Apple activates iCloud Photos image uploads for iCloud.com beta users

Posted:
in iCloud edited November 2014
As part of Apple's continued effort to roll out next-generation cloud services, the company on Thursday updated the iCloud.com beta website with support for browser-based image uploads to iCloud Photos.




As seen in the screenshot above, a new "Upload" option appears next to "Select Photos," allowing beta users to add images to their iCloud Photo cache for browsing on iOS and Mac devices.

In practice, clicking on the Upload button brings up a Finder window, from which users can select single images or batches to send to iCloud. Once uploaded, the photos are pushed down to iPhones, iPads and Macs signed in to an associated iCloud account, or made available to users granted access via iCloud Photo Sharing.

The new upload feature comes a little over two weeks after the first beta version of iCloud Photos was released for public testing. In order to upload photos, however, users must be registered with the iCloud.com beta program (beta.icloud.com), which contains a separate version of the iCloud Photos beta Web app.

iCloud Photos, known as iCloud Photo Library on iOS 8, lets users automatically upload photos and video from their Camera Roll for storage and cross-device syncing and download. The feature is similar to Photo Stream in iOS 7, but with support for full-resolution content and edit syncing.

Currently, video files are not enabled with the Web interface as it is on iOS, though that may change when the feature makes its way to the consumer iCloud.com website.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 13
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,382member
    Awesome. Can't wait until this is rolled out fully with the Mac app. Finally will move all my photos to that system.
  • Reply 2 of 13
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    It linked into my currently open Aperture Library and is chugging away uploading 3,500 images from Vancouver and Alaska at the moment. I popped into the help screen and read the following, see below. So I will only get the first 1000 before it stops and waits an hour. I have to think Amazon's Cloud Drive Photos with no limits, is going to make Apple rethink this strategy.


    From Apple Help:
    My Photo Stream upload limits
    The My Photo Stream limits below are based on anticipated upload patterns. These are the My Photo Stream upload limits:

    Uploads to My Photo Stream per hour: 1000 photos
    Uploads to My Photo Stream per day: 10,000 photos
    Uploads to My Photo Stream per month: 25,000 photos
    If you exceed one of these limits, your uploads to My Photo Stream will pause temporarily, and you might see a notification on your device. Your uploads will resume automatically when you no longer exceed the limit, such as in the following hour or on the following day.

    iCloud Photo Sharing limits
    These are the iCloud Photo Sharing hourly and daily limits:

    Maximum combined number of photos and videos from all contributors per shared album, per hour: 1000
    Maximum combined number of photos and videos from all contributors per shared album, per day: 10,000
    These sharing limits are separate from the upload limits above. For example, in the same day you could upload 10,000 photos to My Photo Stream, then share those 10,000 photos or 10,000 other photos.

    Some additional limits for shared albums:

    Maximum shared albums an owner can share: 100
    Maximum shared albums a user can subscribe to: 100
    Maximum subscribers per shared album: 100 (the number of subscribers on each shared album)
    Maximum combined number of photos and videos from all contributors in any one shared album: 5000
    Maximum number of comments per photo or video in a shared album: 200 (a comment can be either a like or a text entry)
    Maximum characters per comment: 200
    Maximum number of invites a shared album owner may send per day: 200
  • Reply 3 of 13

    Yay! My off-site backup is almost ready!

     

    Movies I lose, I can re-buy. Comics that get erased from the system, I can re-download. Music that goes will come again via iTunes Match. For me, photos were the only endangered files. If I lose them, they are gone. I keep them on 2 different machines + a Time Machine backup on a drive. With iCloud Photos I will have off-site backup as well. I'm just waiting for it to get polished before I go all out.

  • Reply 4 of 13

    @digitalclips thank you so much for the information.

     

    I think those numbers make sense. After all, it is only the initial upload of existing photos that will take time and be huge. After that, 1000 photos per day in Family Sharing, 100 shared albums, etc., sound pretty decent.

     

    No doubt the numbers will go up once all the kinks are worked out.

     

    I am already paying for 500GB iCloud storage in anticipation of storing photos on iCloud.

