citations options and more.[/quote]
I hope the new app fixes the utter fail that is slow-motion video. tired of having them revert after resyncing back to the phone through iTunes.
[quote name="dacloo" url="/t/184516/apples-photos-beta-for-icloud-com-gets-new-image-viewing-and-sharing-options#post_2666791"]While you're discussing other software in this thread, could you perhaps tell more about your hobby's and favorite food as well? [/quote] iCloud services include iCloud Pages. You have a hard time connecting the dots. This site has been obsessed with iCloud Photo web service in an almost obsessive manner, as if another Narcissus service is something valuable. Meanwhile, my former colleagues at Apple Engineering have been sitting on their collective asses and not getting Pages, Keynote, Numbers and more with more parity to their client full apps; simple features that should have been part of the Inspector since it was first released in a continuous Google'esque Beta mode continue to make them embarrassingly useless. For a company that has the engineering staff (I know having been part of it) available to get these basic publishing features included [had these features being served in the '90s in-house at NeXT via WebObjects/EOF 2.x and Openstep] it is truly embarrassing that the enterprise group [assuming it still exists at Apple after I left] could manage to push this and other `simple' text features on the server arrays be added to the JSON objects.