  • Reply 5 of 13
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    I am already paying for 500GB iCloud storage in anticipation of storing photos on iCloud.

    Does this take up 500GB of space on your bootdrive as well, or is it only taking up the space you use with iCD? From the iDisk days I remember it was a sparse disk image, only taking up so much space as needed and growing in size when uploading more data to iDisk.

    TIA
  • Reply 6 of 13
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    philboogie wrote: »
    Does this take up 500GB of space on your bootdrive as well, or is it only taking up the space you use with iCD? From the iDisk days I remember it was a sparse disk image, only taking up so much space as needed and growing in size when uploading more data to iDisk.

    TIA

    I may be wrong but it seems not if the images are being uploaded from Apple's own Photo apps, in my case Aperture. I'm testing with a smallish 3000+ image Aperture Library located on my MBP's secondary 1TB internal, not a large one but enough to see any impact on my Boot SDD. So far I am not seeing any space loss but I'll get back to you. That data loss was very evident if using iCloud Drive for normal data manually uploaded.

    By the way it handles the panos nicely. It is also converting RAW to jpeg unlike Amazon's offering which in it's beta is actually uploading the RAW thus being a real backup. The snag being it is painfully slow to show RAW images as it reconverts a preview on the fly every time you view the same image. If Amazon stored the RAW and added a preview it would be nice.

    It is nice to see Aperture being supported for now.

    1000
  • Reply 7 of 13
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    <a data-huddler-embed="href" href="/u/27437/digitalclips" style="display:inline-block;">@digitalclips</a>
     thank you so much for the information.

    I think those numbers make sense. After all, it is only the initial upload of existing photos that will take time and be huge. After that, 1000 photos per day in Family Sharing, 100 shared albums, etc., sound pretty decent.

    No doubt the numbers will go up once all the kinks are worked out.

    I am already paying for 500GB iCloud storage in anticipation of storing photos on iCloud.

    The numbers are fine I am sure for the average home user. Some of us were hoping for higher end type support. I too have 500 GB but will drop it now and use something else for my main photo usage and use Apple's for the iPhone type stuff. Amazon's Prime system, although beta seems to have a great deal of promise for more professional use given it stores RAW if they can iron out the kinks.

    So far I cannot find any way with Apple's system to see information easily about an image which is built in to Amazon's. But both are beta so hopefully if it isn't there (I may well have missed it) it soon will be.

    Here is Amazon's collapsable side data panel showing some, if limited, information. Nothing close to Flickr's full exif data panel of course.

    I call this pic 'dancing on water' :)

    1000
  • Reply 8 of 13
    chris_cachris_ca Posts: 2,543member
    It linked into my currently open Aperture Library and is chugging away uploading 3,500 images from Vancouver and Alaska at the moment. I popped into the help screen and read the following, see below. So I will only get the first 1000 before it stops and waits an hour. I have to think Amazon's Cloud Drive Photos with no limits, is going to make Apple rethink this strategy.


    From Apple Help:
    My Photo Stream upload limits
    ...
    Note that all this was based on My Photo Stream and Shared Photo Streams, which was free and not counted against your iCloud space.

    Apple has not stated these limits are for iCloud Drive, which gives you 5GB free and anything over that costs $$,
  • Reply 9 of 13
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    chris_ca wrote: »
    Note that all this was based on My Photo Stream and Shared Photo Streams, which was free and not counted against your iCloud space.

    Apple has not stated these limits are for iCloud Drive, which gives you 5GB free and anything over that costs $$,

    Right which is why I posted the actual photo number count limitations rather than storage capacity.

    I am guessing the new Photo Drive doesn't impact storage space on iCloud Drive rather using file counts and timing to regulate usage. iCloud Drive is another animal although obviously related, Photo is one element in the iCloud, iCloud Drive another (see pic at bottom), Photo isn't in iCloud Drive.

    I posted several, in detail tests of the storage space a few days back and there are distinct differences in iCloud Drive and Photo's way of working thus far. It is also worth noting, unlike some systems I have tested, Photo does not remove images if their source is off line.

    I was able to upload directly from an Aperture Library located on my MBP's secondary internal drive, not the boot, and it didn't add any data to the boot drive. However, using iCloud Drive and zipping the same Aperture Library and uploading to the iCloud Drive from the same secondary drive created a an additional file of the same size on the boot drive, where it is pretty clear syncing takes place from. Thus making using this method of back up from my Mac Pro useless since they have such small SSDs at boot drives. My external RAID Thunderbolt drives have numerous 400+ GIG Libraries... :\

    It is all beta so no way of knowing if this is how it will all end up but for now I would not suggest anyone rushes out to buy extra space if it is for their photo streams as I agree with you that will more than likely be free, albeit limited by the numbers I posted earlier.

    Pic showing iCloud Drive and Photos are two separate user selectable options ...

    1000
  • Reply 10 of 13
    chris_cachris_ca Posts: 2,543member

    Quote:

    I am guessing the new Photo Drive doesn't impact storage space on iCloud Drive rather using file counts and timing to regulate usage.


    It most definitely will impact storage and cost money for anything more than the free 5GB.





    "Does iCloud Photo Library use my iCloud storage?

    Yes. iCloud Photo Library does count against your iCloud storage."

    and

    "How many photos and videos can I store in iCloud Photo Library?

    The number of photos and videos you can store depends on how much iCloud storage you have. When you sign up for iCloud, you automatically get 5 GB of free storage, and several iCloud storage plans are available from 20 GB to 1 TB."

    Quote:

    It is all beta so no way of knowing if this is how it will all end up but for now I would not suggest anyone rushes out to buy extra space if it is for their photo streams as I agree with you that will more than likely be free, albeit limited by the numbers I posted earlier



    It was free. It will not be free in the future.

    My point was that info was applicable to pre Yosemite/iOS 8/Photos app and the new iCloud stuff.

    Most likely with the new iCloud, anything you use in iCloud counts against your iCloud storage.

    My Photo stream & Shared Photo Streams previously did not count but were limited per the info you posted, which has been on the Apple website (not just Help in the app) for a long time. -> http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT4858

  • Reply 11 of 13
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    chris_ca wrote: »
    and
    <h2 style="color:rgb(51,51,51);margin-bottom:12px;margin-top:12px;padding-bottom:0px;">"How many photos and videos can I store in iCloud Photo Library?</h2>

    <p style="color:rgb(51,51,51);margin-bottom:18px;">The number of photos and videos you can store depends on how much iCloud storage you have. When you sign up for iCloud, you automatically get 5 GB of free storage, and several iCloud storage plans are available from 20 GB to 1 TB."</p>

    <p style="color:rgb(51,51,51);margin-bottom:18px;">It was free. It will not be free in the future.</p>

    <p style="color:rgb(51,51,51);margin-bottom:18px;">My point was that info was applicable to pre Yosemite/iOS 8/Photos app and the new iCloud stuff.</p>

    <p style="color:rgb(51,51,51);margin-bottom:18px;">Most likely with the new iCloud, anything you use in iCloud counts against your iCloud storage.</p>

    <p style="color:rgb(51,51,51);margin-bottom:18px;">My Photo stream & Shared Photo Streams previously did not count but were limited per the info you posted, which has been on the Apple website (not just Help in the app) for a long time. -> http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT4858</p>

    OK my bad on the costs / storage. I have been more focussed on the functionality to be honest. I have 500 GIGs for now but after the limitations of the way iCloud Drive uses the boot drive I've dropped it. My experimental Photo hosting will no doubt get curtailed quite soon when that drops back to the 25 Gigs (I think) I have next month.

    If all you say is true on costs and I don't doubt you, Apple will find competition quite strong.
  • Reply 12 of 13
    chris_cachris_ca Posts: 2,543member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post



    If all you say is true on costs and I don't doubt you, Apple will find competition quite strong.

    Or the other cloud hosts will jump on Apple’s model and lower storage/raise prices.

  • Reply 13 of 13
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    chris_ca wrote: »
    Or the other cloud hosts will jump on Apple’s model and lower storage/raise prices.


    Some maybe but, come on, Amazon doesn't want to make any profit, you know that! ;)
Sign In or Register to comment